02.14.2011 1:41 p.m.
My twenty-first birthday. I finally settled my fairy self down for a moment’s rest after being up and actively doing things since 5:00 in the morning.

02.15.2011 7:00 a.m.
I had the most amazing, magical, sparkling, flowing, tiring, sugary, warm, cold, loving, happy, thankful, magnificent twenty-first birthday anyone could ever hope for…

I woke up at 5:00 in the morning to catch the rising of my sun over the east hill while perched precariously on a frozen (but quickly thawing) waterfall in lower Robert Treman State Park with Lyca and Damaris, and was welcomed at 8:12 a.m. into the twenty-first year of my life by these two amazing people (one who I have known for quite some time; the other I have recently become acquainted with).

We celebrated the earth, the day, the sun, and the warmth with an amazing collaborative photo shoot involving frozen water, pouring water, shoes and socks, fire, sun, dry ice, and cold fingers and frozen toes. The air around us was soft and pleasant, and caressed our bodies as we carefully positioned ourselves on the ice, trying our best not to step through (although we did, and it was cold). We watched the sky change from dark gray to blue, slowly progressing through lighter and lighter hues with each passing moment. The progression of the colors of the sky and earth as a result of the sun’s greatly anticipated arrival was truly magical. When the sun finally broke free and rose over the horizon, we greeted it with upturned faces, smiles, and thanks.

We warmed our toes on the ride home, and decided that cheesecakes (yes, cheesecakes, plural) would be an appropriate breakfast. Since Lyca doesn’t have a coffee grinder, we took the cheesecakes in my picnic basket to Gimme Coffee on Cayuga Street, and sat there eating delicious chocolate currant and vanilla bean cardamom ginger cheesecake and drinking amazing, fresh coffee. One of the women in the coffee shop was staring at our cheesecakes, and we offered her some and found out that it was also her birthday! She kindly declined the offer, which made me a little sad, because I think she would have really liked them!

After the cheesecake picnic at Gimme, I drove Lyca home and went to visit Varya at her apartment, toting my picnic basket upstairs with me. I gave her a slice of each cheesecake (which she was very excited about!) and she shared some of her Limoncello (very delicious citrus liqueur) with me. I offered to drive her to class, which gave us more time to spend together, so we decided to go downtown briefly because I wanted to buy some flowers for friends. We stopped by a beautiful bed & breakfast at the bottom of Buffalo Street because Varya wanted to inquire about reserving rooms for graduation weekend. The inside of the B&B was beautiful, and the woman we talked to was adorable and gave me a piece of cake and chocolates for my birthday (Varya told her it was my birthday; Varya ended up taking the cake and chocolates to studio with her because I couldn’t eat the cake and I had already had my fair dose of sugar for the morning). After visiting the B&B, we went to Bool’s Flower Shop (the flower shop that Ginger Babel lived in for the month of December) where we were the only women in a store filled with men (not counting the ladies arranging the flowers behind the counter). It was hilarious, and we had a great time fluttering from bucket to bucket, choosing the perfect flowers. I bought Hope and Varya each a rose (red for Hope, light pink for Varya), a beautiful purple iris for Karli, and a giant bunch of bright assorted flowers for Laura.

After I drove Varya to studio, I stopped by to visit Laura at work (she works in Rhodes hall on campus), and she was very surprised and happy to receive cheesecake and flowers. I shared my cheesecakes with her officemates, who were also very appreciative.

Once I had played the part of Laura’s personal cheesecake fairy, I took a trip to the Cornell Plantations where I wandered around taking pictures and rang the gong three times in celebration of the day. I sat for a while on the long, curved bench at the top of the hill, looking out at the plantations below. The sky was dark gray and threatening rain, but it was pleasantly warm and calm. After a y feet were soaked again (I changed my boots after the photo shoot because mine were soaked through with ice water), so I stopped home to grab some food, dry socks, and another pair of boots. I then went to 140, distributed more cheesecake, and picked up Karli so we could pay Hope a visit. Hope was all dolled up in her Valentine’s Day best, and looked absolutely adorable. We visited with her for a little while, and afterwards, Karli and I went to a wine store where we encountered an adorable little girl named Saffron, and then wandered aimlessly around the commons until we needed to go take a nap.

Birthday dinner consisted of vegetarian sushi making (we used cucumber, carrots, avocado, and apples) with Karli and Lyca (even though Karli and I were very out of practice at rolling sushi) and was very tasty! It was the perfect dinner to balance the many pieces of cheesecake I had eaten earlier in the day ☺

The cheesecakes I made very tasty, and I personally preferred the vanilla bean/cardamom/ginger/fig jam cheesecake to the chocolate currant cheesecake, but some people liked the chocolate currant one better… different people like different things I guess!


Cardamom vanilla bean fig cheesecake with walnut crust

Crust:
2 cups walnuts
3 teaspoons butter, melted
1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
¼ tsp cardamom powder
¼ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp cinnamon
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons molasses

1 jar of fig jam

Cheesecake:
32 oz cream cheese, room temp
4 large eggs, room temp
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cardamom powder
1 vanilla pod, cut in half and scraped to get the beans
1 teaspoon ginger


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line the bottom of a springform pan with aluminum foil, assemble the pan, and wrap the foil around the outside. Cover the outside of the pan with more foil so that water doesn’t get into the cheesecake when it is cooking in the water bath.

