Biscuit Coffee Cakes

When I was in 6th grade, I took a couple of cooking classes. Those classes taught me a number of important things. First of all, never never never cook with expired clams. Secondly, seaweed is a comestible (I refuse to call it food) that I do not want to eat again. Finally, refrigerator biscuits dipped in butter and brown sugar taste really good.

While gluten free refrigerator biscuits do not, to my knowledge, exist, the good news is that I have found a gluten free biscuit recipe that I love and which works just as well. My sister and her husband created this recipe after she discovered that she is allergic to rice. Until I tasted these, I had resigned myself to the fact that I was always going to hate gluten free biscuits. They never had the right texture or flavor, and I had mostly given up trying. Since my sister shared these with me, though, I've begun to make biscuits about once a week. They're not only quick and easy, but they taste wonderful!

Mette's Oat Biscuits (and Betsy's Biscuit Coffee Cakes)

1 1/2 c. GF Oat Flour*
1 c. cornstarch
3/4 c. tapioca starch
1/4 c. potato starch
2 Tbs. potato flour
2 tsp. xanthan gum
2 Tbs. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/4 c. sugar
6 Tbs. butter flavored shortening
6 Tbs. butter or margarine
1 1/4 c. milk (or dairy free substitute)

Preheat oven to 350°.

Place dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add shortening and butter. Mix on medium speed until shortening is blended in. (Mixture will look like small crumbs.) Add milk. Mix until well combined. Let sit for a couple of minutes. Gather dough into a ball.**

Press some of the biscuit dough out on a flat piece of parchment paper (or a lightly floured*** surface) about 1/4" to 1/2" thick. Cut with a biscuit cutter. Place on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until doubled in size and lightly browned.

To make Biscuit Coffee Cakes, cut out biscuits as directed above. Dip both sides of each biscuit in melted butter. Place each biscuit face down in brown sugar, then place the biscuits brown-sugar-side up on a baking sheet or pie plate. (The biscuits may be placed touching each other or with space between them.) Bake for about 15 minutes.


*I make this at home by taking my gluten free oats (which cost $3.00 a pound, unfortunately) and grinding them finely in a blender. I really like them to be ground very finely, but you can leave some slightly larger bits if you'd like.

**These biscuits taste best fresh, but the unused dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a week. So place leftover dough in a Ziploc bag, seal it tightly, throw it in your fridge, and make biscuits in moments any day of the week. Refrigerator biscuits ahoy!

***I'd use featherlight mix or cornstarch. Well, actually, I'd use parchment paper cause it's really easy to clean up, but I think that featherlight or cornstarch would work the best if you want to choose the "lightly floured surface" route.

Lettuce Wraps

After trying these at PF Chang’s, I knew I had to be able to make this particular dish at home.– Kirsti

4 Tbs. soy sauce
4 Tbs. brown sugar
½ tsp. rice vinegar
3 Tbs. oil
4 boneless chicken breasts
1 c. water chestnuts (optional)
1 ½ c. diced mushrooms
1–2 celery stalks, minced
6 Tbs. diced sweet onions
2 tsp. minced garlic
5–10 iceberg lettuce leaves

Sauce
¼ c. sugar
½ c. water
2 Tbs. soy sauce
¾ Tbs. rice vinegar
2 Tbs. ketchup
1 Tbs. lemon juice
1 tsp. sriracha sauce*


Mix the soy sauce, brown sugar, and rice vinegar together in a small bowl and set aside.

In a large skillet or wok, heat the oil on medium high. Sauté chicken breasts 4–5 minutes per side or until done. Remove pan from the heat and allow chicken to cool. As the chicken cools, mince water chestnuts, mushrooms, celery, and onion to the size of small peas. When cooled, mince chicken to the same size.

Add another tablespoon of oil to the pan, if needed. Return pan to medium-high heat and stir-fry the chicken and vegetables, adding the soy sauce mixture after about 1 minute.

In a small saucepan, mix together all the ingredients for the sauce. Heat the sauce just until it boils. Turn off heat. Add ½ the sauce to the chicken mixture.** Simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve the chicken mixture wrapped in lettuce leaves with the remaining sauce on the side.

