I am very glad to be getting back to making DB challenges. The last few haven’t been possible for a variety of reasons, and I missed the fun of it.

So…wow. What a beautiful treat, and it paired well with gobs of raspberries that have been growing here. I decided to make my own mascrapone, since I’ve got it down by now. I sprinkled the zest ontop because…errr…I forgot to add it to the mousse and I figured I’d improvise. I made half the amount of mousse, and it STILL seemed like an excessive amount. But DH LOVED these babies and the premade treats kept well in the fridge despite the pavlovas getting a little soft.

Many thanks for a naturally GF recipe. I made it as directed–just using orange zest for lemon. My only complaint was the brown on brown is just not an attractive combo, or I couldn’t find a way to disguise it. But hey, the taste more than made up for it!

Please do check out what all the rest of the Daring Bakers put together for this challenge.

©2010 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

Ah, time for the monthly Daring Baker indulgent delight. Whew, what a lot of work.  We made ladyfingers, mascarpone, zabaglione, pastry cream, whipped cream, and then assemble and decorate, too!      It looked lovely and was gobbled down.  Largely by my DH, and he kept trying to justify it, too.  I haven’t made a tiramsu in 10 years or so, I guess I (he) was due! Obviously I made it GF, just using GF flour instead of cake flour, but I followed everything else as written, except I dipped the lady fingers in a strong chocolate concoction rather than espresso (DH hates coffee).  My major gripe was with the mascrapone-you can’t get it up to 190.  You just can’t.  Or I couldn’t, and I stirred and stirred for 45 minutes each time.  So if you do opt to give a go, do ignore the temparature part of those directions.  I confess, it is so unusual for me to follow directions that to follow them verbatim (3X) and have them not work as anticipated was frustrating.  It DOES work, just the temps don’t jive.

I used some of the extra filling to make little tiramisu-lettes, which were well appreciated. I did it over 5 days which worked just fine.   And as directed, the original recipes are on the DB site.

As always, do check out the other DB creations–they are always works of art.  And I can’t wait to find out what’s next in store!

©2010 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

Nanaimos=Canadian for bliss

No one was more delighted than me to see this month’s DB pick!

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

A dear friend kicked off my Nanaimo obsession during my Berkeley days. They were uber addictive, and the joke with my roommates was that one of us would creep to the freezer in the middle of the night, grab one and scurry away…and then creep back 30 seconds later and grab another. So Michelle, Adrien and Hayley–these babies are for you! Come raid my freezer.

Good thing for me that these were pretty easily gluten-freeable, but I’m also menos dairy, eggs, corn, soy and most importantly, sugar. I made a version last year and they were good–I like these even better.

So this is my grain and sugar free, vegan and massively delicious new and improved version. They do not taste just like nanaimos, but they are luscious.

One word of warning–they’re dense. As in like, very, very rich. And so a small piece does wonderfully, or at least it would if I didn’t go back for the 2nd small piece…and the 3rd…

Base:
2 cups almonds
¾ cup walnuts
½ tsp stevia powder
¼ cup agave
2 T water
1 tablespoon whole chia seeds
1 cup unsweetened coconut
½ tsp salt

Filling:
2 cups raw cashews and macadamias
2 teaspoons whole chia seeds
pinch stevia
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract (or more
1.5 cups water
.5 cup agave nectar

Top
8 oz chocolate mass (unsweetened)
¼ cup cashew mac butter
1 cup agave
2 tsp stevia powder
2 Tablespoons mesquite or carob powder
½ tsp vanilla powder

For the base: soak chia in the agave. pulse nuts in the food processor, add in the wet and pulse until combined. Press down into 2 lined 8X8 pans (or a 9X11). Bake at 350 until starting to brown. Allow to cool or put in the freezer

For filling: I put all in the vitamix and throughly blitzed. With a normal blender, you’d absolutely have to soak the nuts. Pour on top of the base, and freeze until hard

For the topping: melt the chocolate, add in other ingredients and whisk very thoroughly until well blended. Pour mix quickly onto of frozen filling, and smooth down with out making a mess.

Store in the freezer, chop with a very sharp knife once hard. Enjoy! I’ve only had them straight from the freezer, I do think they’d ooze at room temp.

Please do check out the other DB Nanaimo masterpieces!

©2010 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

The 2009 October Daring Baker’s challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe. You can visit Ami at her blog, Baking Without Fear.