Process the walnuts in a food processor or blender so they turn into a coarse meal. Mix in brown sugar, cardamom powder, ginger, and cinnamon. Add maple syrup, molasses, and butter. Mix until all of the walnut meal is coated with the sticky liquid ingredients (butter, molasses, and maple syrup). Press into the bottom of the springform pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 5-7 minutes. Take out of the oven and carefully spread a layer of fig jam on top of crust.

In a large bowl, combine cream cheese and sugar, and blend until smooth. Add cardamom powder, vanilla beans, and ginger, and then eggs, one at a time, beating with hand-held mixer until smooth. When batter is a uniform consistency, pour into crust.

Bake cheesecake in a water bath (I used a larger skillet filled with water with the springform pan inside of it) for about 1 hour (it took mine a little more than an hour) until it has set. The center will still be a bit wobbly, but will set in the fridge. Remove from oven and let sit in the water bath for a couple of minutes, then remove the cake from the water bath and let sit on counter until cool. Place in a refrigerator over night (or for about 6 hours) to let it set. Once cheesecake has set, remove from fridge and spread jam on top and sides, then eat!

Blueberry Cheesecake (delicious recipe from the summer)

In preparation for a weekend of baking cheesecakes (I am planning on creating a dark chocolate currant cheesecake with a walnut crust and a vanilla bean cardamom cheesecake with fig jam) for my 21st birthday (IT'S ON MONDAY!!!) and Valentines' Day, I decided that it would be nice to share an older cheesecake recipe I came up with over the summer.

Around the middle part of this past summer, when the blueberries were literally falling off the bushes because they were so ripe, I went blueberry picking in Spencer, NY, with Coco. We tried to resist eating too many of the blueberries as we picked, and ended up taking home about 5 pounds of blueberries each (and an added bonus was they were very cheap because we picked them ourselves). It had been River's birthday earlier in the summer, and since I hadn't seen him for his birthday, I told him I would make him a birthday cake when he came to Ithaca. I decided that, since it was summer, a blueberry cheesecake would be quite appropriate.

To start off, I made a homemade blueberry syrup/sauce to add to the cheesecake batter and drizzle on top of it when it was done cooking, cooling, and setting.

Blueberry Sauce

1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/4 cup sugar

2 cups fresh blueberries (make sure there are no stems!)

Mix together the orange juice, water, cornstarch, and sugar in a saucepan over medium/low heat. Add blueberries and bring to a boil, making sure to stir frequently. Once the mixture has boiled, turn the heat down low again and let it simmer until the blueberries have exploded and the sauce has thickened up. Don't worry if it looks a little too runny when it is on the stove- once you take it off and it cools, it will thicken up. Also, the blueberry sauce will have little bits of blueberry skin in it. If you don't want these in your cheesecake, you can always strain the sauce through something like cheesecloth, but I personally like the blueberry skin bits in my cheesecake. :)


This blueberry sauce is really delicious on top of oatmeal, ice cream, plain yogurt, cheesecake, and many other delicious things :)


Now, this blueberry cheesecake is extra wonderful because it has a gluten free crust, meaning that those who are avoiding gluten can also enjoy it. Personally, I think that nut crusts are a much more delicious base for a cheesecake than ground-up, store-bought graham crackers. It seems to me that many people overlook the crust when they make cheesecakes and try to focus their attention on the actual creamy cheesecake center. In my mind, all aspects of a cheesecake are equally important to consider when creating a recipe. There must be a delicious base, creamy, but not too sweet center, and either no topping at all, or one that compliments all of the other flavors found in the cake.


Blueberry Cheesecake

Pecan crust:
1 1/2 cup pecans
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp molasses
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
3 teaspoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Line the bottom a springform pan (I think I used 8 or 9 inch) with aluminum foil (makes for easy cheesecake removal after it's done cooking).

If you have a blender or food processor, put the nuts in and pulse until you have a medium-coarse meal. You don't want the nuts to be as fine as flour, but you also don't want huge chunks. I personally like to leave some small/medium-sized chunks in there to add a little extra crunch to the crust. If you don't have a blender or food processor, you can put the nuts in a bag and roll them with a rolling pin, or smash them with something heavy.

Pour the nuts into the springform pan and add the brown sugar and cinnamon. Mix until uniform consistency. Add the molasses and melted butter. Press mixture to the bottom of the pan and bake for about 5-7 minutes until the crust firms up a little bit. Take out and let cool while you mix together the cheesecake batter.

Blueberry Cheesecake

3 8oz packages of cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup homemade blueberry sauce
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/8 cup white sugar
3 eggs, room temperature

Meanwhile, add cream cheese (or mascarpone, which I prefer to cream cheese, but it is more expensive so I use it sparingly) sugars, and blueberry sauce, and beat with an electric hand mixer until nice and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.

Before you pour the cheesecake batter into the prepared crust, prepare your springform pan for cooking in a water bath (to prevent cracking of the cheesecake). Cover the entire outside of the pan in aluminum foil, making sure that there are no holes or gaps where water can enter the pan (it isn't water-tight).

