Gluten-free Spritz cookies

Spritz cookies.  That sounds easy enough.  I've been wanting to try them for quite a while now because I've had the press for several years actually and just never got around to giving it a try.  The recipe is very easy, yes, but the contraption that is supposed to push the dough out was ridiculous!  I think it was a cheap model so I'll cut it some slack but it did not want to push the dough.  It would only go about half way and then it was done.  It also wouldn't cut off the dough so I had to pull it off after each press.

It was a little frustrating of an experience but, I'll try it again some time and give it another chance.  Maybe the press was just having a bad day, we don't know what's happening in another's life when they choose to be a complete poop to you sometimes and I always try to give at least a second chance :)

The recipe that I used for these came from the book "Gluten-Free Christmas Cookies" by Ellen Brown

1 c. white rice flour

1 c. confectioners' sugar

1/2 c. sweet rice flour

1/2 c. potato starch

1/2 c. almond meal

1 tsp. xanthan gum

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 pound butter (2 sticks), sliced

1 lg egg

1 lg egg white

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp almond extract

Gluten free sprinkles

Combine white rice flour, confectioners' sugar, sweet rice flour, potato starch, almond meal, xanthan gum and salt in a food processor (I used my blender - but it was a little messy and I think I'll skip this step next time and just go straight to the stand mixer) blend for 5 seconds.  Add butter to the flour mixture in the bowl and pulse until mixture looks like coarse meal.

Combine egg, egg white, vanilla and almond extract in a small cup and whisk well.  Drizzle into work bowl and pulse 10 times or so until the dough comes together (or using the paddle attachment of the mixer, stir on low for @30 seconds) if the dough is dry and doesn't come together add milk by 1 tsp amounts until dough forms a ball.  I had to do this and used almond milk.

Divide dough into 2 balls, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour or up to 2 days.  When ready to use take it out and let it get to room temperature before adding it to the press.  Run it through the press according to your press' instructions, decorate with sprinkles or other toppings and bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.  Or until the edges are just brown.  

I found this recipe to be a little less flavorful than I was hoping, just a little bland for me.  I think that next time I try my press I might use a full sugar cookie recipe and see how that goes.

Glorious Gluten Free Fudge

Fudge is one of the staples of the holidays, but I don't know why it needs to be pushed to such a small portion of the year!  It is one of my favorite treats - just enough for those afternoon chocolate cravings.  Yum! 

This recipe is a tried and true one for me and I've been making it for years; it is Foolproof chocolate fudge from the Hershey's Chocolate Lover's cookbook.  I was a little sad when I started preparing for the holiday baking season and thought I might not be able to make it because of the gluten-free standard I now live by.  But I was so excited to realize that it was already gluten free as long as I bought the right brands as ingredients.  

                                            

I spent quite a bit of time trying to research each brand and came to the conclusion that most likely all sweetened condensed milk brands are naturally gluten free, but the only one that actually stated it was Eagle brand.  It can be frustrating when something is naturally gluten free because it's not always easy to tell when shopping.  However, now there seems to be more and more products that are being re-labeled as gluten-free and sold as a specialty product.  Sometimes sitting right there on the same shelf, side by side and even though they are exactly the same product the one with the new label is significantly higher priced.  It pays to do your homework, but it is a time-consuming venture to be sure.

But, back to the fudge itself.  I love the texture of this recipe because it is smooth and creamy with a dense melt-in-your mouth richness.  It is sturdy and can hold up to sitting out all day without drying out or melting yet, as soon as you take a bite you are feeling velvety goodness immediately.  

Recap of 2013

Happy 2014!!  I thought I would do a photo recap of some of my favorite baking/decorating adventures from the last year.  I went on a lot of road trips in 2013 as well and I thought I would try to count the states I visited and maybe put up a picture for each one.  Just a fun way to decide how many pictures to include, except that I was in 32 states!  I have been to 46 of our 50 states so far and plan on completing Alaska, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana in the next couple of years but this year checked off a lot!  I went through some of them before and just "re-visited" but it was still a lot!

I think I'll just hit the highlights in cake :)

Have a sweet and blessed 2014!

Gluten Free All Purpose Flour mix

When you start going down the gluten-free road you quickly realize that baking can be very expensive if you only buy pre-made all purpose flours.  Then you can easily become overwhelmed trying to figure out how to use all the different kinds of individual flours or how to blend them yourself.  I have gone through website after website and too many cookbooks to count (along with hours in the aisle at Barnes  and Noble!).  After all of that I've tried several different blends and have come up with what I like to use best.  It is a variation of the blend made by Silvana Nardone in her book Cooking for Isaiah.  But I have found that by adding the xanthan gum into the mix a head of time there is less consistency in the finished product.  Even if you shake up the flour every time before you measure it out, you are not in the position to know what ratio of xanthan gum you have put into each cup of flour.  Because of that you can not possible keep every batch consistent.  So although I use the flours in the blend she came up with, I leave out the xanthan gum and add it to each recipe separately.  By doing that I have nearly eliminated all inconsistency issues.  It is such a relief to know that I can expect certain results instead of being so anxious each time I open the oven to find out if everything "worked out" ok.

