GFB 101: cookie recipes

Spicy, Soft and Chewy Gluten-Free Ginger Cookies

08:16

How To Make Gluten-free Pastry

15:35

(...believe me, there should be many more exclamation points after that title!)

Flakes aren't usually a good thing, now are they? Flakes on a first date? Not so attractive. Flaky personality-- definitely not appealing. But I have to tell you, today I fell in love with something flaky and my husband is OK with it. Why? Because he's in love, too!

Maybe I shouldn't talk about flakes on a food blog :P. But, my friends, flakes are a very good thing today!

...Because we're talking about the amazing buttery flakes of a homemade pastry. That's right, and it's not just any pastry, folks. Say hello to a completely gluten-free pastry! I never thought the words "gluten-free" would ever be used in the same sentence as "pastry"! But I recently had a sweet reader contact me, and she asked if I could help her find/come up with a gluten-free pastry recipe. (She was looking for a cream cheese danish, so that's what we made here...also made an apple filling.) I'd been craving pastries myself so I couldn't say no :)! This lovely recipe provided the inspiration.

Thank you again, Catherine, for this opportunity! You helped me face my biggest fear. The thought of making gluten-free pastries used to scare me. Not anymore!

My husband, Jose, said I'm not allowed to make these very often ;). (He freaked out when I mentioned the butter content.) And I nearly threw a dish towel at the guy after he took the first bite and grimaced.

He was totally foolin' me!

After shedding tears of joy, I nearly shed many tears of sadness when he tried to trick me into thinking they weren't tasty. But then he apologized and said he loved 'em. He even said they were better than bakery pastries!

What?! Maybe that's just love talking, but I was definitely happy to hear that. According to Jose, the buttery flavor made them over-the-top tasty. Amazing, that butter...huh?

They're realllllly good, give 'em a try! Perfect way to use up the 22 pounds of apples sittin' pretty in your fridge right now. I'm thinkin' apple turnovers! Oh wait, am I the only one who picked that many apples this fall ;)?!

So here we go with the recipe. It's a lengthy one. The process is definitely long too, but totally worth it! I made sure to mention every last detail, and also included a few pics, but if you have any questions please feel free to email me :)! Love to hear from you all! Makes me feel all warm and gooey inside, like I've just gobbled up a freshly baked pastry :D!

1 cup white rice flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup sweet sorghum flour
1/4 cup potato starch
1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp sea salt

2 sticks of cold butter

1 tbsp sugar
4 tsp yeast
1/4 cup warm water

3 egg yolks
1/2 cup milk
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Filling:
8 ounces cream cheese
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon orange juice

1/4 cup reserved white rice flour for rolling
powdered sugar for dusting
and nuts for sprinkling, if you like 'em.

Start by combining all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl, to create a flour blend. Then, separate 1/2 cup of the flour blend. Put that 1/2 cup of flour in a medium sized bowl.

Next, combine the warm water and single tablespoon of sugar in a large cup or small bowl. Add the yeast. Let it sit for a few minutes until it becomes foamy.

In a third large bowl, combine the 3 egg yolks, milk, sugar and vanilla. Add the flour (not the reserved half cup, that's for something else), then stir in the yeast mixture. Cover and refrigerate this for an hour.

Cut the 2 sticks of cold butter into small cubes. With your hands, combine with the reserved 1/2 cup of flour. The heat from your hands will slightly melt the butter--a thick buttery/flour mixture will form. Shape into a thick square, then refrigerate this for about 20 minutes.

At this point you'll have two things in the refrigerator. Once you've refrigerated the yeasty dough for the allotted hour, and the butter/flour mixture has chilled in the fridge for 20 minutes, you can take them both out and place them on a large work space/counter. Make sure you have some rice flour reserved in a small bowl and 2 large strips of parchment paper (about 18 inches long).

You'll first work with the yeasty mix. Place one sheet of parchment paper on the counter, then shape this dough into a ball. Sprinkle rice flour over the surface of the ball of dough you've just created. Sprinkle a bit of rice flour on the parchment, then place the dough on the parchment. Flatten it out a bit with your hands, then place the second piece of parchment over it and roll it out into a rectangular shape, with a rolling pin (doesn't have to be perfect). It should be about 1/2 an inch thick or so.

Next, place the rectangular butter/flour block in the center of the yeasty dough. Fold the top part of the yeasty dough over the body of the butter block. Repeat with the bottom part, then fold the left and right sides over the butter block. You want to basically enclose this butter block in the yeasty dough.

Place the parchment paper over the dough. Start by rolling up from the center. Then down toward you, from the center. Then left from the center and right from the center. This completes one round of rolling. Fold the dough over itself again (like you did when covering the butter block), sprinkle with a bit of rice flour, if necessary, and roll out the dough the same way.

Refrigerate the dough for 1 hour. Then remove the dough and roll it out the same way again. Refrigerate for one moire hour. Then roll again.

