GF-Zing! logo

Cookies

Gourmet Gluten Free Brownies

0 · · Leave a Comment

Gourmet Gluten Free Brownies from gfzing dot com

A gourmet gluten free brownie that is just like the best wheat brownie you ever had.

Use the absolute best quality gluten free chocolate you can obtain.  It is worth doing the website and company research to find the richest, darkest gluten free chocolate that is available.

For the brownies:

Melt the following in a small pot, then set aside to cool briefly:

  • 1 1/2 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter
  • 7 ounces bittersweet gluten free chocolate
  • 3 ounces gluten free unsweetened chocolate

Place the following in a large bowl:

  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla or 1/2 teaspoon of Authentic Foods gluten free powdered vanilla
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 4 eggs

Beat the sugar/egg mixture with a spoon, then stir in the melted chocolate/butter mixture.

In a small bowl, combine

  • 1 cup Authentic Foods GF traditional flour blend
  • 1/2 teaspoon xantham gum

Mix the GF flour mixture in to the chocolate batter.  Stir just to combine well.

Stir in:

  • 1 cup walnut pieces, sized according to your preference.

Line a 9 x 13″ pan with parchment paper leaving quite a bit up paper going up the sides (so that you can grab the paper later and pull the whole brownie unit out of the pan.  Pour and spread the batter in to the paper-lined pan and ease the batter out to the edges and corners of the pan.  Bake at 350 F degrees for 30 minutes.  Remove from the oven and cool completely before frosting.     Don’t remove the brownies from the pan yet – frost first!

Frosting:

Melt in a microwavable glass dish:

  • 6 ounces unsalted butter
  • 4 Tablespoons milk (can be non-fat milk if you want)

Add:

  • 4 Tablespoons (1/4 Cup) best quality gluten free cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 2/3 cups gluten free confectioner’s sugar

Stir together with a kitchen spoon until completely smooth.  Because the butter is melted, the frosting can still be a bit loose or runny when you spread it, because the frosting will stiffen up later, as the butter cools and hardens. Spread the frosting on the brownies, then transfer the pan to the refrigerator to chill until firm.

To remove brownies from pan, just grab the edges of the parchment paper and lift. Transfer the paper of brownies to a cutting board and proceed to cut them.

Cut the brownies with a sharp knife.  To make clean cuts, occasionally run the knife blade under hot water then wipe dry with a clean towel.  Using a heated, clean knife will ensure a clean cut with no crumbs.

Make sure to use all gluten-free ingredients.  If you are using a wheatavore kitchen, ensure that the sugar container is not contaminated with flour by wheatavore cooking adventures.

Gluten Free Lace Cookies

0 · · Leave a Comment

Lace cookies are quick to make, and require few ingredients.  It is just as easy to make them gluten free if you substitute cornstarch for the wheat flour in the recipe.

In a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup, put the following ingredients – then microwave on the setting you would use for 1 cup of coffee, until the butter melts and the mixture bubbles.

  • 2 Tablespoons butter
  • 1 1/2 Tablespoons corn syrup
  • 2 Tablespoons dark brown sugar

Remove from the microwave, then stir in

  • 2 Tablespoons cornstarch

gluten free lace cookie dough

Deposit the batter in teaspoon-sized circles on parchment paper lined baking sheet.  Be sure to leave 3 inches between each cookie, and make only about 6 cookies at a time if you plan to roll them in cylinder or cone shapes because you will have to work quickly.

lace cookie size

Bake the cookies 6 minutes, until spread out, brown and bubbly.  Watch them carefully to make sure they don’t burn.

Remove the sheet from the oven.  If you are going to make cylinders or cone shapes, allow them to cool about 15 seconds and then start working with them.  Otherwise, wait about a minute and the parchment paper will be easy to peel right off the cookies!  As you can see from the picture, these cookies spread quite a lot.  I have included a quarter in the photos so you can compare the size, uncooked and cooked.

lace cookie - cooked

and these cookies are delicate like glass. Here are about 7 of them stacked on a Heath Ceramics coffee cup – (cup color is Moonstone.)

lace cookies stacked on Heathware cup

Valentine Cookies – raspberry

0 · · Leave a Comment

Make a recipe of gluten free sugar cookies, and roll and cut 1/4″ thick into valentine heart shapes. Cut a center out of half the cookies (these will be the tops of the sandwich cookies). Bake as directed.

