Gluten Free Pumpkin Donut Muffins

I was all set to finalize another D.I.Y. Friday post for you today, but it’s Halloween and I just couldn’t pull the trigger. It’s not that it isn’t a great D.I.Y. (it is!) but it’ll keep until next week because it was just too … savory for day-of-Halloween itself. You feel me? These gluten free pumpkin donut muffins are ridiculously easy (you don’t even have to remember to set the butter out to soften, since, well, they’re made with oil!) that you could even whip up a batch while everyone else is out trick-or-treating, even though you’re home manning the door and deciding which children seem so sweet that you’re gonna slip them extra candy. No fancy ingredients, no fancy equipment (a bowl and a spoon!), no special donut pan. *Boom*

And in case you were wondering, the answer is yes: that simple coating of pumpkin-spice-sugar on the outside even gives them that special donut feel. That’s what puts them right over the edge.

Because the batter is made with oil, not butter, it’s thick and glossy. You really do need 3 eggs, too, since that’s what keeps the donut muffins from being dense.

Because every single holiday, no matter how small, must be celebrated in my gluten free son’s grammar school with food food and more food, these d0nut muffins were packed into his bag today—along with a version of these super cute, super easy Witch Hat Cookies (I’ll show you on Facebook later!). He was very pleased. Another school food challenge met!

Prep time: 10 minutes       Cook time: 15 minutes       Yield: 30 mini muffins

Ingredients

Muffins
1 1/2 cups (210 g) all purpose gluten free flour (I used Better Batter)

3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if your blend already contains it)

1/4 cup (36 g) cornstarch (or try arrowroot or potato starch)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice*

1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar

6 tablespoons (84 g) canola oil (or another neutral oil, like grapeseed oil)

3 eggs (180 g, weighed out of shell) at room temperature, beaten

4 ounces pumpkin butter (homemade or store bought—for homemade follow the link!), at room temperature

1/2 cup (4 fluid ounces) milk (any kind, just not nonfat), at room temperature

Topping
1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice*

2 tablespoons (28 g) unsalted butter, melted (for dairy-free, use your favorite dairy-free butter replacement, melted)

*To make your own pumpkin pie spice, combine 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon + 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger + 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice, 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves + 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg.

Directions

• Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease well a standard miniature 24-cup muffin tin and set it aside (you can also use a standard 12-cup muffin tin).

• Make the muffins. In a large bowl, place the flour, xanthan gum, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pumpkin pie spice, and granulated sugar, and whisk to combine well. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the canola oil, eggs, pumpkin butter and milk, mixing to combine after each addition. The batter should be thick and glossy. Fill the prepared cups of the muffin tin about 3/4 of the way full, and shake the pan back and forth to evenly distribute the batter in each well. Place in the center of the preheated oven and bake for about 15 minutes, or until the tops spring back when pressed gently (longer for a standard 12-cup muffin tin). Allow to cool in the baking pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining batter.

• To make the topping, place the granulated sugar and pumpkin pie spice in a small bowl. Brush the tops of the cooled muffins generously with the melted butter, then press the tops into the sugar mixture to coat. Turn the muffins right-side up and serve.

• Adapted from Smells Like Home and from my recipe for Pumpkin Donuts, reader-selected from my Must Make Gluten Free Pinterest Board.

The impact of numerology over the names

Whenever an infant is born into a family, it’s a norm to first assess him/her with a name. The name of a person is just not a word to be referred to them but actually is the definition, a description of their personality and the briefing of their traits. It should be made very sure that while naming a person all the necessary measures are taken care of. They say that labeling of a product is done properly to define the quality of that product. The same theory can be applied upon assessing names to the young ones too. The better the name the more illustrative would be the definition.

 

While a lot of people who believe in ancestry, name their children on the basis of their legacy or the family trees, while others who believe in Numerology have different opinions. The people who believe in numerology work and practice a lot with numbers before naming their kids. In numerology each letter of your name is said to have an individual corresponding number. Cornerstone is said to be the first letter in your name while capstone is said to be the last one. Under Numerology the first vowel is also given sheer importance, as it is said to fulfill all your urges and dreams in life. Each and every letter in this section has a meaning of its own and preparing a name with all those combine meaningful letters will eventually make out the best desired result. The sum of the numbers in your birth date and the sum of numbers you make out while naming a person displays a great deal in the character, the future, the strengths and the weakness of an individual. Numerology helps in standing and fighting against all these weaknesses and odds. Believers say that numerology make you achieve whatever you want in life, and not just infants, a lot of people change their names in the later stages of their life too after realizing the problems they are suffering in their lives and in order to fight against them. This concept of Numerology was initially brought up by the Babylonians but gradually everyone started practicing it and eventually it became so popular and effective that now it is practiced across almost all over the world. There might be no scientific proofs about the authenticity of these numerology charts, but people still have faith in ample numbers about the relationship of words and numbers.

 

People also believe that in Numerology the on goings and the redemption is based upon three major factors; the date of birth, the name given to you on your birth and the name you use currently. The third factor can well be managed according to the needs and necessary requirements by the Numerology charts. There are ways to work over your names even if you’re a grown up in order to get over the grey shades you are going through in your personal lives. So everyone needs to go through that Numerology chart while assessing their young ones with new names.

 

Browse through name meaning, rankings, other people's comments, ratings, and other statistics in addition to the name meanings.

 

Gluten Free Browned Butter Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies

I can’t wait to tell you all about these gluten free chocolate chip cookies made (again) with browned butter and stuffed in genius fashion with Nutella hazelnut spread (I can say that because this recipe was not my idea). They’re crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, then soft and velvety in the very center. Before we go on, I thought we could talk about the cooking and baking I do generally. You game?

I do four, maybe five, types of cooking and baking. They are (in no particular order): 1. Recipe-testing for a book (painstaking, repetitive, failure-failure-success-success-success). 2. Recipe-testing for the blog (painstaking, repetitive, failure-failure-success). 3. Successful straight-up everyday cooking and baking for family and friends eating (dinner success!). 4.Unsuccessful straight-up everyday cooking and baking for family (dinner failure *whomp whomp whomp* where first I try to pretend that it wasn’t a failure and then I come around and want to cry). I think there might be a 5th type but for the life of me I can’t recall. Anyway when it’s recipe-testing of the the Type 2 variety (recipe-testing for the blog), I find that I can be pretty heavily influenced by how beautiful the food turns out. I’m testing it, baking it, then styling and shooting it all myself, and the styling and shooting are infinitely easier when I can adapt a recipe from someone else and even borrow (*ahem*) some of the food styling (with credit of course). So you can see why I am so in love with my Must Make Gluten Free Pinterest Board, which not only gives me a window into your food soul (you vote!), but gives me a bit of a head start in all things for the blog. And believe me I am not complaining because busy is good for my soul, and hustling is a natural state for me, but with freelance work here and there and writing cookbooks (my heart and soul) that demand rigorous testing and retesting (and more retesting), a head start in blog recipes is a beautiful thing.

Chocolate chip cookies do tend to be relatively beautiful … when they are stuffed with something deep and rich-looking like Nutella hazelnut spread. Oh, and we’re back to browning butter. If you just don’t want to brown butter, you could try just using it straight-up—although you most likely wouldn’t need the 2 tablespoons of milk in the ingredient list as they are there mostly to balance out the moisture that is lost in browning the butter.

Be sure to follow the instructions carefully for how to prepare the Nutella. I swung and missed 3 times before I got it right. If your Nutella is at all stiff when you scoop it out of the jar (which mine always seems to be in some pockets in the jar), you must heat it slightly so that it can be stirred. If you can’t stir it, you can’t pipe it into cut little mounds that you’ll then freeze on a baking sheet. And if you can’t pipe it into mounds that you’ll freeze, you’ll drive yourself mad trying to use it to stuff these simple-but-glorious chocolate chip cookies.

A few more baking notes:

• Read the directions carefully, paying particular attention to the consistency of the dough. It should be thick but soft, which will make quick work of stuffing and closing the cookies.
• Resist the urge to add more chips (or chunkier chips). Trust me. That will make shaping the dough nearly impossible—and overload the cookies with too-much-of-a-good-thing.
• If you don’t want to brown the butter, remember the note above about how I recommend you experiment with replacing it with regular unsalted butter.
• If you are dairy-free, you can try replacing the butter with butter-flavored Spectrum nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening—but you will likely need the milk even though you won’t be browning the fat, as shortening lacks the moisture of butter.

