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.

Pumpkin Muffins

I needed something to make with the extra pumpkin I had in the fridge, and since it was close to Halloween I decided on pumpkin muffins. It took several tries to get these right, but I eventually did and they are yummy. – Kirsti


Pumpkin Muffins

½ c. butter or margarine
1 c. granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 ½ c. canned pumpkin
2 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
¾ tsp. xanthan gum
½ c. sour cream
2 c. EGF All-Purpose Flour*
1¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. ground ginger
¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
¼ tsp. ground cloves
Chocolate chips (optional)
½ c. milk

Preheat oven to 375°.

Grease muffin pans (12–18 regular or 24 mini muffins).

Using an electric mixer, whip the butter until creamy. Add the sugar, and beat until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Mix in pumpkin, vanilla, baking powder, salt, xanthan gum, sour cream, and spices. Alternately add flour and milk, mixing well after each addition.

Bake 15–20 minutes for mini muffins and 25–30 minutes for regular muffins.

* Make this by combining 1 1/2 c. featherlight mix and 1/2 c. GF mix.

French Toast . . . 'cause I made bread yesterday!

While french toast isn't a terribly difficult thing to make gluten free, a recipe can't hurt, right? So, here goes:

French Toast

1 egg
2 tsp. oil
2 dashes cinnamon
2 tsp. milk
2 - 3 pieces gluten free bread

Combine egg, oil, and cinnamon. Mix well. (I once had a college roommate who just swirled her eggs a bit with a fork, which I think is just sick and wrong. So, too, did she, and she consequently hated french toast . . . until I made it for her and beat the eggs until they were well incorporated. Suddenly french toast was much more appealing!) Mix milk into the egg mixture. (You don't need a lot of milk - too much will prevent the egg mixture from browning well - but a little splash of milk prevents a fried-egg-on-toast flavor.)

Dip each piece of bread briefly in the egg mixture, turning once to coat both sides. Place on a hot griddle (about 375 degrees, if you have an electric one). Cook until golden brown, then flip and cook the other side.

Serve with powdered sugar, jam, or syrup.

Gluten Free Oreos!

Anybody miss me? You know, as the end of the school year approaches, I always think to myself: "At last I'll be able to get some stuff done!" But, somehow, summer has escaped from me, and I haven't accomplished ANY of the things I thought I would. Well, that's not strictly true. I:

1. Did an awful lot of laundry and worked to teach my children how to do the same.

2. Did even more cooking and worked to decrease my "Kitchen Control Freak" vibes so that my children could learn to do the same. (They made cookies all by themselves a couple of times, and I didn't have even one little heart attack!)

3. Took my children to swim lessons almost twice a week for two months. They all had a fabulous time, and one of them actually developed a beautiful forward crawl. It was good enough to earn her a "Ducky Pass" so that she could go down the water slides even though she's too short.

4. Had 20 - 25 family members living in my house for the 2 weeks surrounding my mom's family's reunion here in Utah. We made the kids sleep outside, but with only one shower available, we had to do a lot of creative scheduling to keep everyone clean!

You know, when it's written down like that, it doesn't look like much. But I swear I was running all summer long! Oh, and Kirsti and I also taught a couple of GF cooking classes at the Provo Macey's grocery store. We taught fair foods in August (funnel cake, mmmmmmm . . . ) and then last night we taught a "How to pack GF lunches" class that entailed an awful lot of desserts. (That's the most important part of a school lunch, right? The dessert? My children seem to think so, anyway!) I intended to post all the recipes . . . oh, ages ago. Better late than never, though, eh? So here they come, one post at a time!

Gluten Free Oreos

1 ¾ c. margarine
1 large pkg. instant chocolate pudding mix
1 ½ c. sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 c. featherlight mix
1 c. GF mix
¾ c. dutch processed cocoa powder*
1 ¾ tsp. xanthan gum
¾ tsp. baking powder
1/3 tsp. salt

Cream margarine, pudding mix, and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Add vanilla. Combine dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture. Chill about 1 hour.

Dust a clean surface with potato starch. Roll dough out about 1/8 inch thick, adding enough potato starch to make the dough less sticky. Cut with a small round cookie cutter (1 ¾ inch in diameter). Bake at 350° for about 10 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet and allow to cool.

*Dutch processed cocoa is cocoa that has been processed with alkalai. It is much darker and has a deeper chocolate flavor than natural cocoa. If you can't find straight dutched cocoa, Hershey's sells a "Special Dark" variety of cocoa that is a blend of natural and dutched cocoas. These cookies just don't taste right without the dutched cocoa.

Filling

3 ¾ c. powdered sugar
1 ½ Tbs. granulated sugar
½ tsp. vanilla
½ c. vegetable shortening
2 Tbs. hot water

Combine all filling ingredients and beat until smooth. Roll 1 – 2 teaspoons of filling into a ball. Gently squish the ball of filling between 2 cookies. Store in a closed container.

Enjoy!

A tale of two conversations . . .

