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!

Vegan cupcakes

For today's festivities (going to a friends house for swimming and fireworks-watching) I decided to bring cupcakes. Big surprise, right?



I used the Vegan recipe I found online a while back and modified it for Gluten Free.

This is the recipe I used:
1 1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill All Purpose GF Baking Flour (same amt of regular flour if not GF)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon Xanthan Gum (omit if not GF)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 cup ice cold water (must be ice cold for proper reactions to take place)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons lemon juice (does not taste lemon-y, but gives proper acidity for baking soda to react with)

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Sift flour, sugar, soda, salt and Xanthan Gum together in a bowl until very light and airy..about 3 times.

In a separate container combine oil, cold water and vanilla.

Add wet to dry (except lemon juice) and stir until well mixed.

Then add the lemon juice and stir quickly pour into prepared pan (or muffin cups)

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until cake tests done with toothpick (or 14-17 for cupcakes).

It rises extremely well and is light, fluffy, moist and rich at the same time.

Makes 12-14 cupcakes and they are really really good.

Then I filled them with Chocolate Bavarian Cream and topped them with just a little simple buttercream frosting...just white as I didn't have enough to do red, white & blue.

my favorite cookies

One day growing up my mom brought out a recipe for Monster Cookies. I'd never heard of them before but they contained all the things i LOVE:
chocolate chips
m&m's
peanut butter
oats
How could this cookie possibly go wrong?

Since becoming gluten free, I've not had these cookies...I've never found any certified gluten free oatmeal to try it with. But recently at a health food store in a tiny town in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains, I ran across a huge bag of certified GF oatmeal...I bought it!

Today I was thinking about those delicious cookies and how much I loved them (pre gf-diet) and started looking up recipes. Turns out that most of the recipes floating around the internet do not contain any flour whatsoever so it's a really easy recipe and with certified GF Oatmeal, it's "naturally" gluten free!

These are good cookies, but it's definitely not the recipe I'm going to call my go-to-monster cookie recipe. I kinda flubbed it up tonight and used too much corn syrup...the recipe is right, I just used the wrong amount. lol. I'll try this recipe again with the right amount of corn syrup and maybe it'll become a favorite.

For tonight, these are delicious and I am so glad to have them.

Monster Cookies
1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Sugar
6 Tablespoons Butter flavor Crisco
2 eggs
1 cup creamy Peanut Butter
1/2 Tablespoon Light Corn Syrup
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
2 1/2 cup Certified Gluten Free Oats
1/2 cup (or more to taste) M & M's
1/2 cup (or more to taste) Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream sugars and shortening together until well mixed. Beat in eggs, peanut butter and corn syrup. Mix in baking soda, baking powder and vanilla. Fold in oats, m&m's and chocolate chips.

Spoon onto greased cookie sheet in 1 tablespoon sized amounts (I like smallish cookies). Bake for 7-9 minutes.

apple muffins

Apple Muffins



preheat oven to 350.

2 large apples, chopped into TINY pieces (or food processor to chop into ultra fine pieces...or grated apples, but not applesauce or apple puree)
3 cups Pamela's Baking Mix
4 eggs
2 Tbspn vanilla extract
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup water
2 good strong dashes of cinnamon

Mix all together, really really well. Spoon into greased muffin cups and bake at 350 for 17 minutes.

makes REALLY good muffins. Lightly sweet. Good apple flavor.

I didn't even peel my apples, just cored them and put them into the chopper. Would probably also be good with coarse sugar sprinkled on top with an extra little bit of cinnamon.

:)

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Elana's Pantry has some amazing gluten free recipes and I recommend people try them!

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Preheat oven to 350.

2 1/2 cups Almond Flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
1/2 cup agave nectar
1 tablespoon vanilla

Mix all dry ingredients together. In separate bowl mix grapeseed oil, agave nectar and vanilla and stir. Pour into dry ingredients and stir until incorporated. Add chocolate chips.

Scoop onto prepared cookie sheet and flatten slightly.

Bake for 8-10 minutes at 350.