Prep time: 15 minutes       Cook time: 13 minutes       Yield: 20 cookies

Ingredients

About 1/2 cup Nutella hazelnut spread

12 tablespoons (168 g) unsalted butter, chopped

2 cups (280 g) all purpose gluten free flour (I used Better Batter)

1 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if your blend already contains it)

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

5 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup (150 g) granulated sugar

3/4 cup (164 g) packed light brown sugar

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1 egg (60 g, weighed out of shell) + 1 egg yolk at room temperature, beaten

2 tablespoons milk at room temperature, plus more by the half-teaspoonful

Coarse salt, for sprinkling

Directions

• First, prepare the Nutella filling. Line a rimmed baking sheet with waxed or parchment paper, and set it aside. If the Nutella seems at all gloppy, place it in a small heat-safe bowl, and warm it in the microwave for 10 seconds or just until you can stir it easily. Transfer it to a pastry bag or sturdy zip-top bag, and snip off the end or corner. Pipe the Nutella onto the prepared baking sheet in small mounds, each about 1 teaspoonful. You will need 20. Place the baking sheet in the freezer until the Nutella is firm (about 15 minutes or up to a few days ahead of time).

• While the Nutella is chilling, brown the butter. Place the butter in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. First, the butter will melt, and then it will boil and foam. Continue to stir, and watch carefully. The protein solids will separate and drop to the bottom of the pan. As soon as you begin to smell a nutty smell and begin to see a golden brown color start forming around the edges of the saucepan, remove the pan from the heat and continue to stir. Once the bubbles clear, you will be able to see whether the protein has begun to brown. If not, return to the heat briefly, stirring constantly and remove once the butter has begun to brown. Continue to stir, as it will continue to brown off the heat. Pour the brown butter into a large, heat-safe bowl and set it aside to cool until no longer hot to the touch.

• Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line rimmed baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper and set them aside.

• Make the cookie dough. In a medium-size bowl, place the flour, xanthan gum, salt and baking soda, and whisk to combine well. Transfer about 1 tablespoon of the dry ingredients to a separate small bowl, and place the chocolate chips in the bowl. Toss to coat the chips in the dry ingredients, and set the two bowls aside. Once the browned butter has cooled, whisk to loosen it and evenly distribute the browned bits through the butter. Add the granulated sugar, light brown sugar, vanilla and eggs, mixing to combine after each addition. Add the dry ingredients, and mix to combine. The dough will be thick. Add the chocolate chips and reserved dry ingredients, and mix until the chips are evenly distributed throughout the dough. Add the milk, and mix to combine. The dough should be thick but soft. If it is at all crumbly or hard to stir, add more milk by the half-teaspoonful until the dough has reached the proper consistency.

• Shape and bake the cookies. Divide the cookie dough into 20 equal pieces, each about 50 grams in weight. Roll each piece of dough into a ball, make a deep indentation in the center and place 2 inches apart from one another on the prepared baking sheets. Remove the portioned Nutella from the freezer and place one in the indentation in each piece of dough. Working quickly so the Nutella does not defrost (which will happen fast), wrap the cookie dough over the Nutella to enclose it, press the filled piece of dough into a disk about 1/2-inch thick and return to the baking sheet. Sprinkle each piece of dough lightly with coarse salt. Place the baking sheets in the center of the preheated oven, one at a time, and bake until golden brown all over and just set in the center (about 13 minutes). Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for at least 5 minutes or until stable before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

• Adapted from Annies-Eats and my Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies recipes. You selected this recipe from my Must Make Gluten Free Pinterest Board!

Gluten Free Sweet Potato Browned Butter Rolls

These are pretty special rolls, these super soft gluten free sweet potato brown butter rolls. And judging from your reaction to them on my Must Make Gluten Free Pinterest Board (the place where I think out loud about some of the things I’m thinking about making for the blog, and you “vote” with your clicks), you kind of agree. Let’s review them, okay? First, they’re made with browned butter, which takes butter from one of my favorite things (what can I say?) straight to my favorite. Second, they’re made with sweet potatoes. I truly love sweet potatoes, but I always know that if I talk about them at all, I run the risk of getting one of those eye-rolling lectures from someone about the difference between sweet potatoes and yams and how grocery stores the world over name them all wrong. I don’t know the difference, and if you try to tell it to me, I’m gonna class it up and stick my fingers in my ears (or in my eyes, if you write it out here on the Internet).

Oh, and guess what? The bread dough is so dreamy and easy to work with that there is absolutely no need for any sort of long, slow refrigerator rise. You will want to chill the dough a bit, though, after it rises since it’s just much easier to work with cold dough and that’s a fact.

If you’re afraid of browning butter, I pulled this side by side photo from my recipe for gluten free browned butter snickerdoodles (and yes, I’m sure you’ve noticed that I can’t decide if I should call it “brown butter” or “browned butter” but it’s all gonna be okay I promise!). It’s super easy—just take it slow.

I most like these super flavorful rolls made full-size, because they make amazing hamburger buns and I just don’t see the point of making “sliders” at home since, well, double the work for exactly the same enjoyment. But if you’d prefer sliders, go ahead and divide the rolls into as many pieces as you like before baking (say, 12?). If you are thinking about making these as dinner rolls perhaps for the Best Gluten Free Thanksgiving ever, though, may I be the first to encourage you in your genius idea. Divide the dough into 16 pieces and bake the rolls closer together. Just keep an eye on the baking time, is all. I trust you.

Prep time: 15 minutes       Cook time: 18 minutes       Yield: 8 rolls

Ingredients

6 tablespoons (84 g) unsalted butter, chopped

3 1/2 cups (490 g) Gluten Free Bread Flour*, plus more for sprinkling

1 2/3 teaspoons (5 g) instant yeast

2 teaspoons (12 g) kosher salt

3/4 cup (5 1/4 ounces) roasted mashed sweet potatoes**

1 tablespoon (21 g) honey

1 cup + 2 tablespoons (9 fluid ounces) milk, at room temperature

Egg wash (1 egg + 1 tablespoon water, beaten), for brushing

Unsalted butter, for brushing the tops

*BREAD FLOUR NOTES

1. 1 cup (140 g) Gluten Free Bread Flour, as discussed more fully on pages 8 to 10 of GFOAS Bakes Bread, contains 100 grams Mock Better Batter all purpose gluten free flour (or Better Batter itself) + 25 grams whey protein isolate (I use NOW Foods brand) + 15 grams Expandex modified tapioca starch.
2. For a calculator that helps you build the flour without math, please see my Gluten Free Flour page.
3. If you would like to use Ultratex 3 in place of Expandex, please see #6 on my Resources page for instructions.

**Roasting the sweet potatoes brings out their natural sweetness, and makes it easier to control the amount of moisture in the bread dough. Roast sweet potatoes by washing, drying and piercing them, then placing them on a baking sheet in a 400°F oven until softened (about 40 minutes). Then, peel and mash them.

Directions

• First, brown the butter. Place the butter in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. First, the butter will melt, and then it will boil and foam. Continue to stir, and watch carefully. The protein solids will separate and drop to the bottom of the pan. As soon as you begin to smell a nutty smell, and begin to see a golden brown color start forming around the edges of the saucepan, remove the pan from the heat and continue to stir. Once the bubbles clear, you will be able to see whether the protein has begun to brown. If not, return to the heat briefly, stirring constantly, and remove once the butter has begun to brown. Continue to stir, as it will continue to brown off the heat. Pour the brown butter into a small, heat-safe bowl, and set it aside to cool until no longer hot to the touch.

• To make the dough, place the bread flour and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer, and use a handheld whisk to combine well. Add the salt, and whisk to combine. Add the cooled browned butter, sweet potatoes, honey and milk, then attach the dough hook to the stand mixer, and mix on low speed until combined. Raise the mixer speed to medium and mix for about 5 minutes. The dough should be smooth and stretchy. Spray a silicone spatula lightly with cooking oil spray, and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl or proofing bucket large enough for the dough to rise to double its size, and cover with an oiled piece of plastic wrap (or the oiled top of your proofing bucket). Set the dough in a warm, draft-free environment to allow it to rise to double its size (about 1 1/2 hours). Once it has doubled, place it in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes or until it is chilled. This will make it much easier to handle.

• On baking day, line a rimmed baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper and set it aside. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and, using the scrape and fold kneading method and a very light touch, sprinkle the dough with more flour and knead it lightly, sprinkling with flour when necessary to prevent it from sticking, scraping the dough off the floured surface with a floured bench scraper, then folding it over on itself. Repeat scraping and folding until the dough has become smoother. Do not overwork the dough or you will incorporate too much flour and it will not rise properly.