So, I'm in the middle of a family reunion. It's a lot of fun, but a little chaotic. My immediate family (along with their children) are almost all staying in my home. (Altogether, there are 19 people staying here.) This has created some confusion - mostly in my mind. The other day I asked my sister to get out the ranch dressing and sour cream. When I turned around, she was washing lettuce.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

She looked at me as though I had lost my mind. "Washing the lettuce, like you asked me to."

Everyone agreed that I had asked Kate to get out the lettuce. I just sighed and admitted that I've partially lost it. So, when THIS conversation took place, I wondered (for a while) if I'd finally gone completely round the bend:

Me: "Where are the rest of the eggs?" (I'd purchased 3 dozen, but many of them had broken when they'd been shoved off the table!)

11 year old: "You told Maggie to put them in the freezer."
Me: "What?!? No I didn't!"
11 year old: "Yes, you did!"
Me (to my oldest sister, who was coming up the stairs): "Where are the eggs?"
Big Sis: "You told Maggie to put them in the freezer."
Me: "AAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!"

We eventually determined that THIS is what happened: My mom called to ask if she could bring home a bunch of meat and put it in my fridge. I said: "There's no room in the fridge. You'll have to put it in the freezer." I was a little hassled at the time, and didn't realize that the following conversation was going on around me:

Maggie: "Where should I put the rest of these unbroken eggs?"
Me: (on the phone, TO MY MOM) "There's no room in the fridge. You'll have to put it in the freezer."
Maggie: "I'm not going to do that."
Big Sis: "You'd better do what she says. If she tells you to put them in the freezer, she means it."

This whole situation inspired quite a lot of (slightly hysterical) laughter. Fortunately (as I was in the middle of making 3 different cakes) I had two dozen more eggs.

Ah, family life!

Strawberry Limeade

I lived in the Bay Area of California for several years while I was growing up, and we had a lemon tree in our backyard. Ever since then, one of my favorite summertime drinks has been fresh squeezed lemonade. More recently, I've added fresh limeade to my list of favorites. I bought an electric citrus juicer at Wal-Mart for about $10, which makes juicing limes and lemons so easy that making either drink takes just minutes. The other day we made strawberry limeade for dinner, and boy, was it good!

Strawberry Limeade

1 1/2 c. fresh squeezed lime juice
1 1/2 c. sugar
6 c. water
2 - 3 c. fresh strawberries, rinsed and with caps and stems removed

Combine lime juice, 1 c. sugar, and water in a 1/2 gallon pitcher. Stir. Combine strawberries and 1/2 c. sugar in a blender. Puree well. Pour berry puree into limeade. Stir well. Serve.

*If you don't want to add the strawberries, just add all the sugar to the lime juice and water. Or, to make lemonade, substitute lemon juice for the lime juice.

Summertime, and the living is easy . . .

School's out, it hasn't snowed for almost a month, and sprinkler-running children are beginning to make a regular appearance in the neighborhood. All of which means that my cooking is drifting towards summer-related foods. In our last class, we demonstrated a tres leches cake recipe. There were lots of "oooooohs" and "aaaaaahs". Just this last Monday, I took the same cake to a family barbeque, and my in-laws' in-laws requested the recipe. It's a cool kind of a cake, needing to be refrigerated for long-term storage, but there is seldom any need to store it long term. :) It's taken me a while to post a picture, because I have seldome been able to find the camera before the cake is gone!


Tres Leches Cake

2 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. featherlight mix
1/2 c. GF mix
1 tsp. xanthan gum
2 tsp. baking powder
6 large eggs
1/2 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Topping:

1 can evaporated milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 c. milk (or cream)

Place all dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add eggs, milk, and vanilla. Mix together on low speed, scraping the sides of the bowl to make sure all the flour gets mixed it. Using the whisk attachment, beat the cake batter on high speed for about 5 minutes. Pour into a greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 - 35 minutes. My cakes have always had a slight dip towards the center . . . but it'll be covered with cool whip later, so don't worry about it.

While the cake is baking, blend together the topping ingredients. Store the topping in the fridge until the cake is done. Pour half of the topping over the warm cake, using a spoon to spread it across the surface of the cake until it has all soaked in. (Most of it will probably soak into the middle, but you want to do your best to help it soak in evenly over the whole cake. You may poke small holes in the top of the cake with a toothpick to aid in absorption if you want, but it's not necessary.) Return the remainder of the topping to the fridge. (Stick the cake in there, too, if you've got room.)

As you can see, the topping soaks into the cake quite well. So don't worry that it won't all fit in . . . it will!

Once the cake is cool, slowly pour the rest of the topping over the cake. (I pour topping on one side of the cake at a time, tilting the pan to ensure that the topping doesn't just all slip right back to the middle of the cake. The goal is to ensure that the whole cake is moistened with the milk topping.) Once all the topping has been absorbed by the cake, cover the cake with Cool Whip (or real whipped cream if you have it). Garnish it with fresh sliced fruit such as strawberries and kiwi, if you like. Then return it to the fridge until ready to serve. (It's really good after it's been in the fridge for 2 hours or so.)