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.

And no, the whipped cream is not from my garden.

©2010 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

Mmmm….

Usually I’m not big into breakfasts.  Well, I was, ages ago, but since giving up most simple carbs and dairy and eggs…not so much.  A bowl of millet on occasion is quite delightful, but hands down, my favorite is Chai Breakfast Cake.  I haven’t posted it sooner simply because I always forget what I add in and change it around, but this time I was a good note taker.  And while I like it as is, I plan to try taking about the salba the next time around and see how the consistency changes.  As posted below, it has a sticky consistency that I like, but I think I’d like it the other

In addition to being a simply decadently delicious, vegan, sugar free treat, (and a good source of protein, too!) it’s also a perfect to bake up the night before, which can be challenging in gluten-free land.  So enjoy, and tell me what you think.

For those who are so inclined to play:

hazelnuts are delicious, cacoa nibs are heavenly, and I’m getting hungry!

3/4 cup strong chai tea
½ cup  agave
1 tsp almond extract
1 TBSP vanilla extract

3/4 cup uncooked quick (not instant) quinoa
1 cup almonds
2 T cornstarch/arrowroot
2.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp stevia
1 heaping tsp cinnamon
1 heaping tsp ginger (use more for a spicier cake)
pinch cardamom
1 T ground Salba/chia
1/2 cup unsweetened flaked coconut

Grease a 8 inch round pan and pre-heat to 325.

Boil a cup of water, add in 3 bags of Chai tea and steep for a good 10 min or so.  Remove bags, measure out 3/4 cup.

Grind the almonds, and arrowroot in a food processor until you have a coarse ground meal, but no nut butter.  Add in the quiona flakes and pulse 30 seconds more.  Add salt, stevia, spices, and Salba and then the tea and agave and mix for 1 min.  Mix in coconut, allow the batter to stand 10 minutes.

Add batter to the pan and bake until browning on top and a toothpick comes out clean–mine took about 30 min but our oven has been temperamental so please do check as you go.

Enjoy!

I will be submitting this to the Simply gluten and Sugar Free’s Slightly indulgent Tuesdays (although I think it’s more than slightly indulgent!)

©2010 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

I know that today is the Daring Baker day, with a recipe for Orange Tian.  But since I don’t eat dairy, and DH is dairy free right now due to his allergies (which, despite his complaints, is really helping with his symptoms) so the idea of a dairy overloaded recipe didn’t make sense.  But please do check out the other DB’ers out there and their beatific concoctions…

So instead, there’s Chocolate sunbutter cookies!   As you may have noticed, they are not the most photogenic, but it’s what’s inside that counts. Sunflower butter was the ‘magic’ ingredient for last weeks’ Menu Plan Monday, and a food I just adore.  TJ’s has a great sunbutter knock off if you can eat sugar, or you can make it yourself, but quite frankly, I’ve never gotten the taste quite right.  If you undertoast the seeds, you get a funky, unpleasant (to me) taste.

But anyhow, these are simple and easy, and use one of my other favorite foods: Salba (chia seeds), which are super nutrient rich.  There’s more on salba here:

http://www.harriswholehealth.com/links-and-files/chia

http://www.harriswholehealth.com/links-and-files/baking-with-chia

And on to the recipe!  These are quick, easy, rich and very dark chocolaty, which I love.   They are vegan, sugar free and high in fiber, too.

½ cup sunbutter
2 T ground salba
½ cup agave
½ cup cocoa
¼ cup cacao nibs
½ tsp stevia
2 tsp vanilla
pinch salt

Preheat to 350.
Mix together and refrigerate 10-15 minutes. Spoon out onto baking sheets with a tablespoon and bake until slightly browning at the edges. Allow to cool and enjoy!

I’m submitting these lovelies yummies to the Spring Cleaning “Get the Junk out” event. Amy’s theme is get the gluten out, but get the sugar out, get out the white processed stuff, or get out the allergens all work, too.

©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.

A simple, easy, Valentine’s treat! There’s still time to make these babies. I must say, I like eating seasonally and we were in Santa Barbara a few years back for Valentine’s Day and got HUGE luscious organic strawberries and the scent alone was intoxicating…we’re not as lucky here in VA but they’re still an impressive treat to delight the ones you love.

If you have cocoa butter, it makes the white chocolate spread much better and keeps it from burning. If not, just dip ‘em in chocolate and call it a day!

1/2 cup white chocolate or, for dairy free, parve white baking chips (check label)
1 inch cube cocoa butter

4 oz good quality dark chocolate

Melt white chocolate (20 second intervals in a glass microwave safe bowl). It takes about 60 seconds.

Dip strawberries, allow to cool

Melt chocolate, about 1.5 minutes in the microwave. Dip, draw on assorted ties and buttons.

If you want to use EL’s mini chips, put them on RIGHT after dipping the white chocolate.

Allow to cool on wax paper, do not cover or they get sticky.

I have not made these babies sugar free because the grain sweetened chips have barley; if anyone has thoughts, I’m all ears!

I’ve submitted these to Amy’s Slightly Indulgent Tuesday roundup.  Go on and check out the other treats there!

©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.

Chestnuts are awesome. They give a wonderful moist creamy feel to the treats, and using the pre-peeled ones makes it super easy. I just will have to remember to stock up to have them all year long!

The balls do taste chocolat-y, especially if you add the chocolate liquor. Or if you aren’t avoiding chocolate, rolling them in cocoa powder or adding an ounce of melted cocoa mass instead of the cashew butter makes someone’s brain think chocolate. But carob has a lovely flavor of its own that I appreciate it best for what it is, rather than trying to make it into something it isn’t (i.e. pretending it’s chocolate)

8 oz drained whole peeled chestnuts (I use the TJ’s box)
6 brazil nuts, preferably toasted
1 Tbsp cashew butter (or other nut butter)
1/3 cup agave nectar
1/3 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup carob powder
1/4 tsp stevia concentrate
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp vanilla
splash chocolate liquor, such as godiva (optional)

Blend chestnuts, brazil nuts and cashew butter until they are mostly ground down, then add the agave and coconut oil until you get a nice smooth paste. Add in the rest of the ingredients, pulse until well blended. Scoop into a bowl, chill for 30-60 min. Roll in powdered sugar, powdered coconut sugar, cocoa powder or a mix.

Mmmm. They keep well, but I’ve rarely tested that out.

©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.