Linus' Carrot Cupcakes

Last week I welcomed a new member to my apartment... an adopted rabbit named Linus (after Linus Pauling, chemist and Portland resident). To celebrate, I decided to make gluten-free carrot cake. I used "The Gluten Free Gourmet Cooks Healthy and Fast" by Bette Hagman for the cake recipe, and topped the cupcakes with the traditional cream cheese frosting.


Carrot Cake

Ingredients:
1/2 cup garfava flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup tapioca flour

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons egg replacer
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
1/4 cup sweetened flaked coconut

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and put liners in cupcake pan. Mix together flours, cornstarch, xanthan gum, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, egg replacer, and salt. Beat the eggs with the sugar and mayonnaise until blended. Slowly add dry ingredients, then beat in carrots and coconut. Fill cupcake tins and cook for 30 minutes. Cool before frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:
1 package of cream cheese
1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Blend everything together until smooth and frost cupcakes.

The cupcakes turned out fantastically. They're moist and delicious, and the frosting adds the perfect amount of sweetness. Linus approves (though he wasn't allowed to have one and was instead given some left over carrot).

Chocolate Chip Cookies

A few weeks ago I was really craving sweets and we had some people coming over for a game of Munchkin, so I made a batch of gluten-free chocolate chip cookies out of "Gluten-Free Baking" by Rebecca Reilly. They turned out very well. I overcooked them a bit, but even the day after I made them they were delicious and not too dry.

This book had a different gluten-free flour mix than the bread book does, so I had to make some.

Gluten-Free Flour Mix

Ingredients:
2 cups brown rice flour
2/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup tapioca flour

Blend the flours together well.


Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cup Gluten-Free Flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 sticks butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups chocolate chips


Mix together flour, baking soda, xanthan gum and salt. Cream the butter and sugars until fluffy (I normally take a break to eat some of this delicious mixture). Add the egg and vanilla. Slowly add the dry ingredients, then stir in the chocolate chips. Refrigerate dough for one hour. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Scoop dough on to cookie sheets, leaving three inches between cookies. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack, then enjoy!

There were a lot more, but we ate all of them!

Take #2: Sesame Bean Bread

Another recipe from "The Gluten-Free Gourmet  Bakes Bread." I didn't take nearly as many pictures with this one.

Sesame Bean Bread

Ingredients:
1 cup garfava bean flour
1 cup tapioca flour
1 cup cornstarch
2 1/4 teaspoons xanthan gum
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons arrowroot (you're actually supposed to use unflavored gelatin but we didn't have any)
1 1/2 teaspoons
1 1/2 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast granules (rapid rise)
1 egg plus 2 whites
3/4 teaspoon vinegar
4 1/4 tablespoons butter or margarine
3 teaspoons molasses
1 3/4 cup warm water

Combine the dry ingredients. Whisk together all the wet ingredients. Combine in breadmaker bowl. I used the gluten-free setting on the breadmaker again.
If you aren't using a breadmaker, let the dough rise for 35 minutes in a floured pan. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 50-60 minutes (covering with aluminum foil after 10 minutes).

In my case the bread wasn't done when I took it out of the breadmaker. I stuck in back in the oven at 400 degree for 15 minutes.

End result:

This bread has a similar taste/texture to wheat bread, and it is super tasty. I think it might have benefited from a little more baking time, and maybe more sesame seeds (this is when I realized that using the normal bread setting on the breadmaker would probably be way easier than the gluten-free one). Overall though, it's really good and nutty and tastes awesome with Nutella on it.

Gluten-Free Bread, Take #1: Bette's Four Flour Bread

I made this bread in late August, and it was my first attempt at gluten-free baking. I used a recipe out of "The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread" by Bette Hagman and my roommate's breadmaker. The "Four Flour Bread Mix" is a really good bread mix to have on hand, and I've since made it in larger batches (the cookbook gives a recipe for 24 cups of the stuff).


Bette's Four Flour Bread Mix (4 cups)

Ingredients:
1 cup garfava bean flour
1/3 cup sorghum flour
1 1/3 cup tapioca flour
1 1/3 cup cornstarch
1 tablespoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon egg replacer
1 envelope of unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup sugar

Blend ingredients well.


Bette's Four Flour Bread 

Ingredients:
3 1/3 cups of Bette's Four Flour Bread Mix
2 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast granules (rapid rise)
1 egg plus 2 whites
4 1/2 tablespoons butter or margarine
3/4 teaspoon vinegar
1 1/2 cups warm water

Mix together wet ingredients (including butter, which isn't actually wet but a solid that happens to have a really low melting point). If you are using a breadmaker, you are almost done (seriously). Put wet ingredients into basin of breadmaker, pour flour mix on top, and then add yeast. Push the appropriate buttons and wait. I used the "Gluten-Free" setting on our breadmaker for this batch.

If you aren't using a breadmaker, you're allegedly supposed to mix the yeast and flour mixture together, then slowly combine with wet ingredients. Beat with a mixer for 3 1/2 minutes, then put into a floured pan. Cover and let the loaf rise for 35-45 minutes. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then cover with aluminum foil and bake for another 40-50 minutes.


So, here is my loaf straight out of the breadmaker:

Having never made gluten-free bread (or any bread at all for that matter), I didn't know that this was pretty undercooked. Which is why this happened:

So sad. But it was still super delicious. I tore hunks out of it and made an egg "sandwich"!

In short, I would (and have) made this again, but it needs to be cooked longer. It has a similar texture and taste to normal white bread, and since you can pre-make the flour mix it's pretty easy to whip a loaf up mid-day.

Gluten Free Meltdown

When I found out I was gluten intolerant I assumed that the worst part of the transition to a gluten-free diet would be cutting cakes and cookies out of my diet. Not so. There are a surprising number of good gluten-free sweet mixes on the market, and now that gluten intolerance is becoming more mainstream, a lot of them can be found in normal grocery stores (even Betty Crocker makes gluten-free cake mixes now). This is not the case with bread. Store bought gluten-free bread inevitably has the same texture as drywall and slightly less taste than a communion wafer (without the added holiness). It's completely inedible unless toasted, and even then it's pretty bad. Individual slices are too tiny to make proper sandwiches out of, and even if you do manage to make something resembling a sandwich the brittle nature of the bread means that you'll be cleaning crumbs off your floor for weeks to come.

So, in short, I really, really miss bread. I miss French bread with butter. I miss peanut butter and jelly on wheat. I miss English Muffins, and baguettes, and garlic bread. I miss tuna melts and bagels with cream cheese. I even miss sourdough, and I don't even like sourdough.

It didn't occur to me that I could actually do something about the lack of bread in my life until I moved in with two new roommates, one of whom owns a breadmaker. With her permission, I am starting the quest to bake the perfect loaf of gluten-free bread. I've been at this for a few weeks, but since this blog is mostly a project in keeping track of what I've cooked I'm going to play catch-up and then try to post new recipes (plus pictures, if I don't break my camera/forget about it's existence) as I make them.

Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.