After you have secured your pan, place it in a water bath (I use my skillet. Because it is so small, it is easier to put the pan in the water bath and then pour in the cheesecake batter, but if you have a larger water bath, you could also just pour the batter onto the crust and then place the whole thing in the water bath). Carefully pour in the cheesecake batter on top of the crust. Smooth out the top of the cheesecake so it is is nice and even.

Bake in a water bath for about 1 hour. Middle of cheesecake will still be wobbly, but the edges should be nice and firm. Make sure that you have enough water so it doesn't all evaporate before the cheesecake is done cooking, and if it does, add a little more to the bath.

When the cheesecake is done baking, turn off the oven, open the door, and let it sit in there for a few minutes. Then you can take the cheesecake out of the water bath and let it cool on the counter for a bit. Once it is cool to the touch, put it in your refrigerator to set (overnight or about 5-6 hours).



Now comes the best part of the recipe... eat it!

Chocolate chip scones #1 (gluten-free, of course)

Even though I really would rather wait until I get an amazing kitchen scale to start really experimenting with more recipes, I didn’t feel like doing my reading for class tonight (shhhhh) so I decided to work on a scone recipe. At the celiac monthly dinner at Flora Rose house the other night, I got requests for gluten-free chocolate chip scones and cinnamon buns. Well ladies, here is my first attempt at the scones.

After trying to find a good online recipe for a gluten-free scone to inspire my own scone recipe and failing miserably, I decided to use one of the new books I recently purchased, Professional Baking, by Wayne Gisslen (fifth edition). I have just started looking at this book, and it is really amazing. There are step-by-step full color photos of different baking techniques, and the recipes are simple and are written in ratios. According to Professional Baking (p.226), the ingredient proportions for scones are as follows:

Bread flour 50%
Pastry flour 50%
Sugar 12.5%
Salt 1%
Baking powder 6%
Shortening and/or butter 40%
Eggs 15%
milk 45%

total 219%


The recipe told me to follow the method for making simple biscuits on page 219, and here is what it said:

Procedure-Biscuit Method
1. Scale all ingredients accurately.
2. Sift the dry ingredients together into a mixing bowl.
3. Cut in the shortening, using the paddle attachment or the pastry knife attachment; if you prefer, cut in the fat by hand, using a pastry blender or your fingers. Continue until the mixture resembles a coarse cornmeal.
4. Combine the liquid ingredients
5. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients. Mix just until the ingredients are combined and a soft dough is formed. Do not overmix.
6. Bring the dough to the bench and knead it lightly by pressing it out and folding it in half. Rotate the dough 90 degrees between folds.
7. Repeat this procedure 6 to 10 times, or for about 30 seconds. The dough should be soft and slightly elastic but not sticky. Overkneading toughens the biscuits.

The dough is now ready for makeup (p.219).


I decided to attempt to make some nice, roll-out scones, but actually ended up putting too much coconut milk into the batter and having to add 1/2 cup additional flour (I added the gluten-free flour blend #2 that I made earlier) and some extra baking soda to the recipe to even things out. The dough ended up being very sticky, so I decided to make drop scones instead of roll-out and cut-out scones. Essentially, I started with a recipe for rol-out scones but ended up with drop scones even though I didn't follow the proportions for the drop scones (recipe is also on page 219 of my book, right below the recipe for 'regular' scones). BUT THEY ARE REALLY, REALLY GOOD! Also, since proportions for gluten-free goods are different than 'regular' baked goods, it shouldn't be that bad that I really played with the ratios of ingredients.


Chocolate chip drop scones #1 (gluten-free)

½ cup gluten-free flour blend #2
¼ cup oat flour
¼ cup buckwheat flour
¼ cup potato starch flour
¼ cup tapioca flour

¼ tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
¼ cup sugar

1 stick butter, chilled and grated with a cheese grater

1 egg
½ cup coconut milk

Chocolate chips to your preference

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Sift flours (gluten-free flour blend #2 or your favorite gluten-free all-purpose flour blend, oat, buckwheat, potato starch, and tapioca) into a bowl. Add salt, baking powder, baking soda, and sugar, and then sift all dry ingredients until uniform consistency. Grate the butter with a cheese grater into the bowl of dry ingredients and then crumble everything together with your hands so the mixture resembles a coarse meal. In a separate bowl, stir together coconut milk and egg, and then pour into dry mixture. Stir everything together.

Batter will be very sticky. Drop by rounded dollops onto a cookie sheet and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes. Yield is about 9 palm-sized scones (well, unless you burn 3 of them like I did!).

