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cake

Gluten Free Fruitcake

0 · Nov 29, 2011 · Leave a Comment

The Best Laid Plans of Mice[i]….

By Alice DeLuca

 

The black-and-white “tuxedo” cat who moved in recently is sleeping on the radiator, as an early snowstorm downs trees and power lines outside, and there is no sign of any mouse in the kitchen.  At this time of year, just before guests start arriving for holiday meals, hordes of country mice would usually flood the house from every hole that is larger than a dime.  They are Old World house-mice and little New World white-footed mice. These tiny half-ounce creatures can run at 8 miles an hour and jump vertically to distances of a foot and a half.  The speed and agility explain how the fabulous mouse athletes got in to the chocolate, and also why we have a cat. Quite directly related to the presence of this cat is the very sparse influx of mice for the 2011 holiday season.

Mice Named After Famous English Cheeses - The Misses Cheddar - ADeL

These are “The Misses Cheddar,” from a series of costumed mice called “Mice Named After Famous English Cheeses” obtained in Britain in the late 1990s. They are shown alongside an American dime, to demonstrate that a dime-sized hole, through which mice can pass, is very small.

 

Some mice sing[ii] – a lucky person who lives near mice will have heard this unforgettably sweet song once or twice, and there are scientific references from long ago alerting us to the fact that mice are known to sing.  Despite this long-standing human knowledge, the internet abounds today with seemingly authoritative articles stating “It was recently discovered that male mice produce complex, ultrasonic songs” [iii] – but this is not news to anyone who lives around these delicate, small but annoying creatures.

 

The beautiful soprano warbling song coming from the silverware drawer late at night leaves me with mixed feelings.  On the one hand having mice in the kitchen is disagreeable – since they rarely venture more than fifty feet from their established nest, have hundreds of offspring, spread disease and inadvertently cause expensive damage when they nip through electrical wiring and such.  I do not blame them as they are just trying to live their lives, but when they nested in the seldom-used oven broiler, the conflagration of the nest caused a smoky incident that brought 3 fire fighters decked out in full turn-out gear to the house.  There followed a visit from an extremely well-compensated stove repair technician who nonchalantly advised me to “turn the broiler on at least once a month just to discourage them.”  He said he “saw this kind of thing all the time.”

 

A cascading mouse disaster also led to the expensive replacement of an automatic dishwasher – a mouse nested in the dishwasher insulation; the cat yanked off the bottom panel of the dishwasher to get at the mouse; the plumber who installed the new, replacement dishwasher said there was no point in plugging up the holes in the floor – “they can get in anywhere. It doesn’t matter what you do.”

 

Even while the mice cost us untold thousands of dollars and un-ending work, the presence of mice who have come in from the cold signals the start of one of the best food seasons of the year. It is a good season for roast pork, chicken and duck, and though many people today have lost touch with its glories, fruitcake.

 

A really good fruitcake made mostly of fruit, and soaked repeatedly in vast quantities of distilled liquor, is a great treat – very expensive and a required food for the winter season. The creation and production of a fruitcake marks the passing of time in the dark months. To have a fruitcake ready for the Christmas season, it is necessary to start working on the project now.

 

There follows a recipe for a terrific Fruitcake based on instructions from Darina Allen and Rosemary Kearney in their authentic and down-to-earth cookbook Healthy Gluten-Free Cooking. I have interpreted their instruction to season with “mixed spice” through research on such mixtures curated by the authoritative Elizabeth David, and I have adulterated the cake by completely saturating it with copious quantities of high quality gluten free Irish whisky*. (For the gluten free status of this whisky, see: http://www.jamesonwhiskey.com/Distillery/Meet-the-Distillery-Masters/FAQ.aspx)

 

1. Prepare an 8 ½” inch round, 3” deep pan, buttered and then lined with parchment. The parchment should stick up at least 1 ½ “ above the top of the pan. We have used one pan that was originally purchased to make cheesecake during the cheesecake mania of the early 1980s and have also used a spring-form pan effectively.