• Shaping the buns + the final rise. With a floured bench scraper, divide the dough into eight pieces of equal size. Shape one piece into a round by following the Directions for Shaping Small, Round Rolls, and place the rounds on the prepared baking sheet, about 3-inches apart from one another, and sprinkle the tops of the rounds lightly with flour. Cover the baking sheet with lightly oiled plastic wrap, and place in a warm, draft-free location until nearly doubled in size (about 1 1/2 hours).

• Baking the buns. About 25 minutes before the buns have finished rising, preheat your oven to 375°F, then remove the plastic wrap and brush the rolls generously with the egg wash. Allow to finish rising, and then place the baking sheet in the preheated oven and bake for about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350°F, remove the buns from the oven, and brush the tops with the melted butter. Return the baking sheet to the oven and bake until the internal temperature of the buns reaches about 185° and they are golden brown all over (about another 8 minutes). Remove from the oven and cover with a tea towel as they cool before slicing and serving.

• Adapted from Lady and Pups Sweet Potato and Brown Butter Slider Rolls and the Sweet Potato Bread from page 72 of GFOAS Bakes Bread.

Gluten Free Hummingbird Cake

A gluten free hummingbird cake recipe is so very often requested by readers, and it’s taken me all this time to comply. I think it’s because the original 1978 Southern Living Hummingbird Cake recipe is such a classic that I didn’t want to mess it up and risk sullying all of those precious decades-long memories so many of you have with this “Making the Best of Bananas” cake. For the uninitiated, a hummingbird cake is an incredibly moist banana-pecan cake made with canned crushed pineapple, covered in a soft cream cheese frosting (which you’ll want to eat with a spoon all on its own). The cake itself is so tender and flavorful that you’ll really want to be sure that you don’t make the frosting so sugary and stiff that it, well, clashes? You’ll see what I mean…

There’s no milk added to this cake (the pineapple juices and mashed banana add plenty of moisture). The original version uses all oil (no butter, like I did), and you’re welcome to try replacing the butter in my recipe with oil. I tried a half-recipe with just oil, no butter, and I found it to be bit too heavy (butter gets aerated in mixing, oil does not). If you’re dairy-free, I’d try using Spectrum nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening (a healthy vegan shortening) in place of the butter in the cake and in the frosting, and dairy-free cream cheese in the frosting. You’ll need plenty of ripe (but not overripe) bananas, too, as the recipe calls for 1/2 cup mashed and 2 cups diced (between 4 and 5 ripe bananas total). And if you don’t have crushed pineapple, you can crush whole or diced pineapple in a food mill or simply by placing it in a sealed zip-top bag and squishing it with your hands. Just be sure that bag is zipped up tight!

Can you see just how tender the cake is?? You can make the cakes ahead of time, but don’t refrigerate them or they’ll dry out. Wrap the cakes very tightly and freeze for up to a month. Then, just defrost at room temperature before frosting and serving. And remember that this is not a super stiff, thick frosting. I dare you not to sneak a spoonful of the frosting. I dare you!!

Prep time: 15 minutes       Cook time: 30 minutes       Yield: 1 double layer 9-inch cake

Ingredients

For the Cake
2 1/2 cups (350 g) all purpose gluten free flour (I used Better Batter)

1 1/4 teaspoons xanthan gum (omit if your blend already contains it)

1/2 cup (72 g) cornstarch (potato starch or arrowroot should work, too)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

6 tablespoons (84 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

6 tablespoons (84 g) vegetable oil

1 1/4 cups (250 g) granulated sugar

3 eggs (180 g, weighed out of shell) + 1 egg yolk (30 g) at room temperature, beaten

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup (100 g) mashed ripe bananas

1 8-ounce can crushed pineapple in its own juices (undrained)

2 cups (200 g) diced ripe (but not overripe) bananas

1 cup (120 g) chopped raw pecans

For the Frosting
12 ounces cream cheese (1 1/2 8-ounce packages), at room temperature

12 tablespoons (168 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

6 cups (690 g) confectioners’ sugar, plus more as necessary

For Decorating
1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped raw pecans

Directions

• First, make the cake. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease well 2 9-inch round cake pans and set them aside.

• In a medium-size bowl, place the flour, xanthan gum, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, and whisk to combine well. Set the bowl of dry ingredients aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat the butter and oil on medium-high speed until well-combined. Add the granulated sugar, eggs and vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until well-combined and the mixture begins to become pale yellow in color. Add the dry ingredients, alternating with the mashed bananas and crushed pineapple with its juices, mixing on medium speed to combine after each addition and beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. The batter will be thick. Add the diced bananas and chopped pecans, and mix by hand until the bananas and pecans are evenly distributed throughout the batter.

• Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans, and spread into an even layer in each pan with a wet spatula. Place in the center of the preheated oven and bake, rotating once, until the tops are very lightly golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of each cake comes out mostly clean, or with a few moist crumbs attached (particularly if you happen to place the toothpick into a diced banana). Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the cake pans for 15 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

• While the cake is cooling, make the frosting. In the clean bowl of a stand mixer or a clean large bowl with a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and salt, and beat to combine. Add about half of the confectioners’ sugar, and beat on medium-low speed until the sugar has been absorbed by the butter and cream cheese mixture. Add the rest of the confectioners’ sugar about 1 cup at a time, beating on medium speed to combine after each addition. Once all of the sugar has been absorbed into the mixture, increase the mixer speed to high and beat until light and fluffy. The frosting should hold its shape when scooped, but should not be completely stiff.

• To assemble the cake, place one of the cooled cakes upside down on a serving platter, place about 1 1/4 cups of frosting on top and spread into an even layer. Invert the second cake place on top of the frosting and press gently to adhere. For the neatest frosted cake, cover the entire top and sides of the cake in a very thin layer of frosting (this is called the crumb coat), and place in the freezer until very firm (about 15 minutes). Remove the cake from the freezer and cover the top and sides with the remaining frosting, spreading into an even layer. Decorate with the 1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped raw pecans and press gently to adhere. Refrigerate the decorated cake for at least 15 minutes before slicing with a sharp knife into generous slices, and serving.

• Adapted from the original 1978 Southern Living Hummingbird Cake.

D.I.Y. Friday: Gluten Free Instant Noodle Cups

I wish I could take credit for thinking of this idea for perhaps the most exciting D.I.Y. Friday recipe post yet—but I can’t. That honor belongs to Michelle Beck, a super helpful fellow reader (if you’ve asked a question on Facebook, there’s almost as much of a chance that she’ll answer as I will!). These D.I.Y. instant noodle cups are going to be responsible for classing up my husband’s work lunches (which to date have consisted of planned leftovers from the previous night’s dinner and out of alllll sorts of kindness he never ever complains) in a real hurry. These gluten free instant noodle cups have the perfect balance of robust flavors, just like the store-bought kind, but without any of the gluten—and without any of the M.S.G.

Even though the gluten free ramen noodles (don’t worry I give every detail imaginable for where to find gluten free ramen noodles, plus what to use in their place if necessary) look like the star of the noodle cup show, the real belle of the ball is the homemade gluten free vegetable bouillon powder. If you’ve never heard of nutritional yeast flakes, or heard of them but thought they were for hard core vegans only, you’re in for a treat. These inactive yeast flakes, along with of course exactly the right blend of spices, make for a super flavorful bouillon without having to resort to a store-bought bouillon package. A D.I.Y. Friday miracle!

Right in the center of the photo above, you’ll see gluten free miso paste. The miso paste, along with a bit of soy sauce, makes for the most glorious “umami” flavor. Good thing I don’t have to say “umami” out loud, because I think I’d feel like a poseur. Oh, and if you’re ever stumped on how to keep fresh scallions at home without having to care for them like they were an adopted child, I’ve got tips for that in the recipe ingredients list below.

Once you layer in the easy-to-prepare fresh ingredients in these noodle cups, just store them in the refrigerator until you’re ready to serve (at home or at the office—and if you think your kid might be able to get the cafeteria staff at school to fill the cup with hot water, these would be absolutely amazing for school!). Then, fill with hot water, cover and let steep for 2 minutes, and serve. That’s it!