I made a couple changes to the cookies I made: 2 cups Almond flour and 1/2 cup white rice flour. Also I pressed the entire batch of cookie dough into an 8" square brownie pan to make a cookie cake...The dough rises a bit, and since I've not cut into the cookie cake yet, I'm not 100% sure the inside is cooked. I probably could have used a larger pan and spread the batter slightly thinner.

It smells wonderful and I love cookie cakes with the shell border. It tastes good, but the almond flour I used (Bob's Redmill Almond Meal/Flour) is definitely more of a MEAL than FLOUR...you can see the grainy almonds in the image and I think I'd prefer a more finely ground flour for this cookie.

chocolate chip cookies!

They are so good.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from Nestle Tollhouse recipe

1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup real butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 tbspn vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup corn flour
1/4 cup potato flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1 1/4 cup white rice flour
1 1/2 tsp Xanthan Gum
2 cups chocolate chips (+ - as desired)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Soften butter and blend with shortening and sugars. Add vanilla and eggs.

In a separate bowl, mix soda, powder, corn flour, potato flour, tapioca starch, white rice flour and xanthan gum. Using a whisk, mix together thoroughly.

Add dry to wet ingredients and mix completely. Stir in chocolate chips.

Scoop in tablespoon sized drops to cookie sheet and flatten slightly.

Bake for 10 minutes.

I've been making a lot of flour tortilla's these past few days...Most attempts have been ultra small batches of test recipes I've created with varying results. None have been as good as that very first attempt I made a few weeks ago and even those weren't quite as I remember gluten-filled flour tortilla's to be. So I grabbed a recipe off the LivingWithout site to try out.

I still had to modify their recipe (linked above) a bit b/c I don't have any fava bean flour...I just did a straight replacement with Teff flour. I don't know much about Teff or Fava Bean flour, so I don't know if that's a fair substitution, but it worked out. They are good. Definitely better than my latest recipe-fail, these are soft, flexible and they taste...well, I can't place the taste, but they are good. Still not what I remember regular flour tortillas to taste like, but pretty good, nonetheless.

The recipe says it makes 6-8 tortillas and instead of rolling them out, I used my tortilla press. My tortillas might have been thinner than the recipe recommends but they turned out just fine, so use your tortilla press too. If you don't have a tortilla press, get your little buns over to La Michoacana and pick one up! They are less than $20 and fresh handmade tortillas are SO much better than store tortillas.

Anyway, yeah, my tortillas were probably thinner than the recipe called for. No worries though, they draw in a little and thicken when cooked. I ended up with 13 tortillas. Steve and I split and tested the left over tortilla just to make sure it was good!

With 12 tortillas, I double ziplock bagged 6 of them and stuck them into the freezer for some other day and the remaining 6 into a ziplock bag for the next 3 days. I'm pretty certain that the Texas Motor Speedway (working for Chevy at the Nascar races this weekend) isn't going to offer gluten-free foods, so I'll be packing sandwiches for lunch.

chocolate and peanut butter!

What two things go together better than chocolate and peanut butter? I cannot think of anything. They are perfect together.

what better for a chocolate cupcake than to be filled with peanut butter?


mmmmm, mmmm.

This recipe should make 8 regular cupcakes or 6 large ones...or just cram all the batter into 6 regular cupcake tins and let them rise and fall over the top. It's still good.

1 cup Pamela's Baking Mix
1/3 cup Powdered Sugar
3 Tbspn cocoa powder
(sift together till well mixed)
2 Tbspn vegetable oil
3 Tbspn cold water
1 egg
1/3 cup honey
1 Tbspn Vanilla extract

sift dry ingredients together to mix. add all wet ingredients and stir well (mixer if desired, but I just hand mixed)

pour batter into cupcake liners or directly into greased cupcake pan.

Bake at 350 for 18-22 minutes.

now, here's the fun part, After the cupcakes have cooled just a bit, using a pastry bag with a #21 star tip, fill with peanut butter. Stab that tip right into the very center top of the cupcakes about half an inch down and squeeze out about a tablespoon of peanut butter right into the cupcake...slowly pulling the tip towards the surface of the cupcake (still filling). Then top the cupcake with chocolate frosting. I imagine some chocolate or peanut butter pieces/sprinkles would be adorable right on top of that, but I didn't have any.