 

2. Mix up a batch of Mixed Spice (there will be some leftover after you use a teaspoon to make the cake so you can store that in a bottle for other uses). This mixture is based “loosely” on one from Elizabeth David’s English Bread and Yeast Cookery.  I say “loosely” because I made a careless error in transcribing it at one time or another, and doubled the ginger.  The error has persisted and this is the mixture I use. Again note that this will yield 3 teaspoons of which you will use only 1 :

1 teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon cloves
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon cinnamon

 

3. An important and informative note on Whisky:  We use the better part of a quart of Jameson’s Irish Whisky for this cake.  I would recommend that you use an Irish Whisky that does not have any smokiness to its flavor.  Some Irish whisky is “enhanced” by smoked peat and frankly that flavor would do nothing good to this cake.

4. Use a kitchen scale to weigh the ingredients for this recipe.

5. Macerate the Fruit ingredients for an hour or so – the timing is truly irrelevant as this is not science and very little whisky is involved at this point in the recipe:

2 ounces sliced almonds

2 ounces finely ground almonds

12 ounces brown raisins

12 ounces golden raisins

12 ounces dried currants

1 cup (8 ounces) glace cherries (leave whole or cut in half but no smaller than half. I have successfully used dried cherries that have been rehydrated and cooked in a sugar syrup)[iv]

½ cup (4 ounces) candied citron – you can use homemade candied citrus peel instead[v]

Shredded rind of both an orange and a lemon

2 Tablespoons of Jameson’s Irish whisky (Jameson’s is an excellent choice – a whisky that does not have heavy “tobacco” notes – and noted as gluten free on the manufacturer’s website 2011-11-29)

 

Note: You want a total of 3 pounds of dried fruit, with vine fruits predominating.  Candied Pineapple can be added successfully, providing a nice textural nuance. Currants are a required ingredient.  Much different from raisins, currants are sugar-packed and have a crystallized texture that cannot be achieved with any substitution.

Raisins and Currants ADeLuca 2011
Vine Fruits Predominate in a fine fruitcake

6. Preheat oven to 350 F.

7. Mix the Wet ingredients:

Cream 8 ounces of sweet butter, then stir in 8 ounces of brown sugar and beat until “pale and light.” Add 6 eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.

8. Mix the Dry ingredients:

 

Mix one teaspoon Mixed Spice[vi] with 8 ounces of finely ground almonds, 4 ounces of white rice flour (finely ground rice flour is available in Asian groceries – make sure it is rice flour and not sweet rice flour), 2 teaspoons of xanthan gum[vii], 1 cooking apple shredded (Golden Russet, Baldwin, Yellow Delicious).

9. Mixing and Baking:

 

Stir the Wet ingredients in to the Dry ingredients, and then add the Fruit ingredients. Do not overbeat. Scoop the very thick mixture in to the parchment-lined pan.  Wet your hand and use your hand to smooth the top. Bake the cake for one hour, then reduce the heat to 325 and bake the cake for another 2 hours until a skewer comes out clean.  The cake will be very dark. The original recipe calls for more baking, but I have found that it is important to start checking the cake after 2 hours.

10. Soaking:

 

Remove the pan from the oven and pour 2 ounces additional Irish whiskey over the cake. Let cool in the pan overnight.

11. More Soaking, a critical addition to an excellent recipe: Remove the cooled cake from the pan and remove the parchment.  Wrap the cake in cheesecloth, and then soak the cake liberally with an additional ½ cup of Irish whiskey. Wrap the cheesecloth covered cake in an outer layer of tinfoil to completely cover the cake, then store the whiskied-up, tinfoil-covered cake in a tin or other container. Every 1-2 weeks, or whenever you remember, remove the cake from its tinfoil wrapper and soak the cake liberally on all sides with additional Irish whiskey. Restore the foil and put it back in its storage container. Continue soaking the cake every couple of weeks until Christmas.