Of all the D.I.Y. Friday posts we have done in the last number of weeks, this is the one that has me craving the recipe every time I look at the photos. Oh, and the D.I.Y. Gluten Free Vegetable Bouillon has tons and tons of other possibilities. I can hardly wait! Think I could get away with gluten free instant noodle cups for breakfast? ;)

Prep time: 10 minutes       Cook time: 2 minutes       Yield: 4 noodle cups

Ingredients

Bouillon Powder
1/2 cup (40 g) nutritional yeast flakes*

2 tablespoons kosher salt

2 tablespoons onion flakes (can substitute 1 tablespoon onion powder)

1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder

3/4 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon dried sage

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1/4 teaspoon wasabi powder (if you can’t find it, leave it out)*

1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

1 tablespoon coconut palm sugar (can substitute regular granulated sugar)

Instant Soup
4 “nests” gluten free ramen or rice noodles*

2 cups fresh baby spinach leaves

3/4 cup shredded carrots (from about 2 medium carrots)

1 cup cubed extra-firm tofu or diced cooked chicken

2 tablespoons gluten free miso paste*

4 teaspoons gluten free soy sauce*

1/4 cup Bouillon Powder

1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped fresh scallion greens*

*Ingredient details and sources:

• Nutritional Yeast—I used Bragg brand “Nutritional Yeast Seasoning,” and I find it online, in my local health food store and in Whole Foods. Bob’s Red Mill also makes a gluten free “Nutritional Food Yeast,” but I haven’t tried it. Nutritional yeast is an inactive form of yeast, and has a mild nutty and cheesy flavor. I’m not planning to sprinkle it on all my food, but I do love it in this bouillon powder.
• Wasabi Powder—I use Eden brand wasabi powder, as it’s reliably gluten free. I find it online and in my local health food store.
• Ramen or Rice Noodles—King Soba brand “brown rice ramen” is a gluten free ramen noodle. I bought mine on amazon.com, and have really loved it. I have also used Happy Pho brand brown rice noodles, also purchased on amazon.com, which also come in separate “nests,” which is perfect for portioning in these instant noodle cups. Annie Chun also makes gluten free Maifun rice noodles.
• Miso Paste—Miso paste is traditionally made from barley, which is of course off limits on a gluten free diet. But there are a few reliably gluten free brands of miso paste now. I have used both Eden brand gen mai miso (which I really like, but it can be a bit hard to find) and Organicville gluten free miso pastes, which I found at Whole Foods. If you can’t find miso paste, try adding some Fish Sauce for the pronounced “umami” flavor that miso delivers so well.
• Soy Sauce—I usually use Kikkoman brand gluten free soy sauce or San-J brand Tamari gluten free soy sauce. Bragg brand Liquid Aminos is also a great choice.
• Scallions—It took me absolutely forever to figure this out, but I finally know how to handle keeping scallions on hand without treating them like a houseplant and having them become slimy right when I finally need them. Now, when I buy fresh scallions, I wash them and chop them, then spread them in a single layer on a lined rimmed baking sheet. Then, I place the baking sheet in the freezer until the scallions are frozen stiff. Then I transfer them to a zip-top bag and store them in the freezer. They defrost very quickly when removed from the freezer, and I can use as many or as few as I like. And once they’re frozen, they don’t smell at all, so no worries about a smelly freezer.

Directions

• First, make the bouillon powder. Place all of the bouillon ingredients in a medium-size bowl and mix to combine well. Place in a resealable glass container (a small mason jar works great), and set aside.

• Next, cook the noodles one nest at a time according to the package directions or by boiling them in about a quart of water until they separate and begin to soften. Drain in a colander and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking, and set them aside briefly.

• To assemble the instant soups, set out four heat-safe jars that can accommodate about 20 fluid ounces in volume (I used 19.6-ounce straight-sided Weck jars). In each jar, layer the ingredients in the following order: 1/2 cup spinach leaves, 1/4 cup shredded carrots, 1/2 cup tofu or chicken, 1/2 tablespoon miso paste, 1 teaspoon soy sauce, one nest of softened noodles, 1 tablespoon bouillon powder and, finally, scallion greens to taste (at least 2 tablespoons). Cover and store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

• When ready to serve, fill each container with boiling water (leaving a small space to permit covering the container) and cover tightly. Allow the container to steep for 2 minutes. Open, stir gently and enjoy.

• Adapted from Serious Eats Instant Noodles.

Crunchy Paleo Crackers

Crunchy Paleo crackers—made with almond flour? C’mon, right? How can that be? Well, if we can make crunchy Paleo chocolate chip cookies, then we can make crunchy Paleo crackers. The concept is the same: a mix of finely ground blanched almond flour and good quality tapioca starch/flour, with just the right amount of baking soda and baked low and slow makes for a truly crispy, crunchy cracker. Oh, and if you think you’re not interested in Paleo recipes, try to think of them as a whole other category of gluten free recipes that are, by definition, also dairy free. No biggie, right?

A few notes about this cracker dough: First off, don’t worry yourself over getting the dough rolled out to exactly 1/8-inch thick. And as you’re rolling out the dough, your hands are a more reliable indicator of even dough thickness than your eyes. Run your palms over the dough lightly to judge thicker spots, and then roll those out a bit thinner. Second, speaking of rolling out the dough, to avoid many of those tell-tale “wrinkles” on the dough from the parchment, don’t press quite so hard! Even, medium pressure on the rolling pin should do it. Just keep rolling back and forth until the dough is the proper thickness. Finally, as indicated in the recipe directions, you will need to add water by the 1/8 teaspoonful until the dough holds together well. Without the water, the dough will feel moist but will still crumble, due to the oils in the almond flour. If you try to roll out the dough and find that it breaks apart into very irregular pieces during rolling, just knead in a bit more water. Trust me!

Your cracker squares do not need to be quite so clean. As always, I have to have clean lines and only photo the most gorgeous-looking crackers, or you really just wouldn’t want to make the recipe, right? But as long as you don’t plan to photograph your food like I do, some craggy edges aren’t going to hurt anyone. Do make shapes of relatively uniform size, though, just so the crackers all bake at the same rate. Oh, and if you don’t like the seeds? Leave ‘em out! Easy peasy.

Prep time: 15 minutes       Cook time: 15 minutes       Yield: About 7 dozen crackers

Ingredients

1 cup (120 g) finely ground blanched almond flour (Honeyville is a great brand, so is nuts.com)

3/4 cup (90 g) tapioca starch/flour,* plus more for sprinkling

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

3 tablespoons sesame and/or poppy seeds

1 tablespoon (14 g) virgin coconut oil, melted and cooled (you can also use Spectrum nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening 1:1 by weight)

1 egg (50 g, weighed out of shell) at room temperature, beaten

Lukewarm water, by the 1/8 teaspoonful

*I only recommend buying tapioca starch/flour from nuts.com or Authentic Foods. Bob’s Red Mill tapioca starch is of inconsistent quality. Do not buy tapioca starch/flour from the Asian food store as it is frequently contaminated and will not work in this recipe.

Directions

• Preheat your oven to 325°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper and set it aside.

• In a large bowl, place the almond flour, tapioca starch/flour, salt, baking soda and seeds, and whisk to combine well. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients, add the coconut oil, egg, and 1/8 teaspoon water, and mix until the dough comes together. Knewad in more water by the 1/8 teaspoonful until the dough holds together without crumbling.

• Place the cracker dough between two large sheets of unbleached parchment paper and roll out as close to 1/8-inch thick as possible. To prevent the rolled-out dough from having a crinkled appearance, do not press too hard with the rolling pin. Rather, apply medium pressure and roll back and forth over the dough. Remove the top layer of parchment paper and cut out shapes that are approximately 1 1/4-inch square using a cookie cutter, pizza or pastry wheel, or sharp knife. Lift the shapes off the parchment with an offset spatula or knife, and place about 1/2-inch apart on the prepared baking sheet.

• Place in the center of the preheated oven and bake until lightly golden brown all over and dry to the touch, about 15 minutes. Allow to cool completely on the baking sheet. Store in a sealed glass container (not plastic!) at room temperature to maintain crispness.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip LARABAR Copycats

These peanut butter chocolate chip LARABAR copycat bars are the perfect D.I.Y. Friday entry: LARABARS are naturally gluten free, so even though they’re a copycat recipe, they don’t belong in, say, Gluten Free Classic Snacks, and most of us have no doubt bought them in a pinch. They’re simple, but seriously delicious and even though the peanut butter chocolate chip variety is one of my favorite LARABARs, I actually like this D.I.Y. version even better. I am resisting the urge to apologize to you for sneaking in a D.I.Y. Friday-type recipe on, well, a Wednesday. It’s just that a reader requested this version in the comments, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. And I already have a very exciting D.I.Y. planned for this Friday and I can’t hold out. Is that something of an apology? Must.stop.apologizing.for.nothing.

