Amazing Wheat Free Bread!

Along with the brownies this was one of my first GF baking successes! I never thought I'd put amazing and wheat free together in the same sentence, but there ya go!

I found a recipe online for focaccia style flax bread and have altered it to suit me better. It's got 2 thumbs up all around including a professional chef!

Here's the recipe:

1 1/4 C. Brown Rice Flour OR Oat Flour

1 C. Ground Flax OR Teff flour OR Oat Flour

1 Tbsp. Baking Powder

1 Tsp. Salt

2 Tbsp. Sugar (xylitol instead of sugar)

5 Eggs

1 C. Water

1/4 C. Olive Oil

Mix all ingredients together and let sit for 10 or so minutes. Letting it set gives the baking powder time to activate making the bread fluff up more during baking.

Spread batter on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

I made awesome stuffing out of this for Thanksgiving too! Just add a generous dash or two of garlic powder and a few sprinkles of poultry seasoning, maybe some extra salt. Bake normally, then cut into cubes, spread on 2 baking sheets and bake some more around 250 degrees for a couple hours (?) I wasn't timing it, just poking it every now and then to see if it was crusty yet or not. Then follow your normal stuffing recipe, watch out for too much liquid/stirring. It tends to mush and disintegrate, but still tastes great!
Croutons are another option! As well as GF bread crumbs.

Let cool and cut into squares. Store in air tight container in the fridge. Mine got moldy after less than a week, I think, when I left it in a zippy on the counter so now I always keep it in the fridge where it lasts over a week if I don't eat it, but that's rarely the case.

I live at a mile high so those of you living at lower elevations may have different or even better results with the fluff factor in your bread.

Another version
Add roast zucchini (cube zuchs, oil and salt, place on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 400 til golden, about 15 minutes, but keep an eye peeled!) and roasted garlic to your batter and bake in an 8" cast iron skillet for a loafier looking bread.

 This one is the same dough, but roll style

Easy GF Gingersnap Muffins

I got the basic recipe off the back of the Arrowhead Mills oat bran box, and then I tweaked it, which you can do too to create different flavors.

Here's the recipe:
2 1/2 C oat bran-make sure it's certified gluten free
1/4 C dried fruit (optional-I opted out)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 Tsp sea salt
3 egg whites-beaten
1 C water
1/2 C molasses (or agave syrup or jam or honey...)
2 Tbsp Xylitol (or sugar)
1/4 Tsp + ginger
1/4 Tsp + cinnamon
1/4 Tsp + nutmeg (or clove)

Mix well, fill well-oiled (or cupcake wrappers) muffin tin 2/3 of the way full.
Heat oven to 475 degrees. Bake 14-16 minutes.
Easily halfable. I've halved it w/the 3 full egg whites still as well as 2. Either way works fine.
I get 8 muffins from a halved recipe.

You could make it a savory recipe too. I'm wondering about a rosemary/garlic batch.
Let me know what variations you come up with!

GF Lemon Bars

Last night's GF experiment was an amazingly delicious success, as they've all been lately ;-)
Here's the link for classic lemon bars. Since nothing has to rise, just subbing rice flour for all the flour in the recipe works great!

 

Try not to drool on your keyboard, ok?

One note on the recipe... The crust baking time only took us here, at a mile high, 13 minutes, not the 30-35 minutes stated in the recipe. 

We also made Orange Bars! Same recipe, just subbed oranges for the lemons and they were delish as well, though the flavor is more subtle. We think next time we might include a smidge of orange extract (maybe 1/4-1/2 a tsp...? or Orange Essential Oil, a few drops will do) to give the flavor a little boost.

Your Favorite Brownies! Gluten Free!!

Discovering this recipe and then adapting it with flours that work for me was a major boon early on in my motivation to learn more GF baking recipes. It's so good, my friends that are not gluten free ask me to make it for them!