12. In the original Allen/Kearney cookbook, there are elaborate instructions for adding an almond paste coating that I have never tried.  It sounds like a good idea, but since we soak our cake in whiskey we have not felt the need for the almond paste coating.

 

Our fruitcake will be safe from the mice this year, well-wrapped and now protected by the feline security system. The cat has shown the discouraged mice the door, and they have packed up and moved their residence outside to the car. They continue to be very expensive tenants, however, and I have just received the car repair bill – $99 for removing a mouse nest from the engine.

Mouse Nesting in the car
Mouse Nesting in the car engine - a very expensive problem

 

The cat brings his own set of problems and expenses, but he is a charming and effective mouse-deterrent.  He is good company, and does not eat and contaminate all the stored food, such as the all-important fruitcake – a medieval gourmet treat that marks the coming of the darkest season with the hope of new fruit on the vine the following summer.

 


[i] Burns, Robert.  “To A Mouse. On turning her up in her nest with the plough”, November 1785. Accessed November 29, 2011 http://www.rbwf.org.uk/poems/translations/554.htm.

[ii] Dice, Lee R. 1932.”The Songs of Mice”, Journal of Mammology, Volume 13 Number 3. Accessed October 31, 2011 http://www.jstor.org/pss/1373992.

[iii] Ballenger, L. 1999. “Mus musculus” (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed October 31, 2011 http://www.animaldiversity.org/site/accounts/information/Mus_musculus.html.

[iv] Witty, Helen, and Elizabeth Schneider Colchie. Better than Store-bought: a Cookbook. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Print.  This book contains extensive instructions on candying a variety of fruits.

[v] Witty, Helen, and Elizabeth Schneider Colchie. Better than Store-bought: a Cookbook. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Print.  This book contains extensive instructions on candying a variety of fruits.

[vi]The following mixture is based on reading David, Elizabeth. English Bread and Yeast Cookery. New York: Viking, 1980. Print. …and several other books..  and then making a transcription error many years ago.

1 teaspoon ginger

½ teaspoon pepper

½ teaspoon cloves

½ teaspoon nutmeg

½ teaspoon cinnamon

 

[vii] The Xanthan Gum compensates for the lack of gluten in rice flour.

Christmas, Dessert, Fall, Holidays, Recipes, Vegetarian, Winter baking, cake, fruit, gluten free, vegetarian

Armenian Dessert Cake with Syrup – gluten free

0 · Jun 22, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Armenian syrup cake w honey gfzing

This outstanding dessert is a seriously sweet, robust cinnamon-clove flavored cake soaked until wet with a honey-lemon syrup.  The cake tastes like baklava, and is served cold, with whipped cream if desired.

Originally, this dessert is made with Cream of Wheat. Gfzing.com has adapted it to be gluten free, replacing the Cream of Wheat with Cream of Rice and cornmeal. The recipe is from Rose Baboian’s Armenian-American Cook Book, published in 1964. The book seems to have its own Facebook page now, and is available for sale here: http://www.stvartanbookstore.com/browseproducts/Armenian-American-Cookbook–hc.html.  Similar recipes for cereal cakes abound around the internet, with Greek, Lebanese etc. variations.

Make this cake by hand, for aerobic exercise.

If you are making this in a wheatavore kitchen, bring in your own sugar or make sure that their sugar does not have remnants of wheat flour from wheatavore cooks using the same measuring cup for flour and then for sugar.

Grease and 8×8 pan or 9×9 pan well, using the wrapper from your butter.

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream together:

  • 10 TB salted butter
  • 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon cloves

Add and stir to incorporate:

  • 1/2 cup dry uncooked Cream of Rice cereal
  • 1/2 cup cornmeal
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
  • 3/4 cup shredded coconut

 

Add and stir to incorporate:

  • 1/4 cup milk

 

Add one at a time and stir til well mixed:

  • 3 eggs (large)

Pour in to the greased pan and spread out to distribute evenly.  Bake at 350 degrees, 45 minutes for 8×8 pan, 35 minutes for 9×9. A knife inserted in the cake should come out clean.  Take the cake from the oven, hold it ten inches above the counter and drop the pan straight down on the counter to settle the cake.  The cake should be top side up, still in the pan – you are just settling it, not removing it from the pan.

