I Miss Cookies

Home
No categories

Best GF flours for cookie baking

December 30th, 2009

R Quayle

GF cookies for the holidays? Yes it can be done!

Husband forwarded me a question about which flour would be best to use for baking cookies. The twist on this is that the questioner wanted to try a cookie recipe that is cooked on a griddle for her GF relatives. Good for you- it will teach you about the fine art and science of cooking.

There isn’t really a best flour to use for cookies, it varies by recipe and the results you are looking for. For example, I would personally use a pre-mixed general GF flour (my favourite is Bob’s Red Mill but it’s rather pricey) because it’s already figured out for me and can be substituted pretty much 1 c for 1 c of regular white flour but that’s just my own laziness. I’m certainly not a maths major! One could also buy an actual GF cookie mix. I have one of these at home I haven’t made yet but my best friend baked me a batch of chocolate chip cookies from one of these and they were excellent. BTW, Bob’s Red Mill products can be found either online in their store or at WholeFoods, Giant Eagle, Wal-Mart and Trader Joe’s.

As for specific individual flours and making your own mix to use, the following are generally used:

Nut flours (think the ground almond flour/meal used in Linzer Tarts)
Sweet Rice/White Rice/ Brown Rice (Rice flours make the dough/batter more smooth and less like that GF grittiness we all know and not particularly love)
Tapioca Starch/flour (very fine texture, thickens)
Gram/Soya flours- (used in small amounts and have a distinct taste not everyone is all that keen on)
Xanthan gum/Guar gum (check any packaged flour blends to make sure there is or isn’t this binding ingredient- if it’s not listed, make sure you add it)
Yeast (Check yeasts to make sure there is no contamination but Red Star brand states that they are gluten free)

Because I don’t have the questioner’s recipe right in front of me, I’m going to make some suggestions. If the recipe needs to be rolled out such as sugar cookie dough, I generally use white or rice flour to roll the dough in. Sift all of your flours and dry ingedients; sometimes GF flours can clump. Store your GF flours and mixes in the refrigerator (or freezer) because these flours tend to expire quicker than white flour. If you’re trying for lighter cookies, I’d probably go with the rice and tapioca flours. Chewier- soya or gram flour (just remember that these flours will require more sugar to sweeten the dough). Denser- nut flours.

I’m going to include some decent GF flour recipes that can be substituted in regular recipes calling for white flour and also a GF recipe calling for a pre-mixed GF flour.
GF Flour Recipe 1
GF Flour Recipe 2
GF cookie recipe -sugar cookies

Sources: celiac.com, celiacdisease.about.com, glutenfreemommy

GF Christmas fruits

December 29th, 2009

R Quayle

Sorry I’ve been a little lax with blogging but the camera, alas, is still awaiting repair and I do hate to go on without any photos. However, I didn’t want to skip over the recipes I used for Christmas dinner as they turned out yummy!

I came across this recipe from one of my favourite mags, Southern Living. Not a huge fruit fan, I modified it to use up the fruits I had left over from the GF Christmas Cake I made (and let me say, this was my first attempt and I really had to work up the bravery for that!). You’ll find the modification below and I’ll soon be posting the Christmas Cake and Fish Pie recipes as well for your use.

Cider-Glazed Christmas Fruits modification

3/4 c apple juice concentrate, unsweetened

6 tbs marg, divided

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 -2 tbs brown sugar

1 Fuji Apple, sliced

1 naval orange, sectioned and cut in pieces

1/3 c granulated sugar

1/2 c chopped dried apricots

1/2 c chopped dates

1 tsp vanilla essence

Pour apple juice into a skillet or small pot. Cook over medium heat 14/15 min, will concentrate even further until it reaches a syrup consistency. Remove from heat, and stir in half of the marg, cinnamon and vanilla. Set aside.

Melt remaining marg in a pan over medium heat. Add all of the fruit and cook approx 5 min until softened. Watch carefully or dried fruits may scorch. Pour over brown sugar and stir in til dissolved. Now add white sugar and cook several more minutes. Pour into a serving bowl and pour over the apple syrup. Tastes excellent with drizzled light whipping cream, as a side to GF Christmas Cake or pudding, or as a topping for vanilla ice cream or yoghurt.

Tasty Factor: Thumbs up from everyone. Both Husband and I are not fruit fans but got more than one sitting from this one. Makes a great stand alone dish or topping.

