boston cream pie!

I read several baking blogs and one, Cupcake Takes the Cake, mentioned some Boston Cream Pie cupcakes the other day and reading about them made me decide that I NEEDED to make some that are gluten free! I've always loved boston cream pie and it's been years since I've had a slice.

Obviously going gluten free has made eating baked goods from restaurants or bakeries practically impossible since there aren't any dedicated gluten free ones around me...There used to be one in my neighborhood, but it closed down a couple weeks ago.

I've always assumed it was really hard to make so it just stayed in the very back of my mind laying dormant until the time came that I was prepared to tackle such a "complicated" desert.



I used the quotes around the word complicated because this is one of the easiest desert that I could make. It's not hard at all! Who knew?!?!

I used the new Betty Crocker GF Yellow Cake mix for my cupcakes and some bavarian cream filling that I bought from my local cake decorating shop. I piped it right in thru the top of the cupcakes and then covered with a delicious chocolate ganache topping made from 1 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate chips and 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream heated to melting and whisked until thick and completely mixed.

MMM!

Test 2: Betty Crocker GF Brownies

The directions on the box call for 1/2 stick butter (1/4 cup) and 2 eggs.

The butter should be soft, but not melted. I mixed all the ingredients and stirred until all the mix was wet and all the butter/eggs incorporated. The batter was really thick (and tasty). :)

The box doesn't show times for making muffins or mini muffins, but I was out of town this weekend with 16 other people and knew that a regular pan of brownies wouldn't be enough, so I made 2 boxes of the mix into mini-muffins.

I placed mini liners into the pans, spooned tablespoon sized dollops into them and baked them at 350 for 15 minutes. They turned out delicious. The very centers were really gooey and the edges chewy and yum! I suppose I could have baked then 1 more minute, but they were good as they were.



I spooned a little Cream Cheese Frosting on the tops of them because I think brownies are always good with cream cheese frosting. I wanted to drizzle melted caramel over the tops too but I didn't have any caramels to melt. Anyway, they were still delicious and I left some without frosting for the brownie purists out there.



Betty Crocker definitely has GF figured out. These brownies were really good. And the next day, they are still really good.

In a few weeks/months I'll try test out the cake...right now I'm really baked out.

RE-Test 1: Betty Crocker GF Chocolate Chip Cookies

RE-TEST! I was so bothered by the results last night, knowing that Betty Crocker has higher standards than the results I was getting, that I decided to open the 2nd box and give the cookies another try.

This time I used butter and stuck with only 1 teaspoon of vanilla.

The dough was thick and crumbly just like the box said it would be. I contribute that more to the butter than the vanilla.

I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I didn't realize the impact butter vs margarine has on GF cookies. As a matter of fact, the reason I used margarine last night was that I had read some reviews that the cookies spread a lot and margarine doesn't cause as much spreading as butter. Boy did that backfire!!!

Lesson learned: in GF cooking, margarine causes less cohesion of ingredients. if recipe calls for BUTTER, use it and don't substitute with margarine.

I spooned 1 tablespoon size spaced 2 inches apart on baking sheet and baked for 8 minutes. Turned out great! Very cookie like. Very tasty and didn't crumble into a gazillion pieces like last nights batch did.



If you follow the instructions exactly, these make excellent cookies. Quick to mix up, quick to bake and tastes good too!

Test 1: Betty Crocker GF Chocolate Chip Cookies

The directions on the box call for 1/2 cup butter (I used margarine), 1 egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used 2).

The dough was about the consistency of thick cake batter, but according to the box directions, it should be thick and crumbly. I know I measured the margarine correctly. Could 1 extra teaspoon of vanilla really make this big of a difference? It's never affected my baked goods in this way before...even in GF baking. I'm puzzled.

Moving on, I followed the instructions dropping a tablespoon per cookie spaced 2 inches apart on my baking sheet and baked for 8 minutes. 6 cookies.



The cookies spread out flat and the very edges were crispy with the middles being done and soft. Trying to remove them from the cookie sheet was a problem. Even though I used a nonstick pan, the cookies stuck. One fell apart completely coming off the pan.



After cooling they did not hold together well. They are very crumbly and I believe it to be a lack of binding gum in the ingredients. Some people don't believe Xanthan Gum or Guar Gum is necessary in a cookie, but I definitely believe it would have helped this 1st batch.

Taste Test: flavor is great! Texture is poor but I contribute that to the dough consistency prior to cooking...dough is too wet to make a good cookie texture. Plan to re-examine texture in batch 2.


2nd batch of 6 cookies:
Chilled dough in refrigerator for one hour then scooped out 1 tablespoon cookies spaced 2 inches apart. Baked for 8 minutes. Reasoning on chilling dough: Gluten Free flours tend to absorb more liquid than their gluten-d counterparts. Since my dough seemed a bit viscous, I thought it might help to give the dough time to absorb whatever moisture was making it that way and thicken up a bit before cooking.

Upon removing from the oven, they looked about the same as first batch but seemed to spread just a tad less. They were just as difficult to remove from the baking sheet and after letting them cool actually fell apart MORE than the first batch.



Taste test, re-test texture: taste great, texture poorest of all. This is not eating a cookie, but more like going to a crumb festival. :(



3rd batch of 6 cookies:
Added 2 tablespoon Sweet Rice Flour and 1/4 teaspoon Xanthan Gum to remaining dough. Dough was much more thick, but still not as dry as the box indicated it would be. I felt like the consistency was close to the GF cookie dough that I make from scratch. I Scooped 1 tablespoon cookies spaced 2 inches apart and baked for 8 minutes.

This batch fluffed up on the baking sheet. That is due to the Xanthan Gum...but they stuck together and were totally cohesive. And they were really easy to remove from the cookie sheet.


They were a bit cakelike but tasted really good. Edges and middle were equally soft.




Next time, I suppose I'll stick with 1T vanilla extract and use butter instead of margarine and see if that makes them bake as the box describes. :)

Betty Crocker

I keep reading about all the people who have found and tried the new Betty Crocker Gluten Free mixes. I see all the reviews and they all seem great. I'm curious how it compares to Kinnikinnick mixes but am convinced that Betty Crocker has high enough standards to make it "good" as opposed to just "acceptable". (So many of the gluten free mixes out there are barely edible. Sure, they are gluten free but that does not guaranty quality.)

So, this morning when I woke up I had an email from amazon.com telling me that the Betty Crocker GF mixes were now available for purchase online. I knew that they were supposed to be in stores as of June 1st, but their website said they weren't in any stores within 50 miles of me.

I decided that the site might be wrong and it was worth investigating. Grocery list in hand, I started at my regular grocery store: Kroger. They have a good GF/natural/allergen free section and I'm able to get almost everything I ever want from there. I did all my grocery shopping and then went to that aisle I always avoid: the baking aisle. Sure enough right in the middle of the Betty Crocker mixes they stood!



I was overjoyed! 3 of the 4 new mixes were in stock at my normal grocery store! I quickly stuffed 2 cookie mixes, 2 brownie mixes and 1 cake mix into my cart and went to check out.

And I had thought I'd have to stop at 4 other specialty stores in hopes of finding them.

Wednesday I'll make the cookies for the Girls Night In at my house when we've hired a Airbrush Tanner lady to come and tan us! I will report back on the cookies soon! And the brownies too!

:)