Cooler weather....

...means cookie baking time!

Panquéques

Sunday morning. Gluten-free deliciousness.

Sunny days and pizza

Today was a nice day - sunny and seasonably temperate - I should have taken advantage of it and gone out for a quick walk around the block. But sometimes when I'm at work, I don't want to go outside. I feel like if I walk out the door, I'm just going to want to keep walking until I get to the subway and then the bus station and then home. I like home. I don't get to spend enough time there....................

Quite a while back I bought some Bob's Red Mill G/F Pizza Crust mix. It's been sitting in my freezer - until recently it was too hot to turn on the oven. I was kind of nervous to make this mix, since it would be my first foray into baking with yeast. Plus, the directions aren't that specific. I wrote this to my friend Stephanie the other day while I was waiting for the dough to rise...

"My dough still doesn't look like it's rising and it's been more than 20 minutes. I'm wondering if I didn't proof the yeast long enough? The directions on the bag said "for a few minutes" what the fuck does that mean? I thought baking was a precise science?"

I probably should have photographed the rising dough and the whole first part of the baking process... you have to bake the crust first and then take it out and put on the toppings and then bake it again.



The first batch didn't puff up too too much, and I took a chance by putting it on my pizza stone and it turned out okay. It was a good color when I removed it from the oven although I should have smoothed it out a bit more... it was a thicker crust than what I really like... but I topped it with sauce from Vic's, chevre and fresh basil from Kate's garden.

When it came out of the oven the second time all nicely decorated, I couldn't wait to eat it. It has been months since I've had pizza! MONTHS! It's one of the few things I miss most about not eating gluten any more. And now I don't have to miss it any longer. I CAN MAKE MY OWN AND IT WILL BE DELICIOUS!!!



I am a happy girl.

Delicious!

For our party I made two different kinds of mini cupcakes. I forgot to photograph the Chocolate Cupcake with Mocha Icing before I served them - there were none left. There were also Ginger-Vanilla Cupcakes with Rosewater Frosting. Again, I got the recipes from The Gluten-Free Goddess, Karina Allrich.

For the Mocha Icing recipe, click here.
For the Chocolate Cupcake recipe, click here.

I used Karina's recipe for Vanilla Cupcakes as the jumping off point for the Ginger-Vanilla Cupcakes... Instead of using rice milk, I used a combo of Almond milk and Coconut milk. I also added a 1/2 teaspoon of ginger powder and a good amount of ginger pulp - which I got from juicing ginger in my Breville juicer.

The recipe for the Rosewater Frosting is adapted from VCTOTW. I took the original Vanilla "Buttercream" and instead of using vanilla, I added rose water. To make the icing pink, I added about three to four drops of red food coloring.

Audrey helped me frost the cupcakes - we did it with knives instead of piping bags. Next time I'll try my hand at piping - it could be messy, good fun!

I heart Chocolate

We went to the Lake for Father's Day. It was a laid back, pot-luck affair. (Thankfully it did NOT rain!! I'm beginning to think we live in the Pacific Northwest and not NJ) My contributions were a quinoa dish and brownie bites - both vegan and gluten-free. My recipes came from THE Gluten-free Goddess herself, Karina Allrich. I have to say, her blog is one of my all-time favorite places to visit and I go there almost daily. Karina is a fount of knowledge, not to mention a hilarious and witty story teller. You're not only guaranteed great recipes but also a hearty dose of laughter.

I had to modify the brownie recipe to exclude the blueberries. Otherwise, there is no way on this green earth that M would have ingested a single one. He's not a fan of blueberries, to say the very least. This allowed me to up the chocolate chip content though, and I don't think anyone complained about that. Plus, instead of using a half-cup of water, I added some left over coffee and it was more like a half-cup of coffee water - to enhance the flavor of the chocolate.

Here's my endeavor...



I copied the recipe onto some scrap paper - but I'll be printing this out to add to my binder - it's most DEFINITELY a keeper!















Not the most beautiful photos to illustrate such a tasty treat, but I did my best. And, of course I forgot to take photos of the quinoa dish - but if you want to see how lovely it can be - please skip on over to Karina's when you're done here. You won't be sorry.

Memorial weekend baking

I made some cookies and cupcakes over the Memorial Day weekend. The cookie recipe is from Elana's Pantry. I modified it by using almond meal instead of almond flour. The cookies were good (or "not bad" according to M - and you don't even know what a HUGE compliment this is considering the past disasters that are my gluten-free cookies) - they had a distinct texture from using meal over flour. I would bake them again and try it with the almond flour. Next time they'll be better.








Then I made cupcakes for Tini's birthday... THESE were DELICIOUS!!! Tini said they were the best I've ever made. I used the Basic Chocolate Cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and subbed out the All-purpose flour with Gluten-free Bob's Redmill blend and added some Xanthan gum. I also used almond milk and not soy. I added a few other ingredients in the form of spices - but I'm keeping that a secret. I made ganache for the frosting but I forgot to take a photo of it and I also forgot to photograph a finished cupcake. I was traveling with them and didn't do the final assembly until much later at a party - and by that time I was drunk, so there you go.

i guess this is really birthday week

When I got home from work the other night I found all this amazing stuff on the kitchen table complete with a beautiful hand-made birthday card from Kate and Christina. It's a whole bunch of Bob's Red Mill gluten-free flours, a bag of dairy, soy and gluten-free chocolate chips and a little piece of paper telling me that the new Babycakes cookbook has been ordered for me. What a birthday it's been!


Photo courtesy of www.babycakesnyc.com

When I went to SF last month, Stephanie had given me an early b-day present of a powdered sugar shaker and patterned templates for when I bake cakes, like my recent favorite, from Karina's Kitchen.

I have the greatest, most thoughtful, most loving group of friends that a girl could ever hope for. Lots & TONS of Happy Friday love to all of them. (And I'm not even drunk!)

Now I'm off to finally write Stephanie that email I've been trying to send all week...