Obviously I was excited. I mean, they were already GF! I thought I could quite simply swap out the confectioner’s sugar for finely ground coconut sugar. Silly me. It was much less sweet, and much more sticky, leading to very flat cookies that were nonetheless yummy. I filled them with a nutella inspired cocoa/agave/hazelnut butter mix that was quite delish (no, I didn’t measure, and I ate too much along the way to give any kind of accurate representation of quantity.

I sorta kinda wanted to redo them–I was totally impressed by David Lebovitz’ lyrical descriptions–but alas, reality hits and collides with my baking fantasies and it was so darned crazy ’round these parts that there was just no way.

So please do check out the amazing creations of other DB’ers on the web.for luscious inspiration.

©2010 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

The September 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

Now, I’d never heard of Vols-au-Vent before, and couldn’t find a GF recipe out there. But Alt DB’ers to the rescue, and the general suggestion was to try a puff pastry or croissant recipe, and go from there. I used the Better Batter croissant recipe.

It was much easier than I expected, although I made my life much harder than necessary by doing 3 turns and rolling out 4 times (moral of the story: read the darn directions!!!) Not only that, but I suspect that 2 turns would have given a better product. The smell was heavenly, and the short ones came out beautifully, but the big cups just didn’t cook through very well, and I didn’t realize until they’d cooled a lot.

I was jazzed to know that indeed, pastries are possible and easier than I thought (note: not easy, just easier) and I will do this again as a croissant. And, of course, flour went everywhere. I mean, everywhere. But it was awesome to have the house smelling so beautifully, and what a treat to have GF puff pastry!

Please see the other DB’ers for their delicious works of wonder, and I can’t wait for our next challenge!

©2010 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

The August 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers’ cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

Perfect timing for me, because my husband’s birthday is in August, and the boy was deserving of a big gorgeous cake, don’t ya think? So the elements of the dobos were a sponge cake, frosting, and the caramel topping.

Of course, some things never change, and a gluten free cake was a must. I used the Better Batter sponge cake recipe, which worked beautifully. It was a little dense, but largely bakers’ error–I didn’t sift the flour into the mix, and as soon as I did it, it was obvious how important it was. But the cake was excellent and kept well.

For the frosting, I made a luscious, chocolate hazelnut vegan sugar free frosting based in (don’t tell!) navy beans. I do have rough ideas, but often am not good enough about writing down what I do when I’m adding in things madly and my hands (and mouth, to be honest) are covered in chocolate. I’ve made it 3 times, and it’s always worked well enough to spread and be super yummy, but if it’s thick enough, it can be whipped and pipes beautifully. I need to figure out the proportions, but the main ingredients are cocoa, navy beans, hazelnut butter, agave and some mesquite and cinnamon. Good stuff! and if you want more details (from the notes I have) drop me a line, but I’m not sure it’s accurate

You may notice the lack of caramel topping. Actually, it’s hiding. I burnt myself on the first one, and the second one didn’t seem to really harden well. I’m not sure what I did wrong. I did sprinkle the crumbs on top, and DH felt that it was his obligation to eat the remaining sugary pieces…so it was all good.

All in all, what a fun cake! I thoroughly enjoyed this challenge. It kept beautifully for a few days and I got such a kick out of making a normal looking traditional birthday cake. To see the artistic and creative stylings of other DB’ers, please check out the blogroll.

©2010 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

But needless to day I was overly jazzed when I discovered that Orange Milan Cookies were this month’s DB challenge.
The July Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

Since I couldn’t eat them anyway, I opted to just make them GF. I used Better Batter flour and subbed 1:1. It worked perfectly. The milan cookies were very delicate at first so I added a tablespoon more flour, which in retrospect was silly. Despite my better judgment, I did also use 1.5 Tablespoons of lemon extract, and honestly, I still think that was too much. I’d have to eliminate it all together to make the holy grail of cookies, Mint Milan cookies.

These were a lot of fun and I’d definitely make them again. To see all the other versions of Milan cookies (and the faux mallomars, too) please see the other Daring Bakers pages!

©2010 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

The June Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart… er… pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800′s in England.

I love Daring Bakers, because I get to do something out of the ordinary and stretch the limits of what I can do in the kitchen. Quite frankly, I’d never heard of frangipagne, or even a Bakewell tart, for that matter! But I was pleasantly surprised, delighted, even! to see how marvelously things turned out.

