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 in 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.

Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 Baking Flour

 Chocolate Chip Cookies. 10 dozen.
Made for the drug dealer son and the freezer.

I made them with Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 Baking Flour - make your recipes gluten free.

By far and away -  the easiest gluten free flour I've ever used.
Exchange it for 1 cup of regular flour. I've used it in several recipes and I can't tell the difference. Cakes are moist, Cookies are crisp and chewy.

The 1 to 1 flour made these with a nice crackle surface. Very pretty.

I have reached that age in my life where I need to store flour in the fridge. I rarely bake - I can't eat what I make as I eat very little grains. My kids are up and out of the house. I can bake for work but things have not been friendly there lately. 

I particularly WISH  ( please!) that Bob's Red Mill would change their packaging to a ziploc-style closure. They are packaged in cellophane bags which have to be closed somehow. I always throw them into a ziploc bag once opened to keep pantry moths out and because I've had that cellophane tear and produce a mess. So - Bob's Red Mill - if you are listening??? Ziploc closure would be very welcome.

 I also made some Daffodil pens for work today. I buy the cheap back-to-school (already?) pens, drill holes in the end and hot glue the flower stem inside and then wrap with floral tape. Easy peasy.
 
 My only rule is extreme cheapness. The daffodils came from an estate sale - marked 25 cents. She threw them in as a bonus.

While I have some customers who will steal even a flower pen, these tend to stay much longer than a naked pen.

Gluten-Free German Chocolate Cake

My grandma made a German Chocolate Cake from scratch for nearly every Sunday dinner we had at her house. She also made jello with perfect floating bananas and marshmallows.
You cannot replicate everything.

My creative friend was telling me about this recipe and I immediately was interested.The recipe is from Delectably Free. The cake is gluten, dairy and egg free. She writes about her food allergies on her blog and is amazing in her manipulations of ingredients.

Now, my auto-immune is a bit past gluten-free. And I have come up with a problem with my family. They want to feed me, or make things I can eat. We have always been a baking/cooking family. They seem angry that their efforts aren't appreciated by me. It's difficult -for anybody -to understand how limited my diet is. But if I want to maintain some semblance of enjoying life, and the ability to get projects done,  I can't do it when my stomach is all gassed up or a migraine is threatening because of too many immune responses. Or the bumpy lesions on my skin are so itchy I can't think.  The food I eat needs to be extremely simple. I have learned to say no.
Well - I may be projecting but anger/frustration is what I feel they are feeling. Lord knows I am frustrated.

My solution is to make some allergy-free recipes that show off some of these 'new' allergy-free ingredients - even if I will probably have an immune response to the recipe. I mostly eat raw foods and it gets pretty basic. I don't eat recipes. Some of the foods I eat are pretty weird. Like seaweed.

Once in a while, you get cravings for a particular food or a memory. For my family, I know everyone loved the German Chocolate Cake Grandma Vera made.

My creative friend made the recipe and said it was pretty close to the original but she and I both caution you - this is a spendy recipe to make.  Fortunately, you will have enough ingredients to make two. My friend tested it and declared it wonderful. I spent the last two weeks assembling the ingredients.

I especially liked the flavor from toasting the coconut and pecans.

Look at that tall layer.

I still need to add the third layer as I only own two 8" cake pans and I have to wait for the third layer to cool before I can add it to the cake.

It also has money in the cake. Cleaned coins are inserted after the cake has cooled. Old family custom in which the kids find pocket change.

 

Plus, it's my daughters birthday. This very tall cake will look spectacular with birthday candles and as I am writing this, do I even own birthday candles anymore??? Oh boy. In the big clean-out of clutter so we could put the wood floors in, I think I threw them out.

The recipe is here.

My changes: I used butter instead of Earth Balance soy-free spread. I don't plan on eating the entire cake, I prefer butter for taste, I don't react much to butter, and Earth Balance (Soy-free) is more than double what butter costs.

The cake consists of  the cake, the cream frosting and the toasted pecan/coconut mixture. I would suggest doubling the frosting recipe. Part of what I remember is the gooey coconut/pecan frosting. More is better.

Most of my ingredients were found here at my local grocery store where they have bent over backwards to stock allergy-free ingredients.
The owner of King's Cupboard in Woodburn kindly sold me 2 oz of Xantham Gum from an 8 oz package. 8 Oz. - for me - would have lasted longer than I want it on my pantry shelf. Not to mention, add to the cost of this cake.

Buying all of the ingredients for this cake is expensive. But the cake looks gorgeous and stunning. Even better, it tastes amazing. This is a show-stopper dessert.

Two Soups

About all of the cooking that I do revolves around soup. I have so many food

intolerances/allergies that it is not really possible to cook recipes easily.

But - soup is.

This last week, I made a beef soup. Well, actually, I made two - mine and his.

My husband really likes canned tomatoes, potatoes, and a thicker feel to his

beef soup. However, I don't need the bad reactions to those items so I am

learning the fine art of making two soups at the same time.

First off: making the stock. Commercial stocks all seem to have soy or flour or

other non-pronounceable ingredients in them. I make my own. I have to make my own stock.

Soup for me is not quick to make but I do it over several days in small  manageable steps. I brown the beef chunks in olive oil and then add some chicken/turkey stock that I have made previously and frozen.

STOCK: I throw whatever chicken/turkey carcass I have into the crock pot and cover with water. It does its thing during the night. Strain the liquid. Throw away the carcass.  Since I have a slight problem in incorporating fat into my diet, I usually skip this next step: Place liquid in fridge until fat rises to top, skim off the solid fat and throw it away. Freeze in containers for later.

Once the beef is tender - a few simmering hours later; I add carrot chunks,

green beans from the garden and finally after a few minutes, some celery. Spices generally include turmeric, mushroom powder, maybe some oregano, sea salt, fresh-ground pepper (pre-ground pepper has flour in it to keep ground pepper from clumping). The Right Flavor is all about the spoon test.

Meanwhile - there is another pot bubbling away in a parallel universe. It's got one or two jars of tomatoes in it, potatoes, white (or black) beans. And the carrots and celery. Similar spices. Thickened with a bit of flour stirred into water. (I have mashed some of the beans into a paste before to thicken which works well if you can tolerate the beans and can't handle flours.)

His always looks so good that I usually have the lid on his. Out of temptation.

Unfortunately, the flour, more than anything, sets off the 'bad reaction's and

I'm really not that tempted.

Lectin Intolerance is similar to Gluten Intolerance where the attack on your lower intestines can give you real debilitating grief. Lectins are protein sugars that are abundant on all grains & legumes. Some research indicates that the nightshade vegetables are also problematic.
All I know is I continue to feel wonderful and energetic if I do not eat these foods.

One of my favorite sites is by Shauna James Ahern. She has Gluten Intolerance (Celiac's Disease) and is a very positive pathway type of person. She has come up with good-tasting recipes that won't make her sick. She is very encouraging regarding overcoming your own personal health issues.

One of my problems  is the dairy element. I tolerate Nancy's yogurt, and I have tried the whole goat angle but basically, dairy is an iffy food. Without dairy- its a tad difficult to incorporate ingredients into a DISH.

Some of the research on Lectin Intolerance indicates that one may, possibly, when healthy, occasionally eat these problem foods. Hopefully, as my intestine heals, I will tolerate some of these lectin-bound foods occasionally.

Next week - I am making a Butternut Squash Soup (no dairy). I haven't had this recipe since last fall and I've a mind for a challenge. Will the squash create a reaction or not?   I'll post the recipe as well because this soup freezes so well!