Make a syrup of

  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup water

 

Bring to a boil, then add

  • 1 Tablespoon honey
  • 1 soup spoon of fresh lemon juice

Pour the hot syrup evenly over the cake. Cover the pan and let sit until room temperature, then chill until cold. Cut into squares. The syrup will settle to the bottom of the cake, leaving that part sort of  “juicy.”

Use all gluten-free ingredients!

Dessert, Fall, Recipes, Rice, Spring, Summer, Vegetarian, Winter cake, dessert, honey, vegetarian

Gluten Free German Torte Cake base

1 · Jan 24, 2011 · Leave a Comment

german torte base baked

German tortes can have a cake base with a cream filling, and maybe fresh fruit on top.  Here is how to make a gluten free German sponge cake (this one is made with almonds and cornstarch) that will work well as the base for a torte with a cream filling.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Line the bottom of a 9 inch spring-form pan with parchment paper, then grease the sides of the pan with butter. Set this prepared pan aside.

You need 3 bowls – like Goldilocks and the Three Bears! One great big bowl, one medium sized bowl, and one little bowl.

You need a kitchen scale to weigh the ingredients.  Be sure to zero out the scale each time you measure something.

  • 3 eggs, separated
  • 3 Tablespoons cold water
  • 75 grams Sugar
  • 50 grams Cornstarch
  • 65 grams Almond meal (Bob’s Red Mill makes the one we used)
  • 1/2 teaspoon gluten free baking powder (measurement is for American baking powder.  If using German baking powder, use slightly more.)

Beat the egg whites with the cold water in a large bowl until stiff.  In the medium sized bowl, beat the egg yolks until light lemon colored and fluffy.

Beat the sugar in to the beaten egg whites, then fold in the beaten yolks.

In a third little bowl (capacity 2 cups), mix the cornstarch, almond meal and baking powder. (The volume of cornstarch and almond meal will be about one cup combined).

Fold the cornstarch/nut  mixture in to the egg mixture.  The mixture will be light and fluffy.

Carefully distribute the batter in to the prepared spring-form pan.

German sponge cake before cooking

Bake for 35 minutes at 300 degrees until the cake springs back to the touch. Remove from the oven, slide a knife around the sides to loosen the cake, then remove the sides.  Allow the cake to cool completely. Remove the cake from the pan.  You can cut it horizontally in to two layers using a bread knife, if you need 2 layers.

Make sure your ingredients are all gluten free!

Dairy Free, Dessert, Recipes, Vegetarian almond meal, baking, cake, German, gluten free, sponge cake, torte, vegetarian

Chocolate Sweet Potato Cake

0 · Sep 12, 2010 · Leave a Comment

This excellent  flourless chocolate cake is a variation of a recipe that is most often attributed to Marcy Goldman’s  A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking.  The glaze suggested here is not from the original recipe.

The quality of the finished cake is entirely dependent on the quality of the chocolate that is chosen – take great care to choose an excellent chocolate.

Cake ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
6 large eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups cooked and mashed sweet potatoes, baked fresh and peeled – 2 or so
1 teaspoon vanilla
10 ounces good-quality gluten free semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted and cooled
1/4 teaspoon salt

Chocolate Glaze ingredients


1/4 cup water, 2 Tablespoons sugar, 1 Tablespoon corn syrup

4 ounces bittersweet gluten free chocolate, broken up

1 Tablespoon butter

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 9-inch springform pan with baking parchment.  To line the pan, first trace the bottom of the pan on a sheet of parchment paper, making a circle, then cut out the circle.  Next, measure the height of the pan, and cut a strip of parchment paper that is that wide by 14 and a half inches long. Grease the pan, then line with the parchments paper, putting the circle on the bottom and the strip on the side.  If you like, you can line the bottom and then clamp on the sides, trapping the circle of paper with the sides.

