Tag Archives: baking

Like She Said.

13 Mar

I just read a great article on Salon.com about eating gluten-free for fun (don’t you just love those people?).  It is called “Dilemmas of a Gluten-Free Convert” — you should check it out.  The author may be a symbol of everything I hate about, well, everyone who doesn’t have a celiac diagnosis, but I still loved her article.  I especially appreciate her observation about sticking to wine and dodging the appetizers at cocktail parties.

Ruth Reichl, you are my hero.

Daily Treat: A great, grown-up, spicy crispy chocolate thing, with pistachio nuts. Which I baked (even though ever since The Diagnosis I don’t tend to bake very much).  I would show you a photo of the crisps, except my family ate every single crumb and all I had left was the plate, which isn’t picturesque.  So instead I will (1) give you the recipe, and (2) provide you some visuals of the book (since as we know every blog post requires a photo, QED.)

The recipe is called Pistachio-Dark Chocolate Crisps, and it comes from the Gourmet Today cookbook (page 686), which to my surprise contains a luxurious selection of naturally gluten-free cookies and desserts.  I am looking forward to trying the Fruit and Nut Chocolate Chunks and the Crispy Chocolate Marshmallow Squares just as soon as my body stops gaining weight on water and roasted fennel (since that is all I eat).

If you looked, you would find  that the crisp recipe as it appears in the book is not completely, totally gluten-free, but it only calls for six tablespoons of flour, and that is close enough for me.  I just substituted gf flour, and then I doubled the curry powder…  If you read this blog for long, you will discover I fiddle with almost all my recipes.  No apologies; it’s my way.

Pistachio-Dark Chocolate Crisps   –   converted to gluten-free by ME!


1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar (I used dark, because that was all I had)

6 Tablespoons all-purpose flour (I used Terry’s gluten-free flour mix)

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon curry powder (I used 1/4 teaspoon)

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg white

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used double that, of course)

1/2 cup cup roasted  shelled pistachios, chopped

I wasn't sure if this would work with GF flour, but it did!

1. Put a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

2.  Combine butter, brown sugar, flour, salt, curry powder, vanilla, and egg white in food processor and blend until smooth.

3.  Glue parchment to baking sheet with a dab of batter in each corner.

4. Spread remaining batter evenly into a 10 by 14 inch rectangle on parchment paper (yes, I did measure!), then scatter chocolate and nuts on top.

5.  Bake until firm and golden brown, 18 to 20 minutes.

6.  Transfer crisp, still on parchment, to a rack to cool completely.

7.  Remove crisp from paper, breaking into pieces.  Good for dessert.  Or breakfast.

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But to be nice for just a minute… First things first.

30 Jan

When I told the kids I had to go gluten-free, one of their first questions was, “What about the pancakes??”

We’re big into breakfast around here, and when we have something besides eggs it is usually pancakes.  Baba’s cottage cheese pancakes.  Baba is my mother.  Her pancakes are amazing, very high in protein (you’ll see), and just basically perfect in every way.  Light like a crepe, but toothsome, and a bit sour (again like a crepe, or like a very smooth sourdough pancake).

So, within 48 hours of getting the dreaded diagnosis, there I was, mixing up a test batch of pancakes with my new g-f flour mix, hoping against hope that they would taste at least okay.

And here’s the good part:  they taste just the same as when I made them with wheat flour. 

Moment of surpassing joy.   Let’s all pause and enjoy it, because since I’ve gone gluten-free those moments don’t happen too often, at least not in reference to food.

Baba's Cottage Cheese Pancakes, after two Margaritas! Did I mention they're good for dinner, too??

So, even though you aren’t going to see a lot of recipes on this blog, in this case I’m going to make an exception.  I hope you enjoy them!

Baba’s Cottage Cheese Pancakes 

8 extra large eggs

2 cups (16 oz) small curd cottage cheese  (one medium container)

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 Tablespoons oil (I use melted coconut oil, but canola works fine too)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup  gluten-free flour (see my favorite concoction, below)

To Do:  Add all ingredients to the large bowl of your food processor.  Blend well (until you don’t see any more curds).  Melt butter on the griddle and cook as any other pancake recipe.  Finished pancakes should be about 3 inches in diameter.

Serves 4.