I recently purchased a bunch of amazing books related to food politics, baking, and cooking, and am waiting eagerly for them to all come in the mail! I received a few of my books already, and one of them Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, by Michael Ruhlman, has changed my outlook on gluten-free cooking and baking, and I have decided that I absolutely need to purchase a kitchen scale before I go any further with my baking endeavors. The author introduces the concept of ratios, explaining "A culinary ratio is a fixed proportion of one ingredient or ingredients relative to another. These proportions form the backbone of the craft of cooking." (p xi)

Ratios are extremely important in baking because they determine whether a recipe will yield pancakes or crepes (varying the amount of flour in the recipe), drop cookies or cut-out cookies, or a light and fluffy or dense and rich cake. A HUGE problem underlying all gluten-free cooking is figuring out correct ratios. In gluten-free baking, all sorts of different types of flours can be used as substitutes for wheat flour; in my pantry right now, I have white and brown rice flour, mesquite pod flour, soy flour, almond flour, millet flour, chesnut flour, 'sweet' white sorghum flour, garbanzo bean flour, chickpea flour, cornmeal, oat, and buckwheat flour. Each one of these 'flours' is simply the ground form of some kind of seed, pod, or nut. 'Flour' may be produced from things such as ground tree pods (i.e.,mesquite), seeds from a cereal grain (i.e., oats), or seed from a non-cereal grain (i.e., buckwheat, which, contrary to its name, does not contain gluten). The wide variety of gluten-free flours is very exciting because each flour has its own distinct flavor and unique qualities which might make it compatible in some recipes, yielding a delicious cookie, muffin, or cake, or detrimental to others (i.e., contributing to flat cookies, quick breads that don't rise, etc.).

I am still fairly new to the gluten-free baking world, but at the beginning of my baking endeavors, I couldn't really understand why it was nearly impossible to only use one type of 'flour' in a gluten-free recipe (I admit, I did attempt to bake with only brown rice flour a couple of times, and I have only found one cake recipe that actually works using only one type of flour, and this is because the flour is not doing any of the grunt work in the recipe, the eggs are really the backbone of the cake). I now know that a combination of flours is required to "replace" the wheat flour in most recipes (however, I don't regard it as "replacing", I like to think of it as creating a whole new, exciting, different recipe that compliments the flavors and textures of gluten-free products).

Here is the **one** recipe that has ever worked with only one type of gluten-free flour (slightly modified from About.com)

Gluten-free German Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

4 ounces sweet German chocolate
6 eggs, separated
2 cups sugar, divided
1 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups brown rice flour
2 tbsp corn starch
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Separate your eggs into yolks and whites; put the whites in a large bowl, and the yolks in a smaller bowl (make sure your eggs are at room temperature for maximum fluffiness when you beat them; if they aren't at room temperature, you can place them in a bowl of warm water first to bring them to room temperature).

Create a double boiler on your stove (a pot with boiling water with a bowl on top) and melt the chocolate.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, cream the butter and 1 1/2 cups of the sugar together. Add the vanilla and egg yolks. When this mixture is nice and creamy, add the chocolate, and stir until everything is a uniform consistency.

In a separate bowl, combine the following dry ingredients and sift until uniform consistency: brown rice flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cornstarch.

Add the dry mixture and the buttermilk to the butter/chocolate mixture alternately, beating until smooth. Set aside.


In another bowl, beat egg whites until frothy. Add the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and beat until stiff but not dry.

Carefully FOLD the egg whites/sugar mixture into the rest of the ingredients. This helps make the cake nice and fluffy and delicious! If you beat the ingredients at this point, you are beating the air out of the egg whites, and defeating the purpose of beating them in the first place, so DON'T DO IT!

Pour batter into three 8-inch springform pans lined with parchment paper, and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 30 minutes or until cakes are done.

Let cakes cool completely before frosting!


Anyway, back to talking about ratios, which are even more important to pay attention to in gluten-free baking because it is simply impossible to substitute "other" types of flour for wheat flour in a 1:1 volume ratio. Gluten-free flours have different textures and weights; one cup by volume of wheat flour does not necessarily weigh as much by volume as one cup of a gluten-free flour. Therefore, when you are baking, the proportions of dry ingredients to wet ingredients will not be correct. According to my ratio book, "a cup of flour can weigh anywhere between 4 and 6 ounces", but the author is only talking about wheat flour (p. xvii). When you get into the gluten-free realm, there is a much greater range of weight for a certain volume of flour (I will explore and write about these different weights as soon as I get a kitchen scale).

Ruhlman explains, "One of the facts underlying the universality of ratios is that they are based on weight rather than on volume measurements." (p.xvii) The weight of a certain volume of a given ingredient may be affected by many things such as the amount of moisture in the air (and thus the amount of the air's moisture that has been absorbed by the given ingredient), or how firmly you pack ingredients (a cup of lightly packed dark brown sugar will weigh less than a cup of dark brown sugar packed very firmly). Thus, in gluten-free baking, we must really pay attention to the weights of the ingredients that we are using. I believe that this is one of the keys to unlocking the mysteries of baking with alternate ingredients.

So, what does this mean in the context of this developing blog? This means that my homework is to go do my research on kitchen scales and find one that suits my needs, buy it, and start weighing and experimenting!

I have always loved science experiments (from testing the pH of my fish tank as a child, to the volcano with baking soda and vinegar in fourth grade, to my AP Chemistry experiments my senior year of high school), so I turn this into one big experiment. I plan to study and learn as much as I can about all of the different types of gluten-free flours out there, where they come from (what types of plants, where are they grown, etc.), how much they weigh per unit volume, how they taste, how they smell, and how they interact with other ingredients.