*This is a hot sauce that I buy from Gifts of Nature (online). You can use another type of hot sauce if you like.

** If desired, you can mix all of the sauce directly into the chicken mixture.

Oreo Pie

My neighbor Cyndi invented a recipe for Oreo Pie that is to die for. It is so good that I can't even think of appropriate descriptions. She was kind enough to tell me her secrets so I could make a gluten free one. (Her only stipulation was: "If you get to be a millionaire off of this, I want royalties!") I changed things a little, but this is essentially her creation. Thanks for sharing, Cyndi!


Oreo Pie

about 1 c. gluten free oreo cookie dough
8 oz. cream cheese
2 Tbs. butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 - 3/4 c. sugar (depending on how big your sweet tooth is)
a bunch* of gluten free oreos
1 - 1 1/2 c. heavy cream

Preheat oven to 375.

Press cookie dough evenly into a 9" pie plate, covering the bottom and the sides. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes, or until the cookie dough doesn't smoosh under your fingers when lightly touched. Remove from oven and cool thoroughly.

Using the whisk attachment of a stand mixer, cream together cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and sugar until smooth. Add oreos and mix well, leaving some larger pieces of cookie. Add cream and whisk on high speed until the mixture thickens and gets kind of fluffy. (This only takes about a minute with my mixer, but it's a really good one. It might take a little longer with a kitchen-aid.)

Spread filling into cooled crust. Garnish with additional oreos. Serve. Try not to eat the whole thing by yourself.

*This is a technical term that means "as many as you want." Cyndi says she uses a full pound of regular oreos. I probably used about half that much. I rolled about 2 cups of cookie dough out flat in the bottom of a 9x13 pan, baked it until it was firm in the middle, cut it into big rectangles with a cookie cutter, let it cool, filled them with lots of oreo filling, then threw them into the mixer.

Flour Mixes

Okay. It has come to my attention that I have made it rather difficult to find the recipes that I posted for the flour mixes that we are constantly referring to. I'm not really sure how I came to do that. I'm sure that I didn't MEAN to do that. But, however that may be, I am going to remedy the problem right now. So sorry!

The first two mixes listed below were created by Bette Hagman, one of the pioneering writers of gluten free cookbooks. (She wrote the Gluten Free Gourmet cookbooks.) The third is the combination of flours that Kirsti and I use most often. We find that it replicates the taste and texture of "regular" flours better than any other combinations we've tried. The fourth recipe is a pretty darn close approximation of our 3 to 1 combination, but without having to take the time to mix up the two flour combinations separately first. The fourth recipe is the one I use most frequently.

If you would prefer to buy the flour mix already mixed, you can purchase it from gfpreppers.com.


GF Mix

6 c. rice flour
2 c. potato STARCH*
1 c. tapioca starch


Featherlight Mix
1 c. rice flour
1 c. tapioca starch
1 c. cornstarch
1 Tbs. potato FLOUR*


EGF All Purpose Flour Mix

3 c. Featherlight mix
1 c. GF mix


EGF All Purpose Flour Mix

5 c. Rice flour
3 1/3 c. Tapioca starch
3 c. Cornstarch
2/3 c. Potato starch
3 Tbs. Potato flour

I mix up large batches of flour mixes at one time and keep them in my cabinet.

*Potato flour is not the same as potato starch. Make sure you use the right one!

French Bread

We taught this recipe at our last class and it was a huge success! I thought I'd post it here, just in case you weren't able to come to our last class.

I came up with this recipe one night when I was in a hurry. We were eating lasagna, and I wanted bread, but I didn't want to go to the trouble of making breadsticks; I just wanted something I could slap on a pan, let rise, and cook. That night I fed my family plus four other adult guests and five extra children. The bread was the first thing gone! – Kirsti

French Bread

3 c. EGF All-Purpose Flour
1 Tbs. xanthan gum
1 packet Knox gelatin (unflavored)
1 Tbs. egg replacer
¼ c. sugar
¼ c. powdered milk*
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 ½ Tbs. yeast
1 ⅓ c. warm water
3 egg whites (from large eggs)
1 tsp. rice vinegar
¼ c. canola oil

Preheat oven to 425°.