Since I have a little OCD it seems that I do things the harder way sometimes.  But it also makes sure that everything gets really blended that way too.  First I add all the flours into one big bowl and then scoop it into a gallon zip top bag in two batches.  That way I can shake it all together and make sure that it all gets evenly mixed.  After each bag has been thoroughly shaken it is put into my permanent container.  Each time I use it I shake it up again just to be sure also.

After all of that you might be wondering how to figure out how much xanthan gum to add.  That's a great question because it took me forever to get that answer.  After all the research and more math than I've done in quite a while I came up with a number that works for me - most of the time.  I use .6 tsp for each cup.  If you don't weigh your ingredients then it would be a slightly rounded half tsp.  By weight it is somewhere between 2-3 grams.  The scale I use only breaks down grams in whole numbers so I'd have to get a better scale in order to be exact.  The only problem is that like I said, this works for me most of the time.  It is a good all purpose number to start with but there is an art to it.  If you have a drier recipe it might take a bit more and if you have a looser, more "liquidy" recipe it might take less.  And therein lies the reason there are so many recipes, brands, books, etc that offer their own flour blends!  I recently came across a blend that utilizes sweet rice flour as a component and since I'm doing some Christmas baking I thought I'd give it a try.  But for the majority of my everyday baking, this blend is a great mix to have on hand:

gluten free Pie Crust

It really makes me happy when I become "known" for some kind of baking product.  I mean when my extended family looks forward to a certain pastry that I make because mine tastes better than they can find in any store or commercial bakery.  One of those items is my pie, primarily because of my crust.  Pie crust is a finicky bugger - it needs to be flaky and light but dense enough to hold together.  For me, it needs to create a solid bottom that soaks up some of the juices from whatever filling has been put into it.  I have an old family recipe that has been a tried and true friend to me, but it is very high gluten being made up of mostly regular all purpose flour.  I looked up several recipes online but decided to see what happened if I just used my gluten free flour mix instead.  Then I went a little crazy and thought about the "fat" too.  So I tried three different varieties: 1) using regular Crisco shortening 2) using coconut oil and 3) using half butter/half coconut oil.

left to right: butter, coconut, shortening

Mixing all three pretty much went the same except the coconut oil variety needed to be kneaded a lot more than the others.  The half/half mixture was also a bit crumbly and had to be worked more.  With gluten filled flours it is best to let the crust rest for an hour or so in the fridge and I don't think that's really the case for these ones, but I did it anyway just in case.  Although I don't know if I'd do it again because it really took a long time to bring the coconut oil back to room temperature so that I could manipulate it.

Shortening

coconut oil

half coconut oil/half butter

That's actually the first problem with gluten free pie crust - it doesn't hold together nearly as well as the regular stuff and you have to handle it with tender fingers and add the right amount of xanthan gum too.  At least once you want to shape it, but before

Peanut Butter Oatmeal cookies converted to Gluten Free

Well by golly I've done it!  Ok, that statement might prove that I've overdone myself watching all the seasons of Downton Abbey while I've been unpacking boxes lately.  But, none the less, I really have done it!  I wanted to bake something, anything really and after looking in my recipe box I decided that I wanted some peanut butter oatmeal cookies.  However, because it's been so long since I've made any kind of cookie at all, I threw in some chocolate chips too in order to make Craig happy too.

I have a recipe that I've used many times in the past and I knew it was a good one, but I wanted to make it gluten free.

Carved Basketball Birthday cake

 It has been so long since I've been able to bake anything, that I didn't even realize I hadn't posted all of the cakes I did this summer!  It has been a very full year in our home - a lot of travel, I mean a lot - as well as getting our oldest graduated from college and started out on her own with her first job and apartment, getting our youngest off to her sophomore year of college at her dream school which is 2500 miles from home, my husband getting a promotion, selling our house and moving across the state.  I think that about covers it :) I love to keep all of my baking adventures here and not muddle it up too much with other stuff so I decided to start a sister blog called Glitter and Green Beans that goes into all of those adventures here if you want to check it out.  I will have a lot to say about nutrition over there, as well as home improvement projects, family life, my pets, and pretty much anything else that happens to pop up in life.  

But here, it's about my cakes and this one I made for our youngest cousin as she hit her teen years.  She is a superstar on the basketball court and so fun to watch.  She is also just hitting her girly stride