Given my gluten free, vegan, soy free, sugar free, and usually grain free limitations, this little tart posed a wee bit of a challenge!  It’s a shortcrust pastry, with jam, with a frangipane topping (for the uninitiated, this means a yummy almond paste).  Substituting an almond flour crust was super easy.  Making a faux raspberry jam with fresh raspberries, agave and chia seed wasn’t so hard.  But the spongy frangipane, with the sugar and eggs did puzzle me for a while.  Most of my alt DB brethren were using tofu, which I can’t have.  I opted for baking on a almond butter/white bean paste, and was totally delighted with how yummy it all was.  The texture of the topping was a bit reminiscent of cheesecake texture and mouth feel, and was delicious out of the oven and also refrigerated, too. I do strongly suspect that it wasn’t anywhere near an authentic frangipane, but it was yummy. Possibly less water and a little more baking powder would make it more spongy, but it was delicious as is.  The only down side was that it did stick to the tart pan.  I’d make them in mini springform pans next time and line them to make clean up easier.

Part of the challenge was also making jam.  I did try this, but not for my tart, because the recipe I was using had sugar.  I used Nigella Lawson’s recipe, which was quick and easy, and made good use of our fresh raspberries.

What a rich and yummy treat!  I ate mine, and half of my DH’s too (well, you snooze, you lose!!)

Crust–
a simple mix of almond flour, agave, mesquite and oil. I didn’t measure!

Filling:
1 1/4 cups of fresh raspberries
1 rounded tablespoon ground chia
3 Tablespoons agave

“Frangipane” (or just yummy) topping: for 3 mini tarts
1/2 cup white beans, washed and well drained
1/3 cup agave nectar
1/2 cup smooth almond butter
3 Tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

For the filling:
whip ingredients well in a Vitamix until smooth, scraping down as needed

For the topping:
In a food processor, process beans. Add in other ingredients and mix thoroughly, scraping down as needed.

Assemble tart, baking at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until browning on top.

Check out what the rest of the Daring Bakers did with their challenges! There are some gorgeous tarts out there.

©2010 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

Well, given my gluten free-ness, that particular strudel was off the table for experimentation.  So as I hunted around, I found that Carol Fenster’s 1000 GF recipes had a recipe for GF strudel.  And just a plug, if you’re GF, buy it.  It’s the Joy of Cooking of glutenfreeland.  You can get a recipe for pretty much anything, which is a fabulous jumping off point for subsequent recipe tweaking.

As I was reading the directions, she says how a strudel is pretty much apple filling in pie crust.  I’ve had GF pie crust kicking around in the fridge forever, and so I opted to make the filling and sandwich it in the pie crust.

Yum!  My guinea pigs were quite jazzed.  I rolled the bottom a little thickly, but otherwise, it worked well.  If I’d taken more time, it would have been prettier, but there are some days I go for pretty and tasty.  Some days, pretty tasty will have to do.

I did (and do) intend to make a Cheryl friendly apple concoction sometime in the near future because the smell of this was quite heavenly!  We shall see how that goes, and I’ll post on it if it turns out well.

Please do check out the beautiful offerings around the Daring Baker empire...and stay tuned for next month’s fun!

©2010 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

Ah, it’s that time of month again, when luscious photos of overly indulgent Daring Baker challenges appear.  It’s always such great fun!

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Now, cheesecake used to be my favorite food.  Without dairy or soy, it just wouldn’t be right.  So I opted to make cheesecake for the masses and just liberate the crust of gluten, and do a simple ground almond crust with a hint of cinnamon.  And boy did I have a good time.  One 7 inch blueberry cheesecake, 1 little blueberry, 1 mini praline cheesecake, and 1 mini chocolate swirl, too.

The recipe was super simple.  It’s amazing that I’ve forgotten what cheesecake batter looks like, and each time I do it, I’m reminded why I swear I’m done with recipes that require a waterbath.  Especially since the mini-cheesecakes required a mini waterbath, and had to cool down in the toaster so that the big one could bake longer…it was a big of a logistical mess, but worked out surprisingly well.

Do check out the blogroll to see what everyone else came up with.  It’s hard to go wrong with cheesecake. And, of course, I can’t wait to see what’s in store for next month.

©2010 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.