My friend Terry, who is a gluten-free chef, came running to my rescue right after my diagnosis.   I’ll talk more about her later.  But for now, here is her gluten-free flour mix:

Terry’s Gluten-Free Flour Mix

½ cup rice flour (white or brown – I use white)

¼ cup tapioca flour

¼ cup corn starch

 

Mix it up – and do a good job, because this stuff won’t work if it isn’t blended.  Then put it in a jar. Presto – you’re a gluten-free baker!

Today’s Treat:  I went out to lunch in Los Gatos today with my friend Allison, and because she is so wonderful she asked the waiter if they had any gluten-free desserts. And they did!  So my treat today was pomegranate panna cotta on an almond meringue crust.  Delish!  Go have some yourself (and share the ridiculously priced but fabulous Steak Cobb Salad with a friend.)  www.steamers-restaurant.com.

Bye-bye for now,

Enid

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The Daily Bitch…Let Me Eat Cake

29 Jan

I know, I know, I told you I was going to drink my cake from now on, but I guess I didn’t think it all the way through. Drinking a cupcake is fine once in a while and if you don’t have to be any where or do anything. But these posts don’t write themselves.  I have deadlines, I have tastings and things.

some days I really just want to eat cake. Like today. I was craving something sweet and I like to bake so I decided to make a cake. I use the term “cake” loosely. Since I am no longer allowed the pleasure or simplicity of flour, this “cake” was made from hemp seeds, you heard me right, hemp seeds, and coconut flour, yes there is such a thing, and a variety of other interesting ingredients. It wasn’t bad, in small doses, if you’re a really big fan of coconut and you have a good imagination.

the real thing

My family wouldn’t go near it so I froze most of it. Then a few days later I was craving something sweet. The only sugary thing in the house that I could eat was the coconut cake. Cravings are bad enough but when you know you can’t have the actual thing you want, desire turns to desperation and this is how I found myself sitting on the couch watching Dr. Phil (is he really a doctor?) eating frozen coconut hemp seed cake. This is what my life has come to. Somehow this whole scenario would be easier to digest if I had been devouring a frozen Sara Lee cheesecake or raw cookie dough. I can’t even binge like a normal person. But hey, I’m going to have to learn to work with what’s in front of me. And right now it’s a half-eaten, very cold, coconut hemp seed cake, and an aging bald guy with a lot to say.

Today’s Treat: A good old-fashioned, naturally gluten-free macaroon.  All of the coconut and none of the heartbreak of hempseed. Get it where you can.

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The Daily Bitch… Goodbye to all that.

27 Jan

Here are two things I’ve been meaning to do: 

Learn to make a perfect, killer, fluffy, rich chocolate cake, and become the kind of woman who is always pulling a loaf of gorgeously rustic, crusty-yet-tender homemade bread out of her oven.

I was waiting to learn both of those skills until I had a little bit more time, until my children were in college, until I found the right friend, or book, or teacher.  Sometimes I would fantasize about learning to bake these things, and I would see myself  (a thinner, wiser, more beautiful and evolved version of me, wearing a cute apron) standing in my kitchen admiring the perfect cake or bread I had just produced.

Yep. Look at that beautiful, crusty bread.

I have aunts and cousins and friends who bake cake and bread frequently and well. Just as I have friends and relations who run marathons, keep immaculate homes, and curl their eyelashes.  I would like to be a tidy, wide-eyed long distance runner too, but what I really focused on during my fantasies was the cake and the bread.  Tall, fluffy, toothsome cakes and breads.  Yum.

But now it’s too late. 

While I was busy in my dream state, planning all those delicacies, cutting out all those recipes, creating files for them, reading New York Times articles about the new, fool-proof bread-making method, so easy that even a child could make it, my body was busy screwing me over.  Silently.  I was trying to decide whether I wanted to begin with a francese or a sourdough, and wondering if Cousin Wendy would give me some of her twenty-year-old starter, while unbeknownst to me the cilia in my intestines were lying down and playing dead.

I guess that’s what they mean by Carpe Diem.  All the time I was supposed to be seizing, all I was doing was dreaming.  Now I am a celiac person (I really don’t like that whole “patient” thing), and my reality is gluten-free.

At least there are cocktails.

Today’s Treat:  Lillet blanc on the rocks, with a tangerine twist.  Dark chocolate-covered almonds for dessert.  www.lillet.com (I buy it at Whole Foods); http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/products/954 (almonds available online, at Whole Foods near you, or at Trader Joes).

Bye-bye for now,

Enid

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