After you've rolled out the dough a total of 3 times, with 2-1 hour chilling sessions in the fridge…take a break and leave the dough in the fridge over night! :)

You can work on the filling while the dough is chilling. This part is easy :)! You can combine all the filling ingredients in a bowl, mix well then refrigerate until you're ready to prepare the pastries.

But if you want to make an apple filling, this is what you'll need:
3 medium apples
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp all spice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg (about 1/8 tsp)
1 1/2 tablespoons of flour
1/4 cup cloudy apple cider

Peel then cut 3 medium apples into thin slices. Combine in a sauce pan with all the ingredients (before you turn on the flame). Then cook on medium low covered for just a few minutes, until they just start to soften. Mix occasionally, then cook uncovered until they're a bit tender but not soggy. Discard/spoon out some of the excess juice and place in a container/refrigerate until you're ready to make the pastries.

To prepare the pastry…roll it out into a rectangle, about 1/2 an inch thick. With a knife, cut off the excess dough (so that it's a clean rectangle shape). Cut the rectangle down the middle, then create 6 square/rectangular pastry squares. This can get stick, so refrigerate the dough you aren't working with.

Next, cut a new piece of parchment or aluminum foil large enough to cover a big cookie sheet, spray with non-stick. Place parchment on cookie sheet. Arrange the pastry rectangle on the parchment so that one corner is facing you and it looks like an uneven diamond shape. If you need to smooth out the dough, you can wet your fingers with cold water and smooth it out with your fingertips. Put a generous dollop of filling down the middle of the dough rectangle/diamond. Gently lift one corner and bring it toward the middle, over the filling; repeat and do the same for the opposite corner. Two of the corners should now be covering the filling, with a small space dividing the corners as they pass. (If you're working with apples, I recommend arranging them one slice at a time down the middle, so that they're resting flat on the pastry, or on top of each other.)

Repeat with the remaining pastry rectangles.

When you're done, cover the pastries with a clean cloth or towel and let them rest for an hour in a dark area.

Preheat oven to 350 and bake for 25 minutes in the middle rack or until they're golden.

cookie recipes

Gluten Free Sticky Toffee Pudding

16:14

cookie recipes

Chocolate Mousse Recipe

15:55

Chocolate mousse is - for me - one of those kind of desserts I always try to better, and I am always trying out new recipes for it; sometimes it’s something with cream, with rosemary, with honey etc. you get the picture.

Sometime ago I stumbled into Julia Child’s recipe for chocolate mousse on David Lebovitz’s site. He had named the post as Julia Child’s Perfect Chocolate Mousse Recipe which already got me intrigued just by the title alone, and the ingredients were so decadent and rich that I just had to try it.

After taking some time to make it, and trying to follow the instructions literally, I had my first bite and I was truly impressed - this recipe makes such a good chocolate mousse that it’s ridiculous, it’s everything a chocolate mousse should be, dark, rich and with a light enough texture.

I must confess that I haven’t tried anything new after making this. The obvious reason being that I felt like this was it, this is the perfect recipe for chocolate mousse.

I of course tweaked the recipe I saw on David’s site a bit; I changed some of the sugar into muscovado which is something I almost always do when it comes to chocolate recipes, the husky liquorice hinting taste of muscovado sugar gives more depth to the darkness chocolate, giving it another layer.

I didn’t include coffee or vanilla in the recipe, you can click on the link above to see how much coffee to include if you want to use it. Also, I usually always top a chocolate mousse with toasted pine nuts drizzled with some good quality honey. Pine nuts are best here, but toasted almonds are good too.

Good quality chocolate is always important when making chocolate mousse, I usually try to use something special, but often end up using just Fazer’s premium dark baking chocolate which isn’t that bad and I can get it everywhere here. When trying to be more refined in this aspect I always check that the chocolate I am using is organic and doesn’t have lecithin in it. I find that it melts differently into your mouth if there isn’t any lecithin, so I avoid it. Checking that the chocolate has cocoa butter and no weird veggie oils goes without saying, I never use chocolate which has any other fat than cocoa butter, really never, and I don’t consider those kind of chocolates to be chocolate. It’s a sad thing to bite into some chocolate and find a taste of rancid veggie oil and a sensation of eating rubber. It should also be at least 70% cocoa when making chocolate mousse.

Take into consideration that this recipe uses raw eggs. We don’t have any salmonella here, so I can use raw eggs freely and therefore I am not familiar with alternatives to it, but David Lebovitz mentions in his post that pasteurized egg whites that whip can be used.

Chocolate Mousse Recipe

serves 4

-85 grams, 3 ounces, of good quality chocolate

-85 grams, 3 ounces, of unsalted butter cut into small pieces (or fermented and salted butter, that’s what I like to use)

-2 eggs, the yolks and whites separated

-4 tbls of muscovado sugar

-2 tbls of caster sugar (use a bit more for a sweeter mousse)

-1 tbls of dark rum

-pinch of salt

-toasted pine nuts and honey for serving

In a bain-marie melt the chocolate and the butter together. Put aside when melted.