Dust the top cookies (the ones with the center cut-out) with gluten free confectioner’s sugar.

Spread the bottom cookies with raspberry jam (we prefer seedless), and top each with a cookie that has a center cutout – this will allow the jam to show through.

A pretty, gluten free cookie for Valentine’s Day!

Double Chocolate Cherry Cookies – gluten free

0 · · Leave a Comment

This recipe was developed by Gf-Zing! , which celebrates flavor in the gluten free world.

1 cup gluten free butter or vegan margarine
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

1 3/4 cups gluten free cookie flour
1/3 cup gluten free unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon gluten free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups gluten free semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cups chopped dried cherries (Rainier cherries are good)

Oven at 350 degrees.

Cream the butter 0r margarine (or one stick of each) with the two sugars and the vanilla until light and “fluffy.” Beat in the egg. Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and add them to the creamed mixture. Mix thoroughly. Up to this point in the recipe you can use a food processor to do the mixing.

Stir in the chocolate chips and the cherries.

Drop tablespoons of dough on a silpat lined cookie sheet. Flatten them slightly with your hand or with the bottom of a glass that you dip repeatedly in sugar.

Bake the cookies for 11-12 minutes, then remove the cookie sheet from the oven and allow the cookies to cool for 2 minutes on the pan before removing them to a rack to cool completely.

This recipe will make a 3 dozen cookies or so, and they will be eaten so fast you will have to make more right away!

Be sure to use all gluten-free ingredients!

Ginger Biscuits or Cookies

0 · · Leave a Comment

All those gluten-free cookies need to have the spice and flavor component enhanced, as spices and flavors tend to disappear into the rice flour…..Here is a good way to obtain a nice, strongly ginger-flavored cookie – a recipe from Gf-Zing!

You will need Miss Roben’s Mock Graham Cracker Cookie mix for this recipe.

Put the contents of 1 package of Miss Roben’s Mock Graham Cracker mix in a large bowl.

Add:

2 teaspoons gluten free ground ginger
1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
3/4 cup minced crystallized ginger

Now, follow the instructions on the Miss Roben’s Graham Cracker mix bag, adding the honey, vanilla, butter, and water. Do not leave out the honey – use a fresh, local honey for extra good flavor.

Roll out the dough between pieces of waxed paper dusted with confectioner’s sugar, until the dough is about 1/4 inch thick. Cut with cookie cutters or a small glass. You can prick the cookies with a fork or press them with a ceramic cookie stamp – both methods will make nice designs on these cookies.

Bake the cookies as per the instructions on the Miss Roben’s bag. If you cook them longer they get darker and crunchier. They will keep for a long time in a cookie jar, and are excellent with coffee or tea.

Your friends in the glutenated world will want this recipe!

Make sure that you use all gluten-free ingredients!

Sugar Cookies – gluten free

0 · ·

Here at Gf-Zing!, we decided that sugar cookies are a little bit like pie crust without the pie, so why not use a gluten free pastry flour to make the cookies?

Gluten free baking can produce a pretty bland product. This sugar cookie dough has extra -strong vanilla flavor, due to the addition of Authentic Foods Vanilla Powder. Authentic Foods is located in Gardena, California.

2 1/2 cups gluten free dream pastry flour (see below)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon liquid GF vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon powdered GF vanilla (Authentic Foods makes such a product)

confectioner’s sugar for rolling

Cream the butter and sugar with the liquid vanilla extract. Mix the gluten free flour, salt and powdered gluten free vanilla in a separate bowl. Add the egg to the butter mixture. Mix thoroughly. Then add the dry ingredients. Form in to a ball and refrigerate for one hour at least. You can use a food processor for mixing this dough.