Cake batter instructions:


In a food processor, cream the butter with the 1/3 cup sugar until light. Blend in the egg yolks until light, then the mashed sweet potatoes, vanilla, and cooled chocolate. Mix until smooth.

In a large bowl, use clean beaters to whip the egg whites gently until they are a bit foamy.  You can use a hand-crank-style manual rotary egg beater to do this – it is easy, and great exercise! Then add in the salt and whip harder to make meringue, sprinkling in the last two tablespoons of sugar to form stiff and shiny (but not dry) peaks. With this amount of sugar, you could also dump all the sugar in at once – it won’t make much difference.

Fold the cooled sweet potato/chocolate mixture into the egg whites gradually, keeping the mixture light and airy – don’t beat it now or you will lose all the air you have beaten in to the egg whites. The air trapped in the egg whites is what is going to make the cake rise in the oven.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, shake the pan briefly to settle it, and bake  at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes (that is what the first version of this recipe said, but that was not correct – it took over 70 minutes).  Depending on your oven, you will need to check the cake starting at 40 minutes, but leave yourself an extra half hour in case the baking takes longer.  When the cake rises high and looks dry, and slightly cracked on top, it is done cooking – if it doesn’t look like this, give it more time. The middle should be soft but firm – a toothpick tests almost dry.  The cake will have risen really high, but it will fall as it cools.  Don’t worry about it though.

Cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then place the cake (in its pan) on a wire rack.  Refrigerate completely to cool – overnight seems reasonable. At this point, the cake can be removed from the pan and frozen for up to a month (haven’t tried that). Even if serving it the same day, chill the cake for two hours before finishing it with the glaze.   This is a dense cake which holds the heat.

Glaze instructions:

In a pot, mix water, sugar and corn syrup and bring to a boil to dissolve the sugar.  Off the heat add the chocolate (bittersweet is best).  Stir until completely melted, then stir in the butter which will make it shinier.

Remove the cake from the pan, leaving the top side up.  Do not try to flip it over. Put the cake on a serving plate. There will be a slight indentation where the cake has fallen in the middle. The final cake will have shrunk down from its lofty height that it was in the oven – maybe it will be 2 inches high. Pour the glaze into the indentation of the cake and, using a spatula, even out the glaze and urge it along to ooze attractively over the edges in places.

The cake is excellent served with whipped cream, and it seems like it would be pretty good if you used bittersweet instead of semisweet in the cake part too as well as the icing.

Make sure ALL your ingredients are gluten free.  If you are making this for a gluten free friend, take care that there is no stray wheat flour in your sugar canister, transferred there during previous baking adventures.

Dessert, Fall, Potatoes, Recipes, Winter cake, chocolate, cooking, food, gluten free, sweet potato

Susie’s Cheesecake

0 · Jul 5, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Sue Carnase, of the Bronx, New York, made the best cheesecake ever.  It was tested many times in double-blind taste tests and it always came out at the top of the rankings. Here is her recipe, in her own words, with a slight modification that will make the recipe gluten free.

“In a large bowl cream together 1 pound each of cream cheese, softened, and ricotta and one cup sugar and beat in 4 large eggs at room temperatures, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add 1/2 stick (2 ounces) butter melted and cooled, 3 tablespoons each of gluten free flour mix* and cornstarch, and 2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla and 1 teaspoon fresh lemon rind, beat mixture well until well combined.  Fold in 2 cups sour cream, pour batter in ungreased 9 inch springform pan and bake the cake in the middle of a preheated moderately slow oven (325) for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

The cake will be soft in the center.  TURN OFF THE HEAT (DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR.) Let the cake stand in the oven for 2 hours.  Let the cake cool completely in the pan on a rack and chill it loosely covered for at least 4 hours.  Remove the sides of pan and transfer cake to a plate.  You can freeze it at this point.  Remove from the freezer the day before use and refrigerate.