The challenge is to tackle all of this while still keeping up with my job (working in the bakery at Cornell- no, it isn't gluten-free), school work (I am taking seven courses plus gymnastics and three credits of independent study), running as much as I can, spinning poi, designing two outfits for the Cornell Design League fashion show this spring, practicing yoga, helping Coco with his leatherworking and learning as much as I can about leatherworking, and working on Bob's farm as soon as the weather warms up.... YIKES!

this is going to be a wonderful, wonderful journey!!!

Gluten-free brownies

The end to winter break is here, and it is bittersweet. Outside, the sun is shining, and the naked trees are casting long slender shadows on the sparkling powder. Who cares if weather.com says it is only 5 degrees Fahrenheit outside? I don’t; it is still beautiful.

Saturday, I went on a long, beautiful, early afternoon run and only passed by one group of other people out (because it was pretty cold). I suited up in all of my cold gear, and with new road running shoes, I set off by foot around the outskirts of the plantations, following Forest Home road until it meets up with 366, up the hill, down Game Farm Road (such a beautiful road to run on), past East Hill Plaza, and through Cornell Campus on my way back into civilization. By the time I was done, my legs were so sore from running in new shoes and my feet were killing me, so I spun poi and danced for a bit in the Helen Newman dance studio (such a beautiful space).

I spent Saturday afternoon being lazy and just hanging out with a bunch of my girl friends in Collegetown. Karli and I finger painted, and although my friend Alex, and I gave up after painting for a little while, Karli worked on her masterpiece for a quite a while, but ended up not liking it as much when it dried. Sid, Varya, and Christine took turns playing some iPhone game that involved slicing flying fruit in half. Karli and I made some really delicious dinner, which was a vegetable curry over white rice.

I decided that it was the perfect occasion to break out my wok, and cooked some onions, garlic, sweet peppers, mushrooms, and tofu cubes together with coconut milk, turmeric, cumin, and curry powder. We used long grain white rice so it would cook more quickly because we were both starving. Dinner was delicious, and the most time-consuming part was chopping and cooking the vegetables prior to adding the coconut milk and spices. The end result was definitely work it though!

Reflecting back on my winter break, I am so happy that I had the time to do so many things which I have been meaning to do, and take some time off to myself to just relax (yoga, poi, running, etc., have all been great). I feel like I got a lot done, but there are still so many other things that I would have liked to have done too. Life is a balancing act; you have to choose what interests you the most and pursue it while still working on a handful of other things.

I made some modifications to the basic brownie recipe in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, and brought heart-shaped brownies (I used a cookie cutter to cut out the hearts after I made the brownies) to Varya’s house the other night for Blini (Russian pancake) night. I created a new gluten-free flour blend, and am going to experiment to see what it is good for (it was definitely good for the brownies!).

Gluten-free flour blend #2:
2 cups oat flour (I used whole oats and processed them into flour)
2 cups millet flour
1 cup sweet white sorghum four
½ cup garbanzo bean flour
½ cup white rice flour
½ cup tapioca flour
1 cup potato starch flour

5 ½ teaspoons xanthan gum


Mix all of the flours & xanthan gum together until uniform in texture.

Basic gluten-free brownies (adapted from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook)
6 ounces mexican chocolate
¾ cup butter (1 ½ sticks)
4 eggs
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
¼ cup white sugar
1 ½ cups gluten-free flour blend #2

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Melt chocolate and butter over low heat on the stove, stirring to make sure the mixture doesn’t burn. When it has melted, remove from heat and let cool for a couple of minutes.

In a large bowl, beat eggs, and sugar, and beat until thick and creamy (5-6 minutes) with an electric mixer. Stir in chocolate & butter mixture, and then finally add the flour. Stir everything together and bake in a large (I used a 9 x 14 x 2-inch glass baking dish) pan/dish for about 25 minutes.

Brownies are done when they are slightly browned on top and are starting to crack. Let cool, and cut into squares or use your favorite cookie cutters to make cute shapes!

Cardamom Purple Sticky Rice Pudding & Gluten-free chocolate cardamom coffee molasses cookies

The inevitable consequence of always trying to come up with recipes and experimenting in the kitchen is that you have to be your own taste-tester, and generally, you are your own harshest critic. That being said, I am positive that I have eaten more cookies now that I know I have gluten intolerance than beforehand. Why? Gluten-free baking is so much more fun and exciting than regular baking. The chances that your recipe will fail are so much higher with gluten-free baking than regular baking and the suspense when you wait for your freshly baked goods to come out of the oven perfectly plump and delicious is amazing.

I have been meaning to try making a sweet coconut sticky rice/rice pudding for a really long time (ever since I tasted it at Taste of Thai Express in Downtown Ithaca), and have really been dying to come up with a recipe that does not include many cups of sugar. A recipe where you can actually taste and appreciate the flavor of the rice. I like to try to sweeten things with maple syrup or honey as much as I can, so I decided to try a purple sticky rice pudding with Thai Kitchen’s Organic Lite Coconut Milk and Grade B (dark) Maple Syrup (from Greenstar’s bulk department).