Roll out the dough to 1/4″ thickness between two sheets of wax paper. If you need to “flour” the wax paper to keep the dough from sticking, use liberal amounts of confectioner’s sugar. Cut out the cookies, using a cookie cutter and transfer them to a silpat lined cookie sheet.

Bake in a preheated oven 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or more, until they are as brown as you like them.

“Dream pastry flour” is from Bette Hagman’s cookbooks, and the recipe is also available on the internet. It is meant for use in pie crusts:

2 cups tapioca starch
2 cups cornstarch
1 cup potato starch (not potato flour)
4 cups mochiko (sweet rice flour)
4 teaspoons xantham gum
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt

Mix these ingredients really thoroughly, either in a large bowl, bag or jar, and store in an airtight container.

Gf-Zing! recommends using all gluten free ingredients.

Almond Paste – homemade and gluten free!

0 · ·

We don’t know if commercial almond paste is gluten free or not – it is often made with glucose derived from wheat or barley, and some members of the gluten free community avoid commercial almond paste. Here is how to make your own gluten free almond paste for baking cakes and cookies. Almond paste made at home does not have as intense an almond flavor as the commercial product because it does not contain bitter almond. This recipe has been developed and tested for the gluten free community by Gf-Zing!

1 pound shelled, blanched, peeled almonds (simply put, the almonds look whitish in color, with no brown skin on them – it doesn’t matter if they are whole or slivered)
3 1/2 cups gluten free confectioner’s sugar
2-3 egg whites

Grind the nuts in a food processor with a sharp blade until they are almost turning to the consistency of peanut butter. (This is a perfect opportunity to use one of the original Cuisinarts that turned everything to mush and slush.)  After grinding the almonds to a paste, add the sugar and 2 egg whites. Process until the mixture forms a uniform ball. Add the third egg white only if you have to. You will probably need to separate the mixture into two batches to process the paste. If that is the case, mix the almonds and sugar, divide it in half, then add one egg white to each half. That is the best way.

This almond paste will work for baked goods. Do not eat it raw, as it contains raw eggs.

It will keep for less than a week in the refrigerator, so use it quickly. To use it in recipes, weigh out amounts with a kitchen scale.

Make sure all your ingredients are gluten free.

Venetian Christmas Cookie/Neapolitan Three-Colored Cakes

0 · · Leave a Comment

venetian cake

Three-colored cake - gluten free

One of the greatest gluten-free interests we had was recreating this Christmas cookie. We first encountered it in Better Homes and Gardens magazine in the 1970s. Back then, the recipe called for 10 drops of green food coloring and 8 drops of red (for the different colored layers). Now, in the December issue of Gourmet (2005), the same recipe has appeared under the name of Seven-Layer Cookies, but with 25 drops of each color of food coloring and with chocolate icing on both the top and the bottom. This larger amount of food coloring produces a much more garish cookie. With the bright colors and chocolate icing on top and bottom, it seems like the three-car garage of cookiedom. We prefer the original, smaller amounts of food coloring, and chocolate only on the top. Gf-Zing! presents the recipe here, adapted for gluten free cooking with gf flour and extra almond extract to make up for the flavorless rice flour, and including a link to how to make your own almond paste.

8 ounces gluten free almond paste
3 sticks butter
1 cup sugar
4 eggs, separated
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
2 cups gluten free cookie flour mix
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 drops green food coloring
8 drops red food coloring
12 ounces apricot preserves
4 ounces gluten free semisweet chocolate

You need 3 pans, each 9×13″ to make these cookies, or use the same one over and over.

Grease the three pans, line them with wax paper, and grease the wax paper.

In your food processor, mix the almond paste, sugar, egg yolks, butter, almond extract and salt. Beat for 5 minutes, until the mixture is really smooth. Add the gluten free cookie flour and mix well.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Fold the dough from the food processor into the egg whites.