In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients. Sprinkle yeast on top of dry ingredients but don’t mix it in. Pour warm water on top of yeast and let it sit for 1–2 minutes. Add rice vinegar and oil; beat for about 30 seconds. With your mixer on low speed, add egg whites one at a time. Turn mixer on high speed and beat for 4–5 minutes. The dough should be thick but not dry and crumbly. If it is too dry, add more water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until it forms a ball.

On a greased cookie sheet, form the dough in a long oval. (Wet your fingers with water to smooth out the top.) Let rise for 20 minutes.

Bake 25–30 minutes, or until the loaf is nicely browned and makes a hollow sound when tapped.

Cool for 10 minutes. Cut open and cover with garlic spread.

* Vance’s Foods nondairy milk works really well in this recipe.

Spicy Chicken Sandwiches

My neighbor and good friend called me in a panic one night. Her 15-year-old sister really wanted a spicy chicken sandwich that tasted just like Wendy’s for her birthday dinner, and she didn’t know where to start. I looked up some recipes, and we went from there. They turned out fabulous! Her sister loved them. So, if you are missing that spicy chicken sandwich, give this recipe a try! – Kirsti


Spicy Chicken Sandwiches

7 chicken breasts
⅓ c. chipotle hot sauce
⅔ c. water
6 c. oil
1 c. EGF All-Purpose Flour
2 ½ tsp. garlic salt
4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. black pepper
½ tsp. paprika
7 GF hamburger buns
Shredded lettuce
Mayonnaise

Mix the chipotle sauce and water in a medium-sized bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, garlic salt, cayenne, pepper, and paprika.

Cut the chicken breasts so they are half as thick. Then cut them in half width-wise so each piece will fit easily on a bun. Use the flat side of a meat tenderizer to pound each piece of chicken until flat.

Dip each piece of chicken first into the dry ingredients, then the wet ingredients, and then the dry again to completely coat them in batter.

Deep-fry each piece of chicken until cooked all the way through, approximately 4–5 minutes.

Serve on top of a gluten-free bun with mayonnaise and lettuce.

Makes 21 sandwiches (Freeze leftovers and reheat them for 20 minutes at 350 degrees).

Churros

I wanted to make these gluten free from the first time I tasted them. I went online and looked at recipes, and this is what I came up with. They were surprisingly easy, and I’m now kicking myself for waiting so long. My only advice is to make sure you don’t add too much cinnamon, because sometimes more is not better. – Kirsti

Churros

1 c. water
2 Tbs. brown sugar
½ tsp. salt
⅓ c. butter
¼ tsp. xanthan gum
1 c. EGF All-Purpose Flour
2 eggs
½ tsp. vanilla
¼ sugar
½ tsp. cinnamon
4 c. Vegetable oil

Preheat 4 cups of vegetable oil in a 10–12” frying pan or a deep-fryer. In a small bowl, mix ¼ cup sugar and cinnamon and set aside.

In a saucepan, combine the water, brown sugar, salt, and butter and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Remove from the heat and add the flour and xanthan gum. Mix by hand until well blended.

In a separate bowl, mix the eggs and vanilla together. Add this mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until all the egg is completely mixed in.

Fill a decorating tool (I used one from Pampered Chef), or a Ziploc bag with a hole cut in the end, with the dough. Attach the largest star tip you have to the decorating tool, Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off, or pastry bag. Fill the bag with the dough.

Test your oil by placing a small amount of dough in it. If the oil is hot enough, the dough will bubble up to the surface right away. Once the oil is hot enough, squeeze 4” long lines of dough into the oil. Use a butter knife to release the dough from the decorator tip.

Cook about 1 minute and then turn with a slotted spoon. Cook an additional minute or two until golden brown. Remove the churros with the slotted spoon and allow them to drain on paper towels.

While still warm, roll each churro the cinnamon sugar until coated.

These are great hot or cold! For a fabulous cold-weather treat, serve with hot chocolate and whipped cream.