29 December, 2016

Holiday Baking









I had time this holiday season to do some baking.

I played with Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 Gluten free flour.  Most of the time it behaves just like regular flour. It's a straight replacement and works well for people who must avoid gluten.

I can't eat grains without alarming my auto-immune but gluten-free grains are easier on my system than wheat flour.

This is an amazing flour for Biscotti. I made lemon biscotti and the 1 to 1 flour gave them the perfect dryness.  I just used the first recipe I found online - they are nearly all the same. 

I drizzled mine with dark and white chocolate and they were perfect for dipping in our morning coffee. 




My next cookie is an old Betty Crocker recipe that goes by the name of Cream Wafers. 


My sister discovered this cookie when she was baking for a wedding a long time ago. These are little bite-size cookies that melt in your mouth. The wafers are like a pie crust with frosting between. I will say Bob's red mill 1 to 1 flour made them super melty in your mouth.

You roll them out as thin as you can and then cut with 1 to 1 1/2 inch cookie cutters. Then you sluice them through some granulated sugar and lay them on a cookie sheet. With your biggest fork, prick them like saltine crackers. Bake for just 7 minutes.

However, half of them were so fragile, they broke just moving from the cookie sheet to my counter. I made the frosting as loose as I could but still had some serious airplane disasters. The poor little gingerbread men lost legs and heads at an alarming rate.


I had made a couple of batches of chocolate chip cookies with this gluten free flour and noticed that my cookies were drier than usual. More crumbly after a few days. Someone suggested adding more butter, so I kept this in mind when I made the Cream Wafer dough.





The stars lost their pointy bits





 The pile of broken bits were eaten up anyway. This little cookie is a holiday favorite. I get requests all the time. Next time, I might try half Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free flour and half regular wheat flour and see it this helps keep them less fragile but still delicate to melt in your mouth. The ones that survived were a fantastic texture but too delicate for me being in my usual hurry.



 I also made my traditional Danish Puff Pastry - also from an old Betty Crocker cookbook but lost the taste for playing and used regular flour instead. It's difficult to experiment, especially at holidays where the pressure is on to have the usual tried and true delectable treats.

It was fun to play with Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free 1 to 1  flour with several recipes back to back. I have a good sense of how it works for me now. And it's way better than the old gluten free method of combining four or five different flours to get the texture you want (plus the xanthum gum...).

Both my kids came home. I like to think it's my danish puff that brings them home but it's probably the lottery scratch off tickets that Santa gives out i
n the Christmas stockings.


 In other news, my dear sewing friend Kyle, made a month by month calendar featuring her bags she has sewn in the last few years. I love this idea and the thoughtfulness of sharing. What better way to acknowledge what we make than to celebrate it.


I'm still working long hours after a co-worker suffered an on-the-job injury that the supervisor is trying to bury under the rug and not do workman's comp paperwork.





 

I'll leave you with a beautiful Oregon coast photo that my son took the day before Christmas.
Both of my kids really enjoy photography and get very creative.




8 comments:

  1. You are so energetic to do all that baking! Love the little airplanes. I'm so glad your kids came home for xmas.. I think it's probably because they love you instead of the scratchits. ((hugs)), Teresa :-)

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  2. Looks delicious! I used the 1 to 1 flour to make the pie crust for pumpkin pie. You just need to roll it out between two sheets of wax paper. A little extra work, but it tastes great!

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    1. Haven't tried it in a pie crust yet. I imagine it would be an awesome flour for that.

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  3. I've been using King Arthur GF flour and when I made my holiday pizzelle's using the pizzelle machine, they were delicious but very, very thin which means they break easily. Such a challenge converting to GF flours!

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    1. We have Bob's Red Mill readily available in oregon as they are based here. It's much more difficult to find King Arthur flours here. Good to know you had the same 'problem' with too delicate results.

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  4. Broken bits or not - those cookies look delicious :)

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