I made these with Enjoy Life miniature chocolate chips to keep the whole dairy-free thing going, and well really because that is just my hands-down favorite brand of chocolate chips. They have just the right amount of sweetness and manage to hold their shape without being waxy. They can be kind of expensive but they seem to go on sale quite a lot, and when they do I stock up.

The LARABARs themselves don’t have coconut oil as an ingredient, but I find that it really helps hold the bars together particularly well. The mixture is ready to be pressed into the pan when it holds together when squeezed, but it will seem like moist crumbles. If you process it until it looks like it’s already holding together without being squeezed, you probably have processed the nuts into nut butter. You’ll know when you get there. No worries.

I can honestly say that not only do I give these to my children, along with some fresh fruit, for breakfast, but I have been eating one for breakfast myself and I’m not hungry for hours afterward. For someone like me who develops recipes all day long, not having an appetite for hours is not necessarily an asset, but it’s definitely good for my health. Plus, it makes me feel great about giving them to my kids before they head off to school. Oh, and if you need to make these peanut-free, try replacing the peanuts with raw cashews 1:1 by weight. They’re more mild in taste, but still delicious!

Prep time: 10 minutes       Cook time: none       Yield: 10 to 12 bars

Ingredients

3 cups (345 g) roasted unsalted peanuts (I have also used a mix of peanuts and raw cashews, and made them with all cashews with success)

1/2 pound pitted medjool (or deglet noor) dates

4 tablespoons (56 g) virgin coconut oil, melted

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

3 ounces miniature chocolate chips (I used Enjoy Life brand, as they’re my favorite)

Directions

• Line an 8-inch square baking pan with two criss-crossed sheets of unbleached parchment paper, making sure the paper overhangs the pan on all sides. Set the pan aside.

• In a food processor fitted with the steel blade, process the peanuts on high speed until small crumbs form (about 20 seconds). Add the dates, melted coconut oil and salt, and pulse about 4 times or until the mixture forms wet clumps and holds together well when pressed together with your hands. Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking pan, add the chocolate chips and toss to evenly distribute the chips throughout. Press the mixture firmly into one even, compressed layer. Place the baking pan in the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes or until firm.

• Once firm, remove the bars from the pan by the overhung parchment paper and place on a cutting board. Slice into 10 to 12 equal rectangles with a large, sharp knife. Wrap each bar individually in plastic wrap or wax paper, and store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Gluten Free Custard Cake

When I first saw this custard cake, I figured it was some kind of fancypants cake that had 3 distinct layers, each baked separately and then assembled or something. I tossed it up there on my Must Make Gluten Free Pinterest Board, and figured that if you were into it, I’d buckle down and get the job done. (It’s not like I’m one to shy away from some fancypants recipes.) Anyway, judging from the number of repins and ♥s, you were game—which means so was I. Imagine my relief (and now I hope yours!) to see that it has the simplest, most basic ingredient list ever (butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, salt). Don’t you love it when that happens? By the way, if it looks like the most tender and moist vanilla cake you’ve ever tasted, buckle up. That’s exactly what this magic tastes-like-custard-cake is.

I’ll skip the baking-as-life-metaphor lesson, but you get the idea. It’s all in the way the ingredients are handled, really. And in knowing what to expect at each stage of assembly, baking and cooling.

I don’t mean to brag but I happen to know the most important details when it comes to beating egg whites until they’re them light and fluffy but still stable enough to handle some manhandling as you incorporate them into a cake batter. First, you must beat the whites until they’re stiff (but not ever dry, where they start to look a bit curdled when handled) on medium-high speed—not high! Egg whites are a lot like whipping heavy cream in that way: whip them too quickly and you have an unstable whipe. Second, you always want to add some sort of stabilizer to the whites as you beat them (here, I used lemon juice, but sometimes I use cream of tartar or a tiny touch of mild vinegar). Finally, if your recipes calls for sugar, beat some of the sugar into the whites. It creates a glossy, stiff and more stable peak (no off-color jokes please ;).

Other than beating the whites just right, the other secret to success with this super simple, incredibly light and tender cake that actually smells and tastes like you’re eating custard by the forkful is what to expect when it bakes: the cake bakes up pretty tall at a relatively low (325°F) oven temperature (it’s ready when the top is lightly golden brown and the center springs back when pressed gently), and then shrinks as it cools. That’s how you get that custard-like center. It’s like you made a soufflé, and you meant for it to fall a bit. Hey, I wonder if that is how this magically delicious vanilla cake got its start…?

Prep time: 10 minutes       Cook time: 50 minutes       Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

3/4 cup (105 g) all purpose gluten free flour (I used Better Batter)

1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if your blend already contains it)

2 tablespoons (18 g) cornstarch (or try potato starch or arrowroot in its place)

4 eggs (240 g, weighed out of shell, total) at room temperature, separated

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

3/4 cup (150 g) granulated sugar

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

9 tablespoons (126 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2 cups (16 fluid ounces) warm milk (about 95°F)

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Directions

• Preheat your oven to 325°F. Grease well the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking dish, and set it aside. In a small bowl, place the flour, xanthan gum and cornstarch, whisk to combine well and set the bowl aside.

• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, or a large bowl with a handheld mixer, beat the egg whites and lemon juice on medium-high speed until frothy. Add about half of the granulated sugar, and continue to beat on medium-high speed until stiff, glossy (but not dry) peaks form (about 2 minutes). If using a stand mixer, transfer the egg white mixture to another bowl, set the egg whites aside and place the egg yolks, remaining sugar and vanilla in the mixer bowl and beat on medium-high speed with the paddle attachment until well-combined and pale. If using a hand mixer, set the bowl aside, place the egg yolks, remaining sugar and vanilla in a separate, large bowl and beat on medium-high speed until well-combined and pale.

• To the egg yolk mixture, add the melted butter, and beat to combine well. Add the flour mixture and the warm milk to the bowl in three parts each, beginning and ending with the flour and beating until just combined after each addition. The mixture will be thin. Add the beaten egg whites to the batter in three parts, whisking gently to combine after each addition until no obvious white streaks remain. The final cake batter should be light and fluffy. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and place in the center of the preheated oven. Bake until the top of the cake is lightly golden brown and springs back when pressed gently in the center (about 50 minutes). The cake will expand quite a lot in size, but will still be a bit jiggly when shaken gently back and forth.

• Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes in the pan before slicing into squares with a sharp knife, while the cake is still in the pan. The cake will shrink on all sides as it cools. Dust lightly with confectioners’ sugar before serving.

• Adapted from Kanela y Limón’s pastel inteligente. You chose it from my Must Make Gluten Free Pinterest Board!

D.I.Y. Friday: Chocolate Coconut Chew LARABAR Copycat

Happy Friday, and welcome back to D.I.Y. Fridays, an occasional blog series in which I show you how to D.I.Y. a basic (sometimes naturally gluten free) recipe (like today’s Chocolate Coconut Chew LARABAR copycat recipe) or other ingredient that you might be inclined to buy. I still call it an “occasional blog series,” since I’m worried that Imma run out of ideas. So I give myself a cushion. These bars are so incredibly easy, and to be honest when I first made them I was really just looking for some more no-bake granola bars to stash away for my kids’ breakfasts. I wasn’t even *gasp* trying to develop a blog or cookbook recipe. Imagine that! When they came out so perfect, I made them again and again because clearly I was on to something—and I had to share it with you. First, since they have no oats and no refined sugars and stuff, I figured I’d bill them as “Paleo Granola Bars.” But then … I realized that they were actually a chocolate coconut chew LARABAR copycat. When I was developing recipes for my next cookbook, Gluten Free Classic Snacks, I planned on a few LARABAR copycat recipes. But then I realized that, since they’re already naturally gluten free and available absolutely everywhere, they didn’t much belong in that cookbook (which is filled with 100+ recipes that you can’t find anywhere else for gluten free snacks and treats that you simply cannot buy). But D.I.Y. Friday? Oh yeah. They’re perfect for it.

The LARABARs themselves are made with unsweetened cocoa powder, not melted unsweetened chocolate like these, their namesake copycat bars. But I find that it’s much easier to make these with melted chocolate since it really helps hold the bars together. And if they don’t actually hold together, they’re not bars. Amiright?

Look how few ingredients! You do need to make them in a food processor, though. You could replace the whole blanched almonds with an equal amount, by weight, of blanched almond flour, but there’s still the matter of the dates and processing those. If anyone has any creative ideas on how to avoid the processor for the dates, let us know in the comments!