Take a separate large bowl and fill it with ice water. It should be big enough so that your yolk and sugar mixture bowl can fit into it.

Whisk the egg yolks, the rum and the sugar together in a separate bowl placed in a bain-marie, until they melt together, about three minutes. The texture should resemble runny mayonnaise. When ready place the bowl into the ice water and keep on whipping until the mixture cools and thickens, then carefully mix it with the chocolate mixture.

Take another bowl for the egg whites and whip them with a pinch of salt until frothy, then add a tablespoon of caster sugar and whip until the egg whites are thick and shiny.

Very carefully fold one third of the egg whites into the egg yolk and chocolate mixture, you will need to be careful because the beaten egg whites are the ones giving the mousse some air and texture, it will be more like a chocolate cake, if the folding isn’t done carefully enough. After folding in the one third, fold in the rest of the egg whites carefully.

Transfer the mousse into the serving dishes, I like to use shot glasses. Let it sit in the fridge for 4hours, or more before serving. Top with some pine nuts and honey before serving.

I know the recipe is handful when making it the first times, I ruined my first batch completely and had to do it again, but it’s worth the try. Just try to remember that first you melt the chocolate with the butter, then you mix together the yolks and sugar, then you whip the whites, it’s basically three stages which then need to be mixed together.

So quiet

The reason why it has been so quiet here is that we bought a new apartment, a really lovely big (well, Helsinki standard big) apartment in a house which was built in 1930. After spending last autumn renovating, it seems like I am spending this one doing the same thing. Our new one needs a new kitchen, some paint, but luckily that is all.

Although it doesn’t seem like much, it feels like a lot, and my mind is constantly on the apartment, what it needs etc. I have a deep dislike for the kitchen there at the moment for example and can’t wait to have it replaced, but how to choose the new cabinets, countertops, everything basically. All I know for sure is that the floor is going to be a oak parquet floor. You can see the kitchen here, it’s not horrible, it’s just old and not in a good way old, but more like laminate floors and countertops, and cheap cabinets from the 90s.

Picture from here

In some good news related to the place where I live, we have a new food shop here in Töölö, Helsinki, it’s called Anton & Anton and it has a concept which is sadly not so common in Finland; it basically sells mostly organic and local produce.

I have found some locally grown chicken which has not been fed on soy, some Charolais beef, fresh scallops, fresh wild fish, some wild boar sausages (which have real lard in them!) etc. also they sell lots of local veggies.

One of my favourite new finds include gluten-free (made in a wheat free factory) buckwheat and sweet potato noodles made by King Soba; I don’t know how common these are elsewhere, but for me they have been something new. They have just the right kind of chewiness and taste delicious. I’ve been eating stir fries with noodles almost non stop since finding these.

I am so happy about this and feel really blessed about the fact that I can get such good quality produce right around the corner.

I opened up the comments again after tweaking the spam thingy, hopefully it will work now, I’ll open the rest of the old posts if this works.

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{ 11 comments }

Best Summer Dessert Recipe

by EMILIA on AUGUST 6, 2010

For me Eton Mess is definitely a favourite summer dessert; it’s creamy, sweet, cooling and fresh all at the same time. It consists of meringue, berries and cream - that’s all it needs.

My first introduction to this one came when living in Britain during -97 and I was totally smitten at once. I was having some afternoon tea with dreamy fresh scones, some regular cake and then came the Eton Mess; you people who have had fresh warm English scones with jam and clotted cream probably know that almost nothing beats it, but I have to say that the Eton Mess was in fact a little bit better and that is saying a lot!

I’ve never had a proper afternoon tea moment with gluten-free baked goods, but I do hear that they exist; I just have no idea if the cakes and scones match their wheat filled cousins. I do believe that they do not, but with something like Eton Mess, you are not losing anything even if celiac, since it is naturally gluten-free, just as long as the meringue is gluten-free too.

I could go into endless blabbing about how much I love British foods, the UK in general (especially Scotland) and afternoon tea etc. but I think not, I am anyway going there in just a few days and I thought that I might write something of a travel post after it. I don’t think I’ve done any posts of my travels, so maybe it’s time for one.

Eton Mess Recipe

serves 2 as a larger portion and 4 as a very small portion

-1 cup/2,5 dl cream

-4 small meringue nests

-fresh berries (usually strawberries are included, but I think any kind of berries goes, I used wild blueberries and strawberries here)

Whip the cream, crush the meringue nests in and fold very gently. Then fold the washed and diced berries in gently.

I sometimes add a bit of vanilla extract too, but never sugar since it’s so sweet with the meringue, but do add some tablespoons of sugar if you have a big sweet tooth.