HINTS: Cheesecakes often crack while baking and some rise high and later fall, but these are not matters of concern.  Cheesecakes do not take kindly to sudden changes in temperature.  SO DO NOT OPEN OVEN DOOR DURING THE BAKING.

I find it much easier to cream the cheeses by putting them through the Cuisinart.”

*original recipe called for wheat flour

Further notes from GF-Zing!: The batter will fill most of the pan and during the baking the cake will rise to the very top of the pan or higher.  Do NOT use a smaller pan than called for in the recipe.  Full fat ricotta makes a nice cake.  We use Friendship brand sour cream because its only ingredients are milk, cream and enzymes. We line the bottom of the spring form pan with parchment paper to make transferring the cake to a plate a little easier.

Shopping List for Susie’s Cheesecake:

1 pound cream cheese

1 pound ricotta

Sugar

4 large eggs

Butter

GF Flour

Cornstarch

Vanilla

Sour Cream

1 lemon

Dessert, Fall, Holidays, Recipes, Spring, Summer, Thanksgiving, Winter baking, cake, cheesecake, cooking, delicious, food, GF, gluten free, gourmet, ricotta

Birthday Cake – gluten free

0 · Jul 6, 2008 · Leave a Comment

You can make this vanilla cake with a chocolate icing, or you can include some lemon ingredients in the batter and make a lemon icing. The recipe is for 2 9-inch round cake pans, or the equivalent volume in square cake pans. To figure out the size, remember that the area of a circle is pi (3.14) times the radius squared, and you have to account for the depth also, since this is about volume…

Don’t use bottled lemon juice – use fresh juice – it tastes better.

1 1/2 cups white rice flour
3/4 cup tapioca flour (make sure to use a flavorless tapioca flour!)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups white sugar

2/3 cup gluten-free mayonnaise

2 teaspoons gluten-free vanilla extract


1 cup milk (for the lemon cake use part buttermilk)


This is really easy to mix up – put the first six dry ingredients in a bowl, and stir well.

In another bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar until light and lemony colored. Beat in the mayonnaise and vanilla. Next, mix in the dry ingredients alternating with the milk, until all is mixed up well.

Grease the 9-inch round pans with butter, line the bottoms with circles of parchment paper, and dust the insides of the greased pans with rice flour or mochiko flour. Divide the batter evenly between the two pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, or until a skewer tests clean. Let the cake cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then loosen the edges with a knife and turn out the cakes on racks to cool.

To stack the cake for icing, put the first layer on the plate top side down, frost the flat bottom side, then put the next layer on with the flat side down. This will put the flat sides together and they will not slide around as much.

To make a lemon cake, add the following and make adjustments:

Add the grated rind of one lemon and 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice from one fresh lemon, and substitute for the milk 1/2 cup of milk and 1/2 cup of buttermilk.

To make a lemon cream cheese frosting, melt 11 ounces of fine gluten free white chocolate (don’t use chips – they don’t melt well) in the top of a double boiler, allow to cool to room temperature. Mix in 12 ounces of cream cheese, and 12 Tablespoons of unsalted butter. Beat well until really smooth. Mix in 2 Tablespoons of fresh lemon juice. Use one cup of the icing between the layers, and use the rest to coat the top and sides of the layer cake.

For a chocolate frosted birthday cake, use the vanilla cake as the base. Then use the following icing from the Food Network’s Barefoot Contessa Show, adapted for gluten free cooking:

6 ounces gluten free semisweet chocolate

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 Tablespoon of gluten-free pasteurized egg product, such as Eggbeaters, but check on gluten free status

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar

1 tablespoon gluten free instant coffee powder dissolved in 2 teaspoons of hot water

Melt chocolate in top of double-boiler and set aside to cool to room temperature.

In a separate bowl, beat the butter until light and fluffy, mix in the egg product and the vanilla. Gradually beat in the confectioner’s sugar and the coffee mixture by hand. Do not overbeat. This is a soft icing – spread it on the cake and then refrigerate the cake immediately.