Remove 1 1/2 cups of the batter and spread it all over the bottom of one of the three prepared pans. Remove another 1 1/2 cups of batter to a separate bowl, add the green food coloring and spread the green batter in a second pan. To the last remaining batter, add the red coloring. Spread this red batter in the third pan. The batter spread in the pans will be very thin – only a quarter of an inch or so.

Bake in a preheated oven 350 degrees for fifteen minutes. The dough will start to pull away from the edges, and start to brown around the edges. The top will be springy to the touch. Remove the pans from the oven and set aside.

Melt the 12 ounces of jam in a pan. Some of the recipes for this cookie call for straining the jam, but this is not necessary. Enjoy the lumps! Turn out the green cake on a flat cookie sheet that is lined with tin foil or some other durable material. Spread half the jam on the green cake. Top with the plain colored cake. Spread the remaining jam on the plain colored cake. Top with the red cake. Put a piece of plastic wrap on the top of the red layer. Put a cookie sheet on top. Place canned goods, or heavy weights, around the cookie sheet to weigh down the cake and glue the layers together. If you have a heavy wooden cutting board, you can use that instead. Set aside in a cool place for several hours or overnight.

Melt the chocolate. If you like bitter chocolate, add an ounce of bitter chocolate to the semisweet chocolate. Remove the cans, cookie sheet and plastic wrap from the top of the cake, and then spread the red cake layer with melted chocolate. Allow to harden (this will take some time – at least 30 minutes). Slice off the edges of the cake and put these scraps on a plate for sampling. Slice the cake into squares, about 1″ on a side, using a sharp knife and a ruler (to mark where to cut). You may have to run hot water over the knife, then dry it with a clean towel, from time to time so that crumbs don’t get onto the chocolate topping.

These can be stored in an airtight container in the freezer, with wax paper between the layers of cookies, and removed as needed. If cut into 1″ squares, over 100 cookies are produced.

Make sure to use all gluten free ingredients.

Serving Venetian cakes
Elegant Gluten Free Cakes

Mostaccioli – an Italian nut cookie

2 · ·

1 cup hazelnuts
1 cup walnuts
1 Tablespoon gluten free unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cloves
a pinch of salt
1/3 cup gluten free flour mix
1/3 cup honey
1 egg white

Grind the nuts finely in a blender of food processor. Mix with the rest of the ingredients and form a sticky ball of dough.

Roll out the dough on a piece of waxed paper covered in a virtual snowfall of powdered sugar. Roll the dough until it is 3/8 inch thick, and make sure to keep a deep coating of powdered sugar so the dough doesn’t stick to the rolling pin or the counter etc.

Cut the dough in to 1 x 1 1/2″ bars. Transfer them to a well-greased cookie sheet. Bake at 275 degrees, about 25-30 minutes or until they appear dry. Transfer to drying racks and cool completely. Place the cooled cookies on waxed paper and drizzle them with icing.

Icing:

Mix 1 Tablespoon of egg white, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, and 1-2 Tablespoons of gluten free orange liqueur to make a thick but drizzly icing. Not too thin. Add more liqueur or more sugar as needed to achieve the right consistency. Drizzle attractively on the cookies. Allow to dry completely before storing the cookies in an airtight container with waxed paper between the layers of cookies.

Note: Make sure the nuts are fresh, as the freshness of the nuts makes the flavor of these cookies. Rancid nuts are not good.

Make sure all of your ingredients, including spices, are gluten free!

Peanut Butter Rice treats – crispy style

0 · ·

Gf-Zing! has developed and tested this recipe for krispy-style treats, gluten free and made with peanut butter for extra flavor.

3 cups crispy gluten free rice cereal
1 cup shredded coconut

1/3 cup light corn syrup (or part corn syrup, part honey)
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup gluten free peanut butter
1 teaspoon gluten free vanilla

Mix the rice cereal and coconut in a large bowl.

Mix the rest of the ingredients in a large, heavy pot. Bring just to a boil while stirring.

Remove the pot from the heat. Stir the hot mixture into the cereal and coconut. Dump this mixture into a greased 9×13 inch pan and spread out, using greased hands or a piece of wax paper so it won’t stick to your hands. Cool completely and then cut into bars.