It's delicious!

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

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.

Girls Night In

I'm having the girls over tonight for games, wine and snacks. We don't get together nearly often enough so it's always nice when we do.

Tonight the girls are coming over after jazzercise class for which I've been banished from per my orthopedist (knee issues)...otherwise I'd be there first too. I always got hungry after working out, so I want to have various foods for snacking.

Tonights menu options:
cheese & crackers
Mini Quiche
Personal Chocolate Cheesecakes (recipe below)
Popovers with butter and/or strawberry jam (recipe coming soon)

Personal Chocolate Cheesecakes

Preheat oven to 350

Crust:
1 box Pamela's Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies
1 Tbsp margarine

In food processor, process cookies until crumbs. Add in margarine and continue to pulse until fully combined.

Press into the bottoms and partially up the sides of 6 ramekins. Place ramekins on cookie sheet or inside large baking dish and bake crust for 7-8 minutes.

Filling:
1 package fat free cream cheese, softened
1 Tbsp margarine
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp honey
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp tapioca starch
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

In a medium bowl add cream cheese, margarine, sugar and honey and mix with electric mixer until fully combined and no lumps in cream cheese. Add egg, vanilla and tapioca starch and blend again till well mixed, approximately 90 seconds.

Spoon half the batter into a separate bowl.

In another small bowl add chocolate chips. Place in microwave on medium heat for 60 seconds. Stir. If not completely melted, set on medium and heat for another 20 seconds until melted. Always stir between meltings as chocolate doesn't change shape until stirred, so it's melted-ness is deceiving.

Pour chocolate into one of the cheesecake filling batter bowls. Stir until fully mixed in.

Spoon in the plain cheesecake mixture evenly into the ramekins. Top with the chocolate cheesecake mixture. Using a toothpick, swirl the two together.

Place ramekins into a large pyrex-type casserole dish. Fill halfway up the sides of the casserole with water. This is known as a water bath and is useful to keep cheesecakes baking slowly and help prevent the cracks that sometimes form during baking. (Never use a water bath if using springform pans. Springform pans are not watertight.)

Place on the center rack in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, remove from casserole dish and set out to cool. When cool to the touch, place in refrigerator till time to serve so they are fully set.

Makes 6 personal cheesecakes



I'm still working on my popover recipe, so if it all goes as planned, I'll have some for tonight and I'll take pictures and post that recipe too.

Black Bean Enchiladas

I haven't been cooking. Oh I've been baking like crazy but I haven't been cooking and I kinda miss it. I think I've been getting caught up on not knowing what to make since becoming a vegetarian. Also, Steve and I have been going out to eat or eating something super easy at home like sammiches or wraps (Bread of Life makes a good Brown Rice tortilla).

However, over the last couple days I've been wanting to cook something and as I was laying down last night I remembered how I used to make these really great sour cream chicken enchiladas...and I thought of ways to adapt it so that I can eat home made enchiladas again, quick and easy. This makes several trays of enchilada's. I ended up freezing half and cooking half now.

Fast and Simple Black Bean Enchiladas

Preheat oven to 350

corn tortillas
1 can black beans
1 can Original RoTel
1 can corn and peppers (whole kernel corn with red and green bell peppers)
1 box Mori-Nu Silken Firm Tofu (finely diced)
1 can Enchilada Sauce (read the labels and find one that is GF) I chose a basic Red sauce.
1 can vegetarian refried beans
1 cup shredded cheese

Dice tofu and add to sauce pan. Drain black beans, and Corn and add to tofu. Pour in RoTel (undrained). Stir gently to mix.

Now stir in 1/2 can Enchilada Sauce and 1/2 can refried beans. Stir gently until sauce and beans have mixed and heat until warm.

