Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Gluten Free Kneads

Gluten Free Kneads is a company based out of Austin TX who makes DELICIOUS pizza crusts! I'd never used their crusts before but I was at Central Market (a HEB store) and saw a pack of 2 10" crusts in the freezer section where the other gluten free items are located. I grabbed a pack b/c Steve and I both LOVE thin crust pizza and these looked great. They were thin, without looking like they'd crumble apart when cooked...as is a problem with a lot of GF pizza crusts.

I made cheese pizza for lunch today and it was REALLY good. it's less greasy than I remember take-out pizza being, but thats AOK! That means its healthier.

Speaking of healthier pizza. GFK's pizza crust contains Teff flour which is a very high protein flour. It's delicious and crispy and not mushy (like some) and it made an excellent pizza!!



I'm really happy with this crust and it will definitely become my go-to pizza crust.

Friday, March 13, 2009

flour tortilla

Not your typical flour tortilla as these are made with Pamela's Baking Mix.

I have made corn tortilla's before using masa harina and water and they make up so fast and easy. I've always known that flour tortilla's were a lot more complicated, but I can't remember any recipes for them and I've grown tired of the rice tortillas I've been eating...they are good, just a bit dry and chewey for sandwiches.

I'm really starting to LOVE the Pamela's Baking Mix for just about everything...it's a little pricey ($16/4lb) but I have been using it in normal recipes as my 'flour' and reducing the other leavening ingredients accordingly and it's working...that's really handy and quite frankly, easier than mixing my own flours.

So, back on topic, I grabbed my bag of 'flour', the margarine an the coconut milk out of the fridge.

I warmed the coconut milk in the microwave so that it thinned out...about 15 seconds on high and stirred thoroughly. Set aside.

2 Tablespoons margarine
3/4 cup 'flour'
coconut milk, as needed for consistency
The baking mix already has the leavening and salt added, so its not necessary to add them.

Margarine and flour in a bowl and mash till coarse crumbs. add little bits of the milk and stir. you want a slightly moist but NOT wet or sticky ball to form. kneed for a couple minutes and add flour if it's sticking to your hands.

make into 5 equal sized balls and place between 2 pieces of plastic wrap (or wax paper). flatten with a tortilla press or a rolling pin (or the bottom of a large pan) to a tortilla thickness...a little thicker is easier to handle while it's in this stage.

one at a time put into a DRY frying pan on heat level 3, if electric (medium-low if gas). agitate pan so that it doesn't stick and can slide around in pan a little bit. After 30 seconds, carefully turn over and continue heating. Turn over several times till desired done-ness/brownness.

Place on wet, but squeezed out, papertowels (or wet regular towels). Continue cooking & covering till all are made.

I made mine about the width of a slice of bread and used it as my bread today for a tuna sandwich. It was the first non-corn/rice tortilla sandwich I've had in 2 years and it was awesome. seriously.

May not be the BEST way to make flour tortilla's but it worked for me and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

if you make some, link em! I wanna see yours too. :)


not the best picture, but I ate the others already! LOL

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

I am so disappointed in myself. I made the BEST banana bread loaf tonight.

I made it without measuring anything...without even really knowing what I was going to make until I already had about half the ingredients in.

here's what I did and what I was thinking as I did it:
1. hmmm, i would really like a grilled cheese sammich right now. but I can't eat Steve's bread b/c it's got wheat flour and I don't have any bread...and I don't want to use a brown rice tortilla again. it's not the same.
2. I know! I read a blog the other day where somebody made flour tortillas and I think I can make something similar and then have bread for making a sammich.
3. ok, that blog started out with butter and flour being cut in together... ok, thats a decent amount of butter (3 T, maybe, used a fork and didn't measure a damn thing) and 2/3 cup Pamela's Baking Mix.
4. Turn oven on at 350
5. cut it all together till it's a coarse mix.
6. I remember that they added milk and then kneeded a while...Pulled the half and half (no milk at our house) and an egg out of the fridge. cracked the egg into the mixture and poured a little half and half in (1/4 cup-ish)
7. That banana sitting 2 ft away on the counter sure is getting a bit ripe...I'll make banana bread. unwrapped huge banana and threw it in, whole. Used the same fork i've been using all along to mash it up and mix it together.
8. banana bread should be slightly sweet...grabs agave nectar out of pantry and vanilla extract from spice cabinet. poured 2ish T of vanilla in and mixed together. Squeezed agave...maybe 1/2 cup into mix. Mixed together really well.
9. banana bread was looking WAY too wet, so I added 1/3 cup Pamela's Baking Mix and 1 more egg for leavening luck. still using fork, mixed it all together really well.
10. pulled out loaf pan and sprayed liberally with non-stick spray.
11. poured into loaf pan and put in fridge for 10 minutes while oven finished heating up.
12. baked for 45 minutes.

PERFECT banana bread. It is SO good. It's got a crisp crust, but not hard or dry. The inside is very moist and banana-y. It's lightly sweet, but you don't think sweet when you eat it, you think banana bread. It's awesome.

I could just kick myself for not measuring as I did it. Also, no grilled cheese tonight. Maybe I'll actually get around to making the tortilla's tomorrow. LOL

Also, in case I haven't mentioned it before, I LOVE Pamela's baking mix. I use it like regular flour (xcept I know it's already got the baking soda/flour mixed in) and can, almost, use regular recipes. I don't think it's a perfect replication of wheat flour because it does have a lot of nut flour in it that can be tasted, but it's still SO good and awesome.

Friday, March 6, 2009

60 cupcakes!


Cupcakes!!!

Who doesn't love cupcakes? Little cup sized cakes. So cute! Isn't everything that comes in a miniature cuter than it's larger counterpart?

Anyway, today's post is NOT gluten free, but these adorable cupcakes aren't for me. I accepted a gig baking and decorating cupcakes for someone's 30th birthday party. Which meant I needed to make a bunch of cupcakes and decorate them. 60 cupcakes to be exact.

12 Vegan cupcakes
24 chocolate cupcakes
24 vanilla cupcakes

The birthday girl told me she wanted them frosted with pink frosting and that she wanted to be able to tell the Vegan ones apart from the regular easily. And she said she wanted purple involved in the decorations. Other than that, she didn't care how I decorated them. The vegan ones have those adorable little white flowers on top and the rest have cute little purple flowers on top.

I'm excited to have a decorating gig already. Shh, don't tell her she is my first.