Dessert, Recipes birthday cake, cake, layer cake

Carrot Quick Bread

0 · Feb 17, 2008 · Leave a Comment

This is an excellent loaf cake, mostly made of fruits and nuts, with a little gluten free flour to bind it together. It is delicious and has a great texture. We used the white rice flour that you get in asian grocery stores, and the tapioca starch made by Yoki, a brazilian brand (Harina De Mandioca).
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon orange or lime juice
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut (gluten free)
2/3 cup chopped walnuts (break up the walnuts by hand or chop them)
1 cup golden raisins (golden raisins are really better than brown for this bread)
2 1/2 cups coarsely grated carrots
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 1/4 cup flour mix – (mix 2 cups white rice flour, 2/3 cup potato starch, 1/3 cup tapioca starch and 1 teaspoon xantham gum, stir together and use 1 1/4 cups of it, store the rest) – alternatively, use Authentic Foods GF Classical Blend plus 1 teaspoon Xantham Gum.
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 5 loaf pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper.
In a pyrex measuring cup, melt the butter in the microwave. Remove and let cool slightly, then stir in the eggs and orange juice.
In one bowl, mix the spices, gluten free flour, baking soda, salt, brown sugar, shredded coconut and chopped walnuts. Add the raisins and carrots. Stir to make sure everything is evenly mixed up.
Stir the wet ingredients from the pyrex measuring cup in to the dry mixture that contains the fruits. Stir everything until well mixed.
The finished batter will have the consistency of a muffin batter.
Spoon the batter immediately into the prepared loaf pan, smooth the top, and bake for 60-70 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.
Cool in pan for ten minutes, then turn out to cool. Slice with a bread knife.

Make sure all your ingredients are gluten free!

Bread, Breakfast, Dessert, Fall, Recipes, Spring, Vegetarian, Winter baking, cake, carrot, gluten free, vegetarian

Vegan Cupcakes

0 · Apr 22, 2007 · Leave a Comment

We tried a new cookbook, it’s not a gluten free cookbook, but it’s really fun, and the recipes are good and easy to convert to gf and there are two Gluten Free Cupcake recipes included in the book. The book is Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. On the back of the cookbook is the header “Prepare for Total Cupcake Domination” which gives a hint that the author has a sense of humor.

For a test, we tried Toasted Coconut Cupcakes with Coffee Buttercream Frosting. For this recipe, we substituted 1/2 cup cornstarch and 1/2 cup gluten free cookie flour mix and added 1/2 teaspoon extra xantham gum to the batter. It took a little longer to bake these gluten free cupcakes than the instructions noted in the book – so test those cupcakes with a toothpick to make sure they are done.

We did not have “coffee extract” so we made our own using 1 1/2 teaspoons instant coffee and a small amount of hot water. The cupcakes were yummy, with an interesting mochi-like texture, for those of you who like mochi – it’s chewy. We can’t wait to try other recipes from the cute little book.

 

Cookbooks, Product Reviews baking, cake, coconut, cupcake, gluten free

Cardamom Currant Pound Cake

0 · Apr 17, 2007 ·

Gf-Zing! has been experimenting with the 123 Gluten Free Pound Cake mix, and we have hit on an excellent set of additions. Make the mix as directed on the package but use grapefruit soda, and add 3/4 cup of dried currants, and 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground cardamom seeds. It is important to use freshly ground cardamom seeds. Use dried, green cardamom pods, crack them open and take out the seeds, discarding the shells. Crush the seeds in a mortar and pestle until you have a powder, and then measure 1 1/2 teaspoons.

We make the cake in an angel food cake pan, with a cookie sheet underneath on the oven shelf below to catch any drips. We dust the greased cake pan with mochiko (sweet rice) or tapioca flour. It takes 1 1/4 hours to bake.

  • The additions of currants, cardamom seed and grapefruit soda make an excellent cake. Try it with a cup of darjeeling tea!

Breakfast, Dessert, Food products, Product Reviews, Recipes baking, cake, cardamom, gluten free

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