I really like the coconut chips to be more lightly processed, since they give the bars some interesting texture—not to mention making them prettier. When you’re dealing with dark brown bars, some visual interest is a very.good.thing.

Okay, now tell me: I need more D.I.Y. Friday ideas! Take a quick look through the D.I.Y. archives, and shout out some ideas in the comments. You lovely people are and will remain my best source of inspiration. You complete me. :)

Prep time: 10 minutes       Cook time: none       Yield: 10 bars

Ingredients

2 cups raw blanched almonds (230 g) (I have also used raw cashews)

1/2 pound pitted medjool (or deglet noor) dates

4 tablespoons (56 g) virgin coconut oil, melted

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup (80 g) raw coconut flakes

Directions

• Line an 8-inch square baking pan with two criss-crossed sheets of unbleached parchment paper, making sure the paper overhangs the pan on all sides. Set the pan aside.

• In a food processor fitted with the steel blade, process the almonds on high speed until small crumbs form (about 20 seconds). Add the dates, melted coconut oil, melted chocolate and salt, and pulse about 4 times or until the mixture holds together well. Add the coconut flakes, and pulse quickly and briefly (at most, 2 times) until the flakes are about 1/4 their original size. Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking pan and press firmly into one even, compressed layer. Place the baking pan in the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes or until firm.

• Once firm, remove the bars from the pan by the overhung parchment paper and place on a cutting board. Slice into 10 equal rectangles with a large, sharp knife. Wrap each bar individually in plastic wrap or wax paper, and store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Easy Gluten Free Chicken and Dumplings

You already know that, if you ask me, whatever the (dinner) question, gluten free biscuits are the answer (preferably the Extra Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits from page 227 of GFOAS Bakes Bread, but the Gluten Free Biscuits from the blog are mighty fine, too). So I always ALWAYS have at least one batch of shaped round biscuits in my freezer. Just make a batch, freeze them in a single layer on a baking sheet until solid, then pile them into a zip-top bag until you’re ready to use them. If you’re baking them as-is, there’s no need to defrost them at all. If you’re planning to shape them in some other way before baking (or cooking), just let them defrost in the refrigerator (it doesn’t take very long at all—a couple hours at most). You already knew that. But maybe you didn’t know this: put together those amazing biscuits with some chicken stock and our homemade cream of chicken soup (long live D.I.Y. Fridays!) along with some cooked cubed chicken, maybe a couple vegetables, and you have a near-instant, super-easy gluten free chicken and dumplings.

The only ingredients you really actually need for this recipe are 4: the condensed soup, biscuits, cubed chicken and chicken stock. The carrots, celery thyme, bay leaf, thyme and parsley? Strictly optional. Oh and I have also taken to cooking skinless boneless chicken breasts with simple salt, pepper and olive oil under the broiler (see full instructions below), then cubing the chicken and freezing it in freezer bags for some of the quickest meals ever. Like this one! Of course, you already know that the condensed soup can be made at least a week ahead of time. And since it already has mountains of flavor, a thick and rich chicken and dumpling soup is a no-brainer.

The flaky biscuits make some of the simplest, most delicious dumplings you’ve ever tasted—and we slice them small enough that they cook very quickly (about 3 minutes in the boiling soup) but not so small that they fall apart. 8 wedges per round biscuit is the perfect size. Now that’s a weeknight meal everyone can get behind!

Prep time: 10 minutes       Cook time: 15 minutes       Yield: 5 to 6 servings

Ingredients

1 recipe gluten free biscuit dough (I used the Extra Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits from page 227 of GFOAS Bakes Bread, but the Gluten Free Biscuits from the blog would work just fine, too—try using buttermilk in place of milk or cream), chilled

6 cups (48 fluid ounces) chicken stock, plus more if necessary to thin the soup

1 cup peeled and shredded carrots (from about 3 medium carrots)

1/3 cup minced celery (from about 1 medium celery stalk)

2 sprigs fresh thyme

1 dried bay leaf

1 recipe (about 3 1/2 cups by volume or about 24 ounces by weight) gluten free cream of chicken soup (without the added cooked chicken)—or you can use 2 containers of Pacific Cream of Chicken Soup, which is gluten free

2 cups cooked cubed chicken*

Fresh flat-leaf parsley, for sprinkling (optional)

*I just placed 1 1/4 pounds skinless boneless chicken breasts on a greased and lined baking sheet, sprinkled them on both sides with 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt and 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper and drizzled them with extra virgin olive oil. Then I placed them under my oven’s broiler for about 12 minutes, flipping them about halfway through, or until they were cooked all the way through. You can also use a store-bought gluten free rotisserie chicken, which would make things simple and still delicious!

Directions

• Using a sharp knife, slice each chilled round biscuit into 8 wedges. Place the wedges on a baking sheet and place in the refrigerator to chill while you make the soup.

• In a large stockpot, place the 6 cups chicken stock, carrots, celery, thyme and bay leaf, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce to a simmer and cook, covered, for 5 minutes or until the celery has softened. Uncover the pot, remove the bay leaf and thyme with a strainer. Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs and add them to the pot. Add the cream of chicken soup, stir to combine and return to a gentle boil.

• Add the chilled biscuit wedges to the boiling liquid and stir gently to make sure the biscuits don’t stick to the bottom of the pot. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the dumplings are cooked through. They will float to the bottom of the pot after a minute or so. Uncover the pot, add the cubed chicken and stir gently to combine (taking care not to break up any of the dumplings). Reduce the heat to a simmer and allow to cook until the chicken is heated through. Add more chicken stock to thin the soup if you prefer it a bit thinner, stirring gently to combine. Ladle into deep bowls, sprinkle with the optional parsley and serve hot.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Crumb Muffins

Every summer, I long for the fall baking season and just think how great everything will be and that we’ll never ever run out of things to bake together. I bet you’re expecting me to say well I was wrong and I’m finally bored with fall after all the years of writing recipes, but … I was RIGHT. There really is no end to things we can bake this time of year. I’ve always been a big fan of crumb-topped baking, like these blueberry oat bars and these apricot crumble bars. It’s just the perfect way to take bars and muffins and other quick breads from ho-hum ordinary to something really special, creating instant texture and flavor variations. I’ll admit it, though: my crumble toppings are usually loaded with butter and sugar. I just love it when the crumble almost shatters in your mouth when you bite into it, and that takes butter and plenty of it. These gluten free pumpkin crumb muffins march to the beat of a somewhat different drummer, though.

The crumble topping has my favorite homemade pumpkin butter mixed all up in there, which adds tons of flavor but also a bit more moisture, and less butter (and sugar) than you might expect. The oats and flour help to give the topping structure, so don’t leave those out!

And there’s enough pumpkin butter in the muffin batter itself that the muffins are soft and tender as could be, and they even need a fair amount less butter than my usual muffins call for. This time of year, I make batches and batches of pumpkin butter, though, so I always have some on hand (try mixing some pumpkin or apple butter in to your plain yogurt and see what that’s like!). But if you don’t feel like making your own pumpkin butter, you can of course use store-bought. Trader Joe’s makes a pumpkin butter that is really quite good. And sometimes it’s nice to just grab something off the shelf and make your life easy.

After making a few batches of these to get them just right, I served them to my children day after day for breakfast, and I’m not sorry about it at all.

Prep time: 10 minutes       Cook time: 25 minutes       Yield: 15 muffins

Ingredients

Crumb Topping
1/4 cup (55 g) packed light brown sugar

4 tablespoons (56 g) unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup (25 g) certified gluten free old-fashioned rolled oats

2 tablespoons (18 g) all purpose gluten free flour

1 ounce pumpkin butter

Muffins
1 1/2 cups + 2 tablespoons (230 g) all purpose gluten free flour (I used Better Batter)

1 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if your blend already contains it)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice*

1/2 cup (100 g) sugar

4 tablespoons (56 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup (114 g) plain yogurt, at room temperature

5 ounces pumpkin butter, at room temperature

2 eggs (120 g, weighed out of shell) at room temperature, beaten

*To make your own pumpkin pie spice, combine 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon + 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger + 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice, 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves + 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg.

Directions

• Preheat your oven to 325°F. Grease or line the wells of a standard 12-cup muffin tin, and set it aside.

• Make the crumb topping first. In a small bowl, place all of the crumb topping ingredients, and mix to combine. Place the bowl in the freezer while you make the muffin batter.