Poopy Factor: None. Well, I scorched batch #2 but that’s all my fault! This recipe is a little rich, be forewarned.

A very Happy and Blessed Chris…

December 24th, 2009

A very Happy and Blessed Christmas to all our readers and a peaceful New Year to all! Will be tucking into my GF pancakes tomorrow a.m.!

PPG Place Gingerbread Houses 2009

December 22nd, 2009

R Quayle

      Yesterday was Husband’s birthday and for part of his surprise I talked him into letting me off downtown on an ‘errand’ on the way back from our hotel. The errand was actually my covertly sneaking down to the DMV to wait for hours to take my permit test (I PASSED! This will be perhaps the 5th time I’ve had a permit….). On the way there I happened to catch the Gingerbread House display in Market Square.
      I haven’t been downtown for probably a year and was a bit shocked to walk into a pit of construction. I don’t know any of the background of this although Husband has been on a few focus groups concerning it and frankly, I wasn’t paying all that much attention to what he was saying. At any rate, the tree and skating rink look lovely and I had completely forgotten about the Wintergarden in PPG Place. I did, however, stand a while to look at the adorable gingerbread houses on display at Two PPG. These are really something to see and impress me every year but this year it seems they’ve gone to a whole new level and I particularly liked the HogWarts entry
        You can view last year’s winners online at the event schedule for PPG Place . This is well worth a look and has details about the entries. Gingerbread houses submitted in the show can be purchased to benefit Children’s Hospital Free Care Fund. If you see one you like, purchases can be made through Carla Roehner by ringing 412-831-8253 or emailing at ppggingerbreadhouse@comcast.net
        Of course gingerbread isn’t inherently gluten free but if you want to get down and dirty with the kids and make one everyone can enjoy, the internet has an abundance of recipes and tips like those on Sure Foods Living and Gingerbread House Heaven.

Hope I get hubby’s b-day cake …

December 19th, 2009

Hope I get hubby’s b-day cake right! Haven’t baked with white flour in a while and I tend to burn stuff when I do!

Eat n Park, the place for GF smiles

December 15th, 2009

R Quayle

      Yesterday was my birthday (31! that’s right!) and I was craving some chinese but Husband had other plans and took me to Eat n Park on the Waterfront. I don’t have any complaints about Eat n Park but to me it’s just a run of the mill restaurant with American food and while I always find something satisfactory, I’d never say I was wowed by the cuisine. I guess I think of it more as the malt shop the teens run to after games and shows rather than my type of place.
          However, Husband heard through the grapevine that Eat n Park has joined the gluten free nation and had some offerings, namely the gluten free hamburger bun. And, being the awesome guy that he is always on the lookout for GF stuff (he recently called up a closed store and cajoled them into opening up to get me bags of flour, lol), he rightly chose Eat n Park.
        So I was impressed last night with dinner. Not the offerings particularly, but the menu and organization, which counts for a lot. I’ve tended to avoid eating out, particularly with friends because unless I’ve downloaded the menu beforehand, it takes me way too long to read ingredients and suss out what’s ok and I just shrug and ask for the salad bar.
          Eat n Park has made this simple for every diet. The back of their menu has a complete list of what’s low-cal, sugar-free, senior-portioned, celiac-friendly and anything else you can think of in easy to read sections. This even includes calorie counts for many items. Now, in the interest of time I ended up with the salad bar anyway, which I was glad to see is stocked with local produce when available. Way to go Eat n Park.
         I was curious about calories in a particular offering and hit up the website because the printed menu doesn’t give this for all items. The online menu is much like the printed version with separate, easy access tabs but it features a nifty little calorie/nutritional counter that allows you to substitute allergen-free foods, etc in the recipe and recalculate nutrition. Very cool, try it out here.
         My only suggestions to Eat n Park would be to somehow integrate this into the restaurant so you can tally up at the table itself. Also, why no GF Smiley cookies yet? I would think when doing GF one would automatically convert their signature piece as an offering. Well, here’s hoping cos I was surely hankering for one after passing boxes upon boxes in the front hallway. One other tiny whine- I couldn’t find the hamburger with the gluten free bun on the menu, even in the celiac section so I was a little betrayed by that. Perhaps it was only offered in certain locations or maybe I should just put my glasses on. Either way, good birthday dinner. Thanks E N P!