My good friend, Hope Rainbow introduced me to cardamom last semester when made a delicious sweet coconut cardamom wild rice dish for breakfast in sculpture class (we had leftover supplies from our Ginger Babel project). I really love cardamom, and have been trying to use it frequently.

Coconut Cardamom Purple Sticky Rice Pudding Pudding:
1 cup purple sticky rice
1 cup water
1 cup Thai Kitchen’s Organic Lite Coconut Milk
2 tbsp maple syrup
8 cardamom pods, whole

To drizzle on top:
½ cup coconut milk
4 tbsp maple syrup

In a medium sauce pan, combine 1 cup purple sticky rice with 1 cup of water, 1 cup of the coconut milk (before you open the can, shake it to make sure the coconut milk is not chunky), and 2 tbsp maple syrup. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and stir once in a while until rice is cooked and water & milk have been absorbed.

When rice is done, in a separate sauce pan, heat up the rest of the can of coconut milk (should be about ½ a cup) with 4 tablespoons of maple syrup and stir until combined and boiling.

You can serve either hot or cold (I prefer it hot). Scoop some rice into a dish, and pour the maple coconut milk on top, or you can layer the rice and the maple coconut milk. Yum :)


I am so happy that my friends are finally all getting back from break!! It was very peaceful and relaxing to have Ithaca all to myself for an entire month, but after a month of limited social interaction, I am ready to start hanging out again (at least until my school work wrenches me away from my friends). Yesterday, I went to Salvo with Varya & bought a large canning pot, and can't wait until the things start growing again.

Last summer at the farm, the tomatoes were so perfect and ripe that they fell off the vines and into my hand when I touched them. Bob had a hoop house full of tomatoes (to protect them from diseases) and a bunch of trellises outside, but the hoop house felt like a magical land. The trellises inside lined both sides of the hoop house, and as the tomatoes grew, we trained them to grow up, up, and up. Eventually, the vines growing on the trellises met at the top of the hoop house, forming a beautiful, bright tomato tunnel from the entrance to the far end.

Even with the trellises, the tomato vines were hanging so low that even I had to crouch down at times to get through. At the entrance of tomato heaven, there were gorgeous, gigantic heirlooms of all sorts of colors, shapes, and sizes. Some of the heirlooms were so large that I was surprised the vine could withstand the weight without breaking, even with the help of the trellis. Farther back there were sungolds and other smaller, pop-in-your-mouth varieties. The grape tomatoes were really interesting because they grew in bunches similar to grapes and were also shaped like small but long and slender grapes. Personally, my favorites were the sungolds. Hope and I spent way too much time picking those little orange beauties straight off the vine in the hot sun and popping them into our mouths, but they were so delicious and addictive that we had a really hard time not eating them.

Here is a (terrible) picture of some of the beautiful tomatoes from the farm (although the picture really doesn't do the tomatoes any justice):

After Salvo, we went to Wegmans & then down to the commons with Lyca. It was nice to walk around, but really, really, really cold. The wind was biting my face and I was happy to seek shelter in the stores. I ended up buying a new pair of running sneakers from the Finger Lakes Running & Triathlon Company, which are going to be really helpful because I have been running on roads in trail sneakers, and now I finally have a pair of road shoes.

The same night that I made the purple coconut rice pudding, I also decided to make some gluten-free chocolate cardamom coffee molasses cookies (very, very long name, I know). The first batch came out completely flat, but tasted AMAZING, so I added some more flour, baking powder, xanthan gum, another egg, and some chocolate chips to the recipe, and it came out really good.

Here is a rough version of the old recipe which didn't work out:

Gluten-free chocolate cardamom coffee molasses cookies

2 tbsp coffee beans
seeds from 6 cardamom pods
2 chocolate hunks (goya chocolate)
¾ tsp xanthan gum
1 ½ tsp bk sda
½ tsp bk pdr
pinch salt
*Wow, I forgot to write down how much flour and I used.... I think I originally used about 1/2 cup buckwheat flour, 1/2 cup oat flour, 1/2 cup butter, and about 3/4 or 1 cup of a mixture of light & brown sugar

**To this I added (after attempting to bake batch #1 and it came out terrible)

½ cup buckwheat flour
1 teaspoon bk pdr
½ tsp x gum
1 egg
a bunch of chocolate chips

Well, obviously, this recipe is a mess and I need to figure out the correct proportions. The main thing is the cookies were really good, and the combination of the coffee, cardamom, chocolate, and molasses was very interesting in a cookie. The cookies were nice and soft, and I think the addition of the chocolate chips was essential. I also really liked using the Goya chocolate instead of 'regular' baking chocolate. **Need to work on recipe!**

The sunset yesterday was absolutely gorgeous. I was driving home and had to park my car and get out to take a picture of this building on the engineering quad because it was glowing:

Gluten-free Buckwheat-oat crepes

I miss my porch. For the past two summers, I have lived in houses with amazing porches perfect for lazy morning brunches. In the summer, I have all the time in the world to do whatever I want, so I often make elaborate feasts to start off the day. Last summer, crepes were a staple of my morning brunches. In addition to fresh yogurt, berries, maple syrup, and honey, I would often make homemade blueberry sauce or apple compote to fill the crepes with. They were delicious :)

I woke up very early this morning to work on a pattern to make fabric poi, and decided that it would be a perfect morning to come up with a gluten-free crepe recipe. I bought some oat flour yesterday at Greenstar, and had some buckwheat flour lying around, so I decided to experiment...