• In a large bowl, place the flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pumpkin pie spice and sugar, and whisk to combine well. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and add the butter, yogurt, pumpkin butter and eggs, mixing to combine after each addition. The batter will be thick. Fill the wells of the prepared muffin tin about 2/3 of the way full (you will have some batter left over). Remove the crumb topping from the freezer and break it up into irregular pieces with the tines of a fork. Scatter enough crumb topping loosely on top of the batter in each of the muffin wells to fill the wells all the way. Press down gently on the crumb topping to help the topping adhere to the batter.

• Place in the center of the preheated oven and bake for 25 minutes, or until the muffins are lightly golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. The muffins should also feel mostly firm when pressed gently in the center. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining batter and crumb topping.

Starbucks-Style Gluten Free Apple Fritters

My oldest child is in travel softball. What that means for me is I’ve been doing quite a bit of traveling to tournaments (sometimes near, sometimes far), oftentimes pretty early in the morning. And then I do a whole lot of sitting and watching her play, then moving my chair to another field, and sitting and watching her play some more. Why does sitting in one place watching someone else work hard and run around make me so incredibly tired? That’s another matter entirely, though. Here’s the point, for our purposes: although on a regular weekday you’d never catch me buying, rather than making, my coffee, these weekend tournament trips mean that I’ve found myself in plenty of Starbucks and other assorted coffee houses. Particularly when the line at Starbucks is long (when isn’t it??), I spend loads of time just staring into the display case. Not that I ever order anything other than coffee (I’m gluten free all the time out of solidarity with my gluten free son, and with all of you, if you want to know the honest truth), but I want to. Because honestly some may differ on the quality and flavor of their coffee (I’m not usually much of a fan), but Starbucks’ baked goods are across-the-board lovely—or at the very least look and smell that way. Lately, I’ve been dreaming most often about their apple fritters. And it turns out that the Japanese Milk Bread from page 59 of GFOAS Bakes Bread makes an excellent gluten free apple fritters, in the Starbucks style. Dream realized. Craving? Satisfied.

There really aren’t very many steps, but I took lots of photos to really spell things out since I think that can be quite helpful. Don’t you agree? And since I’ve made a habit of doing these step-by-step collages, it’s not like you have to painstakingly scroll through a million photos. I find that dividing the dough into 12 pieces, treating the cooked and diced apples like filling, then scattering more apples on top before frying the fritters to perfection creates the perfect ratio of dough-to-apple in every bite.

These apple fritters are everything I dreamed they’d be: lightly sweet (they really do need the glaze, since it’s by far the sweetest part), nice and fluffy and packed with slightly tart cooked apples inside, and just crisp enough outside. The apples in the middle of the dough, along with those on top of each fritter, keep the fritters tasting fresh even the next day (as long as you wrap the fritters up tight and store them at room temperature). And cooking the apples before frying means that you don’t have to overcook the pastries just to get the apples tender enough without being mushy. Add these gluten free apple fritters to the ever-increasing list of Starbucks copycat recipes here on the blog!

Prep time: 20 minutes       Cook time: 10 minutes       Yield: 12 fritters

Ingredients

1 recipe Gluten Free Japanese Milk Bread dough (I used the recipe on page 59 of GFOAS Bakes Bread, but this older blog recipe for Japanese Milk Bread works as well)

1 tablespoon (14 g) unsalted butter

2 apples, peeled, cored and diced (I used Granny Smith, but any firm apple will do)

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon (12 g) granulated sugar

Oil, for frying (I used a combination of equal parts canola oil and Spectrum nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening)

Glaze
1/2 cup (58 g) confectioners’ sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons milk (any kind), plus more by the 1/4 teaspoonful if necessary

Directions

• Prepare the bread dough. If using the Japanese milk bread dough from GFOAS Bakes Bread, prepare the dough through its first rise* and allow it to sit in the refrigerator while you prepare the apples. If using the Japanese milk bread dough from the blog, prepare it according to the recipe directions through step 3 of that recipe, then place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and set it aside.

  *The dough can be made and worked with on the same day, although it may be more difficult to handle than if it has a 12-hour (or up to 5-day) rise in a sealed container in the refrigerator. Simply place the covered dough in a warm, draft-free environment until doubled in size, then place in the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes and proceed with the rest of the recipe.

• Cook the apples. In a large sauté pan over medium heat, melt the butter. Placed the diced apples, cinnamon and sugar in the pan, and stir to combine. Sauté the apples, stirring occasionally, until they are just fork tender. Remove from the heat and set the pan aside to allow the apples to cool.

• Shape the bread dough. If using the bread dough from the book, turn out the chilled dough onto a lightly floured surface and, using the scrape and fold kneading method and a very light touch, sprinkle the dough with more flour and knead it lightly, sprinkling with flour when necessary to prevent it from sticking and scraping the dough off the floured surface with a floured bench scraper, then folding it over on itself. Repeat scraping and folding until the dough has become smoother. Do not overwork the dough or you will incorporate too much flour and it will not rise properly. If using the Japanese milk bread dough from the blog, prepare it according to the recipe directions through step 3 of that recipe. With either dough, line a large baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper and spray the paper with cooking oil. This will make it much easier to lift the fritters into the fryer after they have finished rising. Divide the dough in half, then each half into half again and so on until you have 12 equal pieces (each about 3 ounces). Roll each piece of dough into a round, sprinkling lightly with more flour as necessary to prevent sticking, and then pat into a round about 1/2-inch thick. Scatter about 1 1/2 tablespoons of the cooked diced apples on top and toward the center of each round, and lift the edges of the dough up and over to seal in the apples. Invert each piece of dough and, sprinkling lightly with flour as necessary to prevent sticking, pat it into a round about 1/2-inch thick. Place the pieces of prepared dough about 2 inches apart from one another on the prepared baking sheet. Cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap, and set in a warm, draft-free location to rise for 30 minutes, or until puffed but not doubled.

• Fry the fritters. As the fritters are nearing the end of their rise, place about 3-inches of frying oil in a medium-size, heavy-bottom pot or fryer. Clip a deep-fry/candy thermometer to the side of the pot or fryer, and place the oil over medium-high heat to bring the oil temperature to a steady 325°F. Remove the plastic wrap, scatter a few more cooked diced apples on top of each raised fritter and press down gently to help them adhere. Carefully place the fritters a few at a time in the hot oil, taking care not to crowd the oil. Fry until very lightly golden brown all over (about 1 1/2 minutes per side). As soon as each batch is removed from the fryer, place on a wire rack placed over paper towels to drain and cool completely.

• Glaze the cooled fritters. While the fritters are cooling, make the glaze. In a small bowl, place the confectioners’ sugar, cinnamon and 1 1/2 teaspoons of milk. Mix well, until a thick paste forms. Add more milk by the 1/4-teaspoon, mixing to combine well, until the glaze falls off the spoon slowly, in a thick but pourable glaze. Add milk very slowly, as it is much easier to thin, than to thicken, the glaze. If you do thin the glaze too much, add more confectioners’ sugar a teaspoon at a time to thicken it. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled fritters and serve.

D.I.Y. Friday: Gluten Free Cream of (Chicken) Soup

Welcome back to D.I.Y. Fridays, an occasional blog series in which I’ll show you how to D.I.Y. a basic (sometimes naturally gluten free) recipe (like today’s homemade cream of mushroom, cream of chicken and cream of potato soups) or other ingredient that you might be inclined to buy. Cream of condensed soups are necessarily flour-based, as they’re made with a roux, a mixture of butter and flour used to thicken sauces. It’s really really important that you use my basic gum-free gluten free flour blend (or an equivalent that you prefer) to make the roux in these cream of soups, or you will have one gummy mess on your hands—and in your pots and your utensils and you get the idea. These days, companies like Progresso and Pacific Foods make gluten free cream of condensed soups, but they’re not cheap, and they’re of course not as good as what you can make at home. Plus, when you D.I.Y., you can use exactly the herbs and spices you like.

The simplest variety cream of soup is the cream of mushroom soup, as the mushrooms cook down very quickly in the beginning of the process right along with the shallots. Plus, they add really nice depth of flavor. And with Thanksgiving on its way, you know you want to make Gluten Free Green Bean Casserole. The cream of potato soup is a bit extra creamy because of the diced potatoes that simmer in the soup as it reduces and thickens.

The cream of chicken soup calls for, well, cooked cubed chicken. But frankly you can make it without adding in the chicken at the end and it still tastes amazing. If you do add the chicken, though, you’re more than halfway to these Gluten Free Chicken Pot Pies To-Go. Comfort food at its finest! Don’t be intimidated by the list of ingredients, as it’s mostly the same for each of the 3 varieties. I wanted you to have all of the recipes in one place, so I listed them together. But once you master the basic roux-based technique, you’ll be able to bring back all of those old favorite recipes your family loves. Long live D.I.Y. Fridays!