ETA: 3/26/11 As of this week I've taken down the brownie recipe as the brownies specifically are available for purchase at the Prescott Public Library-Cafe Libre as well as the Prescott College Crossroads Cafe. If you're not local to Prescott, AZ. please contact me for more information on ordering brownies or mixes. I'm happy to ship :-)  

GF Crepes

Whenever someone says to me, "OH MY GOD I could never eliminate wheat from my diet, what do you eat????" I laugh, and reply, "Anything I want! We've got recipes for just about anything you could possibly want without wheat that are just as good, and sometimes better!"
I can tell you that I was that person, when I first started going gluten free that couldn't figure out what I'd eat, but now after 5 years of being gluten free I have no cravings, misgivings or regrets about being gluten free. It's one of the best things I've ever done for myself, and I encourage everyone I talk to that has food coma, bad pms, and digestive issues, among other things, to consider it and to let me know if they want help trying to make the transition. You don't have to go it alone at the beginning like I did. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. The recipes are here, or at least on my computer, and I'm happy to send them along with ideas and I'm happy to offer support any way I can.

This morning we made gluten free crepes, both savory and sweet. I devoured the savory one before I remembered to take a pic, but here's one for the sweet, which was much prettier, anyway ;-)

And here's the recipe:
1 C rice flour
2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
Mix together and set aside

1 C milk (whatever kind you drink, dairy or non)
1/2 C water
2 tsp butter, melted
2 eggs
mix together in blender, add dry ingredients, blend til smooth

Cover and chill for 1 hour

Heat an 8-inch non stick crepe pan or skillet over medium heat.
Pour a scant 1/4 c of batter in the pan, swirl immediately so batters covers the entire pan with a thin film. Cook about 1 minute. Carefully lift the edge of the crepe with a rubber spatula to test for doneness. The crepe is ready to turn when it can be shaken loose from the pan and the underside is lightly browned. Turn crepe over and cook 30 seconds or until center is set.

This recipe was adapted from, "Cooking Light Way To Cook: The Complete Visual Guide to Everyday Cooking" 2009 Oxmoor House Inc, cookinglight.com
The website has crepe making tips and tricks if you've never made them.

For the filling we did 2. The first was savory:
Saute a yellow onion, add ground turkey breakfast sausage-cook til nearly done, scramble eggs, add some milk of your choice-set aside, add sliced/chopped mushrooms to your onions and sausage-cook til the shrooms are soft, add the egg goo-cook til done. Add the whole steaming mixture to the top of warm crepe-Mmmmmm

The second was sweet.
Melt some dark chocolate and grind or have purchase some ground almonds or other nut of your choice.
Fresh ground almond bits mixed with cream cheese, dolloped on a warm crepe, add fresh raspberries, and drizzle with freshly melted chocolate. Try not to drool on yourself.

Veggie Latkes, AKA Potato Pancakes

These things taste, to me, like a cross between hashbrowns and onion rings! What could be better?!? I thought the texture was going to be all kinds of wrong, but it does actually work...
I eliminated potatoes from my diet for a time so I was happy to discover Hannah Sweet Potatoes at the health food store, which are light in color like golden potatoes, but feel free to use any type of potato or even zucchini!

Un-Potato Pancakes
2 medium Hannah sweet potatoes,
1/2 medium onion
1 egg beaten
2 tbsp rice flour, I'm going to add a smidge more next time
1 tsp salt, not enough in my opinion, but you can always salt them after they're done cooking and adjust the recipe next time.

Skin and chop the sweet potatoes into chunks.
Quarter and peel the onion. Store 1/2 the onion for future use.
Place in a food processor (I used my blender on the ice chopping pulsing function w/good success) until coarsely minced. Grating would also work.
Empty the food processor into a mixing bow, add in the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
Heat oil (I use olive oil) in a skillet, and gently add a heaping teaspoon of the mixture into the skillet, that you've pressed into a thick circle in your hand.
Cook for 3 minutes, each side on medium to medium high.
Enjoy as a snack or side dish for any meal.
This recipe yields about 12-15 pancakes.
My bad, I forgot to take pics. Now I'll have to make another batch, gee darn... ;-)

GF Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips, Of Course!

3 ½ C Rice flour

2 ½ tsp baking powder

1 ½  tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/3 C sugar

½ C + 2 tbsp butter

4 eggs

¼ C milk or milk sub

2 C mashed ripe banana (2 or 3 nanners depending on size, the browner the better I say, but that all depends on how much banana flavor you wish to have come through.)

1 C dark choc chips (I like 60% Ghirardelli)

Beat all ingreds together, pour into a parchment lined, greased loaf pan.

Bake at 325 for 60 min or until toothpick comes out clean.