Gluten Free Stroopwafels

Last year my family and I went to a tulip festival held here in Utah Valley. There was a vendor selling Stroopwafels… a Dutch treat that's kind of a crispy, thin cookie filled with a cinnamony caramel syrup.  They were, of course, full of gluten. But that didn't stop my husband and me from enjoying them… it only stopped me from being able to share with the children. At the time I wondered if I could make some gluten-free, but when I looked up recipes they all called for yeast. As yeast-based breads are often hard to translate into gluten free versions, I decided not to try it then. Today, though,  I suddenly worked up enough energy to give it a shot.

Glazed Baked Doughnuts

Glazed Baked Doughnuts



It was 5:00 p.m. and I realized that tomorrow was dad's and donuts at school. On top of that my son had been invited to a birthday party, the next day, where donuts were going to be the main desert. I thought about just shrugging my shoulders and saying "oh well." But, my overactive guilt complex kicked in last minute and I decided to try throwing the cursed desert together. I did not want to be up all night frying donuts so I looked up a couple easy baked donut recipes online and went for it. They turned out better than expected, and when they were done I was extremely grateful I did not have to make donuts and cupcakes, or donuts and some other random desert. Huzzah for the overlapping of desert and activities!!

1/2 c. butter or margarine, softened
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
3 c. Gluten Free All Purpose Flour Mix
4 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 c. milk
3/4 tsp. xanthan gum


Glaze
4 c. powdered sugar
1 c. butter
2 tsp. vanilla
6 Tbs. hot water



Directions

Blend butter with sugar. Add the eggs and mix well.

Sift together flour,xanthan gum, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Add to the butter and sugar mixture. Blend in the milk and mix together thoroughly.
Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until doughnuts are golden.
While they are still warm, dip them into the glaze mixture on both sides. Let dry completely on a wire rack.

Funnel Cake

A week or so ago, the city of Orem threw their "Summerfest" party. It's several days of baby contests, carnival rides, fireworks, and (of course) carnival foods. I managed to keep my kids out of the food areas this year, but those fair-time food smells (mostly of things frying!) sort of lingered over the whole park. I would almost never buy carnival food at a carnival even if we didn't have our gluten issues, because I am too thrifty; I just can't imagine paying $4 for something that I KNOW costs no more than 20 cents to make! But the smells are certainly enticing.

So . . . I come home and make gluten free versions! It's much cheaper and tastes just as good. (In fact, last year I shared our gluten free funnel cakes with my neighbor's family. She'd never had funnel cakes before, but after eating mine she said: "Oh, great. Now I'm going to have to buy these the next time I go to a carnival.")

Let us know what you think!

Funnel Cake

3 C. EGF all-purpose flour
1 tsp. xanthan gum
¼ c. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
3 eggs
2 c. milk


Mix together dry ingredients. Whisk eggs and milk into dry ingredients.

Pour the batter into a drink bottle with a squeeze top. (A clean, empty syrup bottle or dish soap bottle would also work. Or you can use a funnel, covering the bottom of the funnel with your finger when you don’t want the batter dripping into the oil, but it’s messier and irritating, and I’d suggest NOT using a funnel if you can avoid it.)

Squeeze batter into hot oil, using a spiral motion, and overlapping the lines of batter. (If you just do concentric circles, you won’t be able to turn it over; it will just fall apart.) Fry to a golden brown (about 2 minutes per side.)

Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Serve hot or let them cool a bit first.

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.

Doughnuts

I've never been fully satisfied with the doughnut recipe from our cookbook, so the other day I decided to do some experimenting. I pulled about 6 gluten-filled recipes off the net, combined them, and then made them with gluten free flours. They were really good! The texture was just like "normal" cake doughnuts, and the flavor was great. My husband wanted to throw away the oil, but I wouldn't let him. Something this yummy deserved an encore!

Gluten Free Cake Doughnuts

1 c. GF Mix
3 c. Featherlight Mix
2 tsp. xanthan gum
1 c. sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. mace (or use 1/2 tsp. nutmeg)
1 c. milk
3 eggs
4 Tbs. melted butter
1 tsp. vanilla



Combine dry ingredients. In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Combine dry ingredients and wet ingredients. Mix well. Let sit in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

You can see that the dough is a little sticky, but the refrigeration helps. Now, to shape the doughnuts there are two possible methods. The first is to roll the dough out on parchment paper that has been dusted with potato starch. Using one large and one small cookie cutter, cut out doughnut shapes. The second (which I prefer) is to scoop out balls of dough with a cookie scooper, pat them out with a little potato starch to keep them from sticking, then swirl them around on a sheet of parchment paper until they are shaped like doughnuts. I'm not explaining this so well. Better watch the video.

Fry shaped doughnuts in hot oil; one recipe said 370 degrees, but I must admit that I didn't actually check the temperature - I just turned it down a bit when it started to burn my doughnuts.

Cook until golden brown on the first side, then turn and cook until golden brown on the second side. Remove from oil and drain on paper towels. Enjoy!