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.

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. :)

kinnikinnick is at it again

One of the food items I served at my party the other night was pizza. Gluten Free of course. I had been eyeing Kinnikinnick's pizza crust in the freezer section of my grocery for months and thought this would be a good chance to give it a try. Every other product of theirs that I've tried is simply amazing and "normal" that I hoped this would be as well.

It was magnificent! I prefer very thin crust pizza but this was delicious. It wasn't a bit grainy, like rice flour can sometimes be. It had a good solid crust on the bottom and was moist without being wet in the middle. Where the pizza sauce lay on it, it was good, not gooey like I've had before, but really perfect.

I love you Kinnikinnick for making such amazing GF products.

how to eat GF at holiday feasts...

My best advice is to bring safe foods.

My family always does a pot-luck type of meal for holidays and family gatherings. It's nice because you don't have to make the entire meal yourself, but it's almost impossible to know if some of their dishes contain flour. That means I end up avoiding almost everything. And definitely avoid all the cake, brownies and cookies. But there is also usually icecream and that part is something I could probably have. At least the I can check the carton for ingredients to make sure.

Anyway, my plan this year is to bring 2 or 3 vegetable dishes. That way if there is nothing else I can eat safely, I know I can eat those and not be sick.

This is also my first Christmas Eve party as a vegetarian. My family are meat/potatoes people, and not all of them know I'm vegetarian, so I'm not really sure what to expect. I'm trying to remind myself that no one cares all that much what I eat or don't eat.

Christmas Day is going to be more complicated. It's a much more intimate feast, with only my parents, hubby, an aunt and an uncle. It's at my parents house and I have no idea what food choices there will be. They always say they'll do everything...and with my food restrictions, that's just not acceptable. What if I get there and all the vegetables are covered in cream of mushroom (Gluten of mushroom) soup!

I know I am bringing a Pumpkin Cheesecake (recipe and photo's to come as soon as I make it, promise) . I have emailed them to ask what sides I should bring but if they don't check their email, I'll bring a couple of vegetable dishes and surprise them. :)

My family (except for hubby) doesn't really understand Gluten Free or what it means for me and my health. And up until this year I'd not given them a reason too, because I'd cheat on my GF-ness during holiday/family gatherings.

I'm at the point now where I understand that it's not something I can cheat on. I'm gluten free. I have to stay this way in order to stay healthy.

If you are also gluten free, you know how challenging it is to eat other people's food...but it's Christmas and the people we eat with love us, food restrictions and all. They can handle learning that the reason you won't try their amazing cookies isn't because you are picky or that you don't WANT to, but is because of digestion problems with the protein in the flour. Or you could always just tell them it's an allergy to wheat. It's not the same thing, but people understand the severity of food allergies and it's sometimes just easier to explain it that way.