At first, I took out the white rice, tapioca, potato starch, buckwheat, and oat flours, but decided against using the rice, tapioca, and potato. After all, crepes don't rise, so I didn't really need to come up with a fancy mixture of gluten-free flours in an attempt to create the binding powers of gluten. I choose buckwheat and oat because I felt like they would compliment each other very well.

I decided to make sweet crepes (I am not a fan of savory crepes), so I added a little brown sugar and maple syrup to the batter- just enough to subtly sweeten it without being too nauseating and overpowering.

The hardest part about making crepes is cooking them. You need to make sure your skillet is at the perfect temperature (medium-low), use the perfect amount of butter (seriously just a tiny dab if you have a non-stick pan), and need to perfect the technique of evenly distributing the batter in the pan.

When I went to Montreal over Thanksgiving, I picked up some crepe-making tips from Stephan, the French immigrant we stayed with via couchsurfing: #1. Make sure there are NO CLUMPS in the batter! He actually blended his crepe batter in a magic bullet #2. Actually pick up the pan from the stove when you are pouring the batter in and swirl the batter around in the pan to coat it evenly

Gluten-free Buckwheat-oat crepes

1/2 cup oat flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
2 teaspoons dark brown sugar (packed)
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tbsp butter, melted
1 1/2 cups milk
3 eggs
1 tablespoon maple syrup


Measure out flours into a bowl. Add packed dark brown sugar, salt, & stir. Add melted butter, maple syrup, milk, and eggs, one at a time. Whisk everything in a large bowl, then pour batter in a blender and puree for about 20 seconds to get all of the clumps out (I used the 'puree' setting on my housemate's Blendtec blender).

Heat up a skillet on medium-low heat, and add a tiny little dab of butter. The butter should sizzle when you put it on, but not turn brown or burn. Pick up the skillet and pour about 1/4 cup batter into it, swirling the batter around to evenly coat the bottom. Put on heat, and heat until one the side that is facing down has cooked just enough to turn it over (about a minute). Turn the crepe over, cook for a brief time on second side, and you are done! Make sure to not overcook these! They are meant to be soft and pliable, NOT crunchy and hard (although they are actually pretty good crunchy- the edges of some of my crepes were a little thin and crunchy... yum!).

These crepes are DELICIOUS. They are seriously better than any of the crepes I made last summer, and the combination of dark brown sugar and maple syrup gives them a hint of rich sweetness. YUMMY! GREAT SUCCESS!

Vegan, gluten-free graham crackers (shaped like kitties!)

I have some catching up to do! Since my last post, my sister randomly decided to visit me for a couple of days (yay!) because she had time off work, and a couple of my good friends came back from break! I helped my friend, Tal, take some pictures of things for his art portfolio that he is using to apply to graduate school (his portfolio is due by Sunday night!), and Angela and I went sleigh riding, ice skating, and dancing!

My housemate from over the summer, Jen, invited me to a housewarming party today for her new housemate (I was subletting from her old housemate, but things didn't work out between them, so she moved out), so I decided that I better make some vegan, gluten-free cookies to bring, just to be safe and make sure everyone could eat them.

I searched for vegan cookies, and found this blog: (which has a cookbook to go with it) which had a recipe for vegan graham crackers. I decided to modify it slightly and make it gluten-free (and kitty-shaped!).

Vegan, Gluten-free graham crackers
1 1/2 cups gluten-free flour blend #1 (I just about used up the rest of it with this recipe!)
1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
pinch nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons molasses
1 tablespoon Grade B maple syrup
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
a little less than 1/4 cup rice milk

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt so everything is a uniform consistency. Add oil, molasses, vanilla, and maple syrup. Stir together, then add rice milk, a little at a time, until dough is nice and workable, not too sticky (I didn't need the whole 1/4 cup).

Knead dough, & roll out with rolling pin (using gluten-free flour to dust rolling pin, working surface, and dough). Cut out with cookie cutters & bake for about 6-7 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

These cookies are pretty good! Since I added ginger, they are basically like kitty-shaped gingerbread cookies! They would be good dunked in milk (vegan or non-vegan), made into s'mores, dipped in chocolate, coffee, or crumbled on top of vanilla ice cream (or just eaten by themselves as a crunchy treat)!

Gluten-free molasses cookies

5:01 p.m.

My grandmother, Marie Calabrese (we call her Nana) makes the most delicious molasses cookies I have ever tasted. They are perfect... nice and thin but chewy, oh-so chewy. Yum :)

My father stopped by and took me out to dinner last week on his way home from his parents' house for Christmas celebrations, and gave me some molasses cookies that Nana baked... I wish I could have eaten them (hello gluten!). I gave the cookies to Laura for her and her daughters to enjoy... and decided that it was time to attempt some gluten-free molasses cookies.