Spray Pam lightly into large glass casserole dish. Spoon some of the tofu mix into center of one tortilla and sprinkle a little cheese on. Roll up tortilla and place seam side down into casserole dish. Repeat till dish is full...This makes a lot of filling and I ended up with 2 large dishes full...one to freeze and one to eat now! :)

Drizzle the rest of the enchilada sauce over top of the enchiladas and cook for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle tops with remaining cheese and cook until cheese melts (5-10 mins).


I also made my enchiladas with handmade corn tortillas. It takes a few minutes longer than buying them pre-made but they taste really awesome.

It's NYE 2008

Out with the old and in with the new. It's the last day of 2008.

Thinking back, this year has been pretty good. I've been gluten free for almost 2 years now, but the first year had a lot of cheating...it was so hard to break some of my food habits, but there's been no cheating this year.

I can remember 2 times when I know I ingested gluten, but it was definitely unintentional and I can remember hundreds of times I wished I could just snatch up one of those delicious cookies from the grocers bakery, but I was strong and didn't cheat.

I had been walking a road to vegetarianism for a long time and had been constantly decreasing the amount of meat in my diet to the point where I just decided it was time to make the switch. I've been meat free for 7 months. I found that switch much easier than the GF diet change.

Tonight is a New Years Eve party at my friends house and I will bring something. Of course wine. I have a bottle of Cab that we'll bring.

My aunt once told me of this super easy recipe for tartlette crusts that I think I remember and should make for an excellent mini quiche crusts so I'm giving it a try.

Mini Quiches!
Preheat overn to 350.

Crust
1 part margarine (1/2 cup)
1 part cream cheese (1/2 cup)
2 parts flour (1 cup your favorite Gluten Free flour that contains Xanthan Gum)
(I used 1/3 cup Arrowroot Flour, 1/3 cup corn flour, 1/3 cup Brown Rice flour, plus 1 tsp Xanthan Gum)

Soften margarine and cream cheese and mix thoroughly. Stir in the flour and cream together. Roll into 24 balls and press into bottoms and sides of mini muffin cups.

Filling
6 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 cup grated colby jack cheese

Sprinkle cheese into bottoms of mini crusts.

Beat eggs, milk, salt and pepper with mixer for 1 minute. Pour into crusts.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

I ended up with a little extra dough and filling so I pressed the dough into a large muffin cup and filled with the remaining cheese and eggs and baked it separately.

The crust is just perfect for these little quiches and would probably make for an excellent "full size" quiche crust too!

This was my first time making quiche and my first time making pie crust. I'm calling this a complete success.

EDIT: edited to add in all the pictures from the NYE Party at my friends house. See pics at my flickr set here.

visiting old friends!

Tomorrow Steve and I are going to visit some friends I grew up with...I've, quite literally, known them my whole life but its been years since I've seen them.

I'm happy to be going to visit.

Since it's the holiday weekend, and I don't have any gifts, I made mini cupcakes to bring and share together.

I wanted to use up the last of the pumpkin puree I had and thought the cupcakes would be a nice treat. I didn't have a recipe, so I made up my own.

I started by mixing my own flour, and made about enough for 2 batches (i'll definitely be making this again, so I'm glad I have so much flour!!)

GF spiced flour mixture
1/2 cup Brown Rice flour
1/4 cup Quinoa flour
3/4 cup minus 1Tbspn Sweet Rice flour
2/3 cup Corn flour
3 Tbspn Tapioca starch
1 1/2 Tbspn Xanthan Gum
dash salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Pumpkin Cupcakes
Preheat oven to 350
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 cup pumpkin
3 eggs
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup water
1 Tbspn vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup flour mix

Cream shortening, sugar and pumpkin. Beat eggs separately and add into mixture. Mix in oil, water and vanilla. While mixing, add in flour blend.

Drop by spoonfuls into mini muffin pans. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

As far as my first really-all-my-own-recipe-not-adapted-or-anything, I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out. They are moist, light, and have good airpockets (like good bread) but are light on the pumpkin flavor. Also because I ran out of sweet rice flour, I used a little more corn flour and they are slightly reminiscent of sweet cornbread because of it, I think. All in all, though, I'm still pleased. They are good. The texture is good and the flavor is light.