Prep time: 10 minutes       Cook time: 15 minutes       Yield: About 3 1/2 cups condensed soup

Ingredients

Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 tablespoon (14 g) extra-virgin olive oil

1 small shallot, peeled and minced

1 pound fresh button or baby portabella mushrooms, cleaned and sliced thickly

3 tablespoons (42 g) unsalted butter

5 tablespoons (45 g) basic xanthan-gum free gluten free flour blend (30 grams superfine white rice flour + 10 grams potato starch + 5 grams tapioca starch/flour)

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 cups (12 fluid ounces) vegetable stock

1 can (12 fluid ounces) evaporated milk

Cream of Chicken Soup
1 tablespoon (14 g) extra-virgin olive oil

1 small shallot, peeled and minced

3 tablespoons (42 g) unsalted butter

5 tablespoons (45 g) basic xanthan-gum free gluten free flour blend (30 grams superfine white rice flour + 10 grams potato starch + 5 grams tapioca starch/flour)

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon dried poultry seasoning (or 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley + 1 teaspoon dried sage + 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme + 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram + 1/2 teaspoon rosemary)

1 1/2 cups (12 fluid ounces) chicken stock

1 can (12 fluid ounces) evaporated milk

1 cup diced cooked chicken

Cream of Potato Soup
1 tablespoon (14 g) extra-virgin olive oil

1 small shallot, peeled and minced

3 tablespoons (42 g) unsalted butter

5 tablespoons (45 g) basic xanthan-gum free gluten free flour blend (30 grams superfine white rice flour + 10 grams potato starch + 5 grams tapioca starch/flour)

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon dry mustard powder (optional)

1 1/2 cups (12 fluid ounces) chicken or vegetable stock

1 can (12 fluid ounces) evaporated milk

1/2 pound red-skin potatoes, peeled and diced

Directions

• For the cream of mushroom soup, in a medium-size saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and mushrooms, and cook until the shallots are translucent and the mushrooms are fork tender (about 4 minutes). Transfer the mushrooms and shallots to a small bowl, and set it aside. To the same medium-size saucepan, add the butter and melt over medium heat. Add the flour blend, salt and pepper, and stir to combine well. The mixture will clump at first, and then smooth. This is the roux that will thicken the soup. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture has just begun to turn a very light brown color. Add the stock to the roux very slowly, stirring constantly to break up any lumps that might form. Add the evaporated milk, and continue to stir until the mixture is smooth. Bring the mixture to a simmer, and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced by about one-quarter (about 7 minutes). Remove the saucepan from the heat, and add the mushrooms and shallots. Stir to combine.

• For the cream of chicken soup, in a medium-size saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the shallots, and cook until translucent (about 4 minutes). Transfer the shallots to a small bowl, and set aside. To the same medium-size saucepan, add the butter and melt over medium heat. Add the flour blend, salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning, and stir to combine well. The mixture will clump at first, and then smooth. This is the roux that will thicken the soup. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture has just begun to turn a very light brown color. Add the stock to the roux very slowly, stirring constantly to break up any lumps that might form. Add the evaporated milk, and continue to stir until the mixture is smooth. Bring the mixture to a simmer, and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced by about one-quarter (about 7 minutes). Remove the saucepan from the heat, and add the cooked chicken. Stir to combine.

• For the cream of potato soup, in a medium-size saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the shallots, and cook until translucent (about 4 minutes). Transfer the shallots to a small bowl, and set aside. To the same medium-size saucepan, add the butter and melt over medium heat. Add the flour blend, salt, pepper, and optional mustard powder, and stir to combine well. The mixture will clump at first, and then smooth. This is the roux that will thicken the soup. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture has just begun to turn a very light brown color. Add the stock to the roux very slowly, stirring constantly to break up any lumps that might form. Add the evaporated milk, and continue to stir until the mixture is smooth. Add the diced potatoes , stir to combine and bring the mixture to a simmer. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are tender and the mixture is reduced by about one-quarter (about 10 minutes). Remove the saucepan from the heat.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Gluten Free Shortbread Bars

*ETA: Don’t forget! Tonight is this month’s Live Gluten Free Baking Q&A on Facebook! From 8:30 pm to 9:15 pm Eastern time, I am allllll yours to answer all of your questions about gluten free baking! I will post a new thread on My Facebook Page at precisely that time and I will answer every question I can in that time frame. It’s usually rapid fire questioning, but I type fast! Hope to see you there!

One of the most common questions I get in my (normal, boring) everyday life about both this blog and writing recipes for cookbooks is this: Wait—you write recipes for things. But how do you decide what to make up? Well, I’m not really one for crazy mashups of foods you’d never imagine together, so everything starts out pretty basic. Sometimes I just start with a flavor combination for something I really, really like and think you might like, too (here it’s peanut butter and chocolate). Or I have something in my pantry or my refrigerator I want to make use of (here, the million batches of homemade sweetened condensed milk I’ve made recently). Or both. I’ve always loved baking shortbread, too, since it’s one of the most basic cookie recipes you can imagine—flour, butter, sugar and salt. No eggs, no leaveners. Peanut butter shortbread isn’t too different, except, well, you add peanut butter. Just be sure to use the no-stir kind, which is the kind that doesn’t separate in the jar. No-stir almond butter would work beautifully, too. Add a layer of the simplest, smoothest fudge you can imagine, and you’ve got a seriously easy, gorgeously impressive dessert.

I like the shortbread layer to be as thick as possible, so I bake it in an 8-inch square pan, but if all you have is a 9-inch square pan, no worries. Just watch the baking time, as it will be done at least 5 minutes earlier. We bake the shortbread in a low (325°F) oven so that it browns evenly without becoming too crisp on the bottom. Perfect.

The crisp and buttery peanut butter shortbread layer is lovely enough, but pair it with thick, smooth chocolate peanut butter fudge (mostly chocolate, just with a couple tablespoons of peanut butter added for good measure)—the kind of fudge that is perfectly set up even at room temperature and leaves teeth marks behind? No one will ever believe how simple these bars are to make.

Prep time: 10 minutes       Cook time: 25 minutes       Yield: 16 bars

Ingredients

Peanut Butter Shortbread Layer
2 cups (280 g) all purpose gluten free flour (I used Better Batter)

1 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if your blend already contains it)

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

3/4 cup (150 g) sugar

10 tablespoons (140 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup (128 g) smooth no-stir peanut butter (the kind that doesn’t separate in the jar)

2 tablespoons milk or cream, at room temperature

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Layer
10 ounces semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips or chunks (I used Enjoy Life chocolate chunks)

12 ounces sweetened condensed milk, at room temperature (it’s less than a full 14 ounce can, by the way, if you’re using store-bought)

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

2 tablespoons (32 g) smooth no-stir peanut butter

Directions

• First, make the shortbread. Preheat your oven to 325°F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with crisscrossed sheets of unbleached parchment paper, both hanging over the sides of the pan so that you can use them to lift the bars out of the pan after baking. Set the pan aside.

• In a large bowl, place the flour, xanthan gum, salt and sugar, and whisk to combine well. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients, add the butter, peanut butter and milk or cream and mix until the dough comes together. It should be thick and smooth. Transfer the dough to the prepared baking dish and press into an even layer. Place in the center of the preheated oven and bake until evenly golden brown all over the top (about 25 minutes). Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the baking pan (about 20 minutes).

• When the shortbread is nearly cool, make the fudge layer. In a medium-size, heat-safe bowl, place the chocolate chips or chunks. Place over a simmering pan of water, making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water, stirring occasionally until melted and smooth (you can also melt the chocolate in the microwave on 60% power in 45 second intervals, stirring in between). Remove from the heat and stir in the sweetened condensed milk, salt and peanut butter until smooth. Pour the fudge immediately over the cooled shortbread (still in the pan) and spread into an even layer. Allow to set at room temperature for 10 minutes before transferring to the refrigerator to chill until completely set (about 30 minutes more). Take the pan out of the refrigerator and remove the bars from the pan by lifting up on the overhung parchment paper. With a sharp knife, slice into 16 equal squares. For the cleanest slices, wet the knife in between cuts. The fudge is stable at room temperature, so these can be served without chilling them.

• NOTE: To make these dairy-free, too, try using the dairy-free sweetened condensed milk we made in the fudge layer, and try replacing the butter in the shortbread layer with half Earth balance buttery sticks, half Spectrum nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening. And then let us know how it goes!