Alternatively, when the mixture has cooled enough to touch, form it into balls or make little bird nests and fill each one with 3 gluten free jelly beans. Cool completely.

Make sure all your ingredients are gluten free.

Toasted Pumpkin Seed Cookies with Chocolate Glaze

0 · ·

1 1/2 cups unsalted shelled pumpkin seeds (toast them on a baking sheet at 350 degrees for 20 minutes)
4 ounces gluten free bittersweet chocolate, chopped or chocolate chips
2 sticks of butter, unsalted
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 cups of Dream Pastry Mix (see Bette Hagman’s The Gluten-free Gourmet Cooks Fast and Healthy)

2 Tablespoons sugar (for sprinkling)
1 egg white (for topping)

gluten free semisweet chocolate chips

Grind the roasted shelled pumpkin seeds in a coffee grinder or food processor until like coffee grounds.

Melt chocolate in a double boiler and remove it to a bowl. To the melted chocolate, add butter, sugar, salt and cinnamon and mix together well. Add Dream Pastry Mix and ground pumpkin seeds and stir well.

Divide the dough into two pieces. Roll one piece of the dough out between two sheets of wax paper to 1/4 inch thick. Cut 1 1/2 inch circles using a cup or cutter. Place circles of dough on Silpat lined cookie sheet, about 1 inch apart. Prick each cookie with a fork a few times. Roll more dough and cut cookies, until you have used up the dough. Brush each cookie with egg white and sprinkle with the extra sugar. Bake cookies at 325 degrees fr 18 minutes or until done.

When the cookies come out of the oven, immediately put 3 chocolate chips on each cookie and wait for the chips to melt. Spread the melted chips to make a frosting. Remove the cookies carefully to a cookie rack and let them cool until the chocolate is hardened.

Note: Shelled pumpkin seeds are also called pepitas. They are green in color. You can find them in the refrigerator section of a natural food store. Make sure they are really fresh and shelled, and make sure they are unsalted. Toasting them gives them a nice nutty flavor.

Make sure that all your ingredients, including spices, are gluten free!

Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Ginger Cookies

0 · · Leave a Comment

Chocolate Chip Cookies - cinnamon and ginger, gluten free
Chocolate Chip Cookies - cinnamon and ginger, gluten free

This is the most requested Gf-Zing! recipe ever! The cookies are crunchy, with a complex flavor and interesting buttery sugar coating.
Mixture A:

Cream together:
1 cup butter or gluten free soybean margarine, or a combination of both
1 ½ cups brown sugar, (For a very crunchy cookie use 1 cup turbinado sugar and ½ cup white sugar )
1 teaspoon GF Vanilla extract

Add, and beat well:
1 large egg


Mixture B:

In another bowl, mix together with a whisk:
1 teaspoon GF ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon GF ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon xantham gum
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups GF cookie flour mix

GF confectioner’s sugar for rolling.

Combine mixture A with mixture B.

Add: 2 cups of top quality GF chocolate chips, 1 cup chopped walnuts (you can optionally also add dried cherries or dried cranberries.) Form 1-inch balls, roll in GF confectioner’s sugar, flatten slightly, place on Silpat mat-lined (or parchment paper lined) cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes at 375 F. Remove pan from the oven, let rest 5 minutes on pans before removing cookies from the pan.

Make sure that all your ingredients, including spices, are gluten free!

COOKIE FLOUR MIX

0 · ·

COOKIE FLOUR MIX
this mixture works well.

2 cups plain brown rice flour
2 cups plain white rice flour
1 1/2 cups sweet brown rice flour (this is a different kind of rice flour – you could also use sweet white rice flour)
1 1/3 cups tapioca starch or tapioca flour
2/3 cups GF corn starch
1/2 cups rice bran or rice polish
2 teaspoons xanthan gum

Make sure all your ingredients are gluten free. Mix all the ingredients together in a large container or bag. Use as much as you need for your recipe. Store the rest.