I'll serve them with cream cheese frosting.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Always bring at least one thing you can eat.

The highlight of the meal was the pumpkin cheesecake. Even my dad enjoyed it (he doesn't like pumpkin). The recipe is gluten free and delicious.



Crust
1/2 cup Gluten Free Ginger Snap crumbs
1 1/2 cup Arrowroot Animal Cracker crumbs
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup sugar

Use food processor to 'crumb' the cookies and mix with sugar and butter. Press into bottom and partially up the sides of springform (or straight sided cake pan). Bake in preheated 350 oven for 7-8 minutes. Set aside.

Filling
1 package Fat Free Philadelphia Cream Cheese - softened
1 package Neufchatel cheese - softened
1/8 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsn Tapioca Starch
1 Tbsn vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 1/2 cup pumpkin puree (Libby's canned pumpkin)
3/8 tsp ground cinnamon
3/8 tsp ground nutmeg
3/8 tsp ground cloves

Stir sugars, spices and tapioca starch together. Cream cheese with sugar mixture. Add in vanilla and eggs. Mix until fully incorporated. Spoon in pumpkin and mix until just blended.

Pour into crust and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Turn down oven to 340 and continue to bake for additional 20 minutes.

Sunbutter Cookies

I'm bringing these cookies to the Christmas Eve party tonight. They are made with Sunbutter which is made from sunflower seeds and doesn't contain any tree nuts or peanuts.

They are also gluten free.

Sunbutter Cookies
The recipe is adapted from Gluten Free Girl's peanut butter cookie recipe.

1 cup Sunbutter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 Tbsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix baking powder and soda with the sugars.

By hand, cream together sugar mixture with sunbutter.

Using the electric mixer, add the egg and mix until just incorporated. I do find it easiest to hand mix it just a bit first, but the electric mixer really helps after that...and keeps your arms from getting totally worn out.

Line the baking sheet with small balls of dough that are rolled in sugar and flatten them slightly. Use a fork to press the tines into the cookies for the classic peanut butter cookie look.

Bake for 10 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet 3 minutes before moving to cooking rack.

Add mini chocolate chips as the last step before balling the dough, if you like your faux-peanut butter cookies with chocolate! Trust me, it's delicious and worth a try.

Namaste!

I practice yoga. I think that is why Namaste Foods PizzaCrust Mix caught my eye. Aside from being simply gluten free, it is also sugar free AND vegan. Also worth mentioning is that I love pizza and it's one of the things I miss about glutenous eating...Pizza is really delicious!

Well, I also enjoy cooking so I picked up the mix while grocery shopping.

Fast forward to later. I was trying to decide what to make for dinner and noticed the bag of pizza crust mix in the pantry. Hubs and I could always eat pizza, so I figured tonight was as good as any to give this mix a try.

I followed the instructions on the bag, but wasn't able to mix with the mixer for the full 3 minutes because the mixers kept sending my batter flying out of the bowl. (btw, it turned out fine mixing it less).

When I got it all mixed up I plopped the mix onto the hot pizza stone, covered my hands in vegetable oil (I don't have a rolling pin) and started pressing out the crust. This mix made A LOT of crust! My pizza stone is only 14" and the directions said this makes a 14" crust, but I think it could have made and 18" or 20" crust easily! The dough was thick and covered the entire 14" stone all the way to the edges.

I baked it on the lowest oven rack, as per the directions, for 10 minutes, then pulled it out and topped it with pizza sauce and shredded pizza cheese and threw it back into the oven on the lowest rack for another 9 minutes. When the timer went off, the cheese wasn't browning yet so I moved it to the middle rack and turned on the broiler for a minute.


mmm, mmm!

It turned out really tasty. I forgot that using the pizza stone adds a few minutes to the cooking time, so the crusty was a little more doughy than I prefer, but it was still delicious and we ate it ALL! The crust held together just like glutenous crusts and tasted the same too.



Next time I'll halve the recipe and make personal size pizza's.

I don't know if this pizza honors all that is in me, as I do in you, but it is beautiful and tastes great!