To create this recipe, I used the same flour blend (gluten-free blend #1) that I have used for the past few recipes simply because when I made the mix, I made a lot of flour. I want to experiment with different flour recipes for different baked goods to see what goes well with the textures and flavors of different combinations of flours.

***the most important thing to remember in cooking & baking (especially when you are cooking and baking gluten-free!!!) is that not every attempt at a recipe comes out perfect the first time.

***Molasses cookie attempt #1: FAILURE!***



It is always so sad to open up the oven and find a completely flat sheet cookies that have spread out paper thin. You feel like you completely failed- your recipe sucks.

When I mixed the dough together, I noticed that it was way too thin and sticky to be a rolled cookie (usually you would roll the molasses cookies in little balls, roll them in sugar, then bake them, creating a nice crispy outside from the sugar but a soft, chewy inside). I used my chocolate chip cookie recipe as a basis for this recipe, which was a recipe for drop cookies. Now I really understand the difference between a drop cookie and a molded (into little balls, that is) cookie. Drop cookies have a much thinner batter than molded cookies which results from a higher wet:dry ratio (drop cookies have less flour to the amount of wet ingredients (fat, sugar, egg, molasses) than molded cookies do).

Batch #1 of my cookies came out terribly. They spread out, did not rise, and looked more like really burned lace cookies than molasses cookies (they weren't burned, lace cookies are just usually light-colored). Anyway, I hypothesized that my major issue with these cookies was my wet to dry ratio was messed up, and I also probably needed more leavening agent (baking soda). So, I mixed 1/2 cup more of the gluten-free flour blend, 1/4 teaspoon baking powder, and 1 more teaspoon of baking soda in a separate bowl, and mixed this in to the rest of the cookie dough that had not been baked yet.

When I did this, the cookie dough completely transformed itself from a drop cookie failure to a nice molded cookie dough, although this dough did seem much softer than 'regular', gluten-laden molasses cookies. I carefully rolled the cookies in between my palms, rolled them in pure cane sugar, and then tried baking them again....

...I held my breath as I opened the oven, and......









... SUCCESS!!!

The cookies came out really good... the cane sugar created a nice, crispy coating on top, while the inside stayed nice and soft. These cookies taste even better once they have cooled off and have been sitting around for a while.

Here is the original recipe which did not work out as written because I didn't have enough flour and baking soda... (so don't use this recipe, duh)...

Molasses Cookies- attempt #1
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg

1 cup gluten-free flour blend #1
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder



Here is a **revised** version of the recipe, but I am going to have to try this recipe again to see if the proportions of wet and dry are correct...

Molasses Cookies- *Revised*
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg

1 3/4 cups gluten-free flour blend #1
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder


Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cream butter and sugars. Add vanilla extract, maple syrup, molasses, and egg, beating after each addition. Set aside.

In another bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, baking soda, & baking powder.
Mix everything together so mixture is a uniform consistency.

Mix dry into wet ingredients.

Roll cookies into little balls & roll in cane sugar.

Bake for about 9 mins or until done :)

... yum :)

oh yeah, it snowed (finally!)

8:10 AM

I stopped at Wegman's yesterday for eggs on the way home from Coco's house because I didn't feel like dealing with one-way streets to get to Greenstar, and obviously, I couldn't just get eggs...

...Crystal in a grocery store is like giving a thirteen-year-old girl a shopping spree at the mall :)

Anyway, I tried not to get too much, and ended up leaving with new toothbrushes (yay!), loads of bananas (I capitalized on the opportunity to buy RIPE bananas from Wegman's- they are usually bright green), a carton of cage-free eggs ($3.20 - WHAT? .... LOCAL eggs from happier hens are cheaper than that!), and two bags of Nestle chocolate chips so I can try to perfect the gluten-free chocolate chip cookie.

When I woke up this morning, I looked outside and saw a light dusting of snow, and thought that it would be the perfect morning to make banana bread with some of my ripe bananas (I saw a little bunch that was over-ripe, so I bought it with the intention to make banana bread in mind).

I decided that the flavors of the Gluten-free flour blend #1 that I shared in a previous post would compliment the flavors of the banana, and also decided to play with combining the flavors of cinnamon, cardamom, maple syrup, ginger, and applesauce in my bread.

Gluten-free banana bread #1
3 tbsp butter, softened
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
3 tbsp applesauce
2 tbsp plain yogurt
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
3 medium-sized bananas

seeds from 3 green cardamom pods
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
pinch cloves
3 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups gluten-free flour blend #1 (see previous post for recipe)


**Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large bowl, combine softened butter and dark brown sugar, cream with fork. To this, add applesauce, yogurt, maple syrup, molasses, and vanilla, stirring after the addition of each ingredient. Then, add 2 eggs to the mixture, and beat with electric mixer until combined. Next, add bananas (in small chunks), and beat with mixer until everything is pretty uniform in texture (if you like chunkier banana bread, don't beat as much.. my bananas could have been a little more ripe and mushy, so I used the beater to mix everything). Set aside.

Measure out 1 1/2 cups of the gluten-free flour blend #1() into a medium-sized mixing bowl.

Crush the seeds from 3 cardamom pods so they are a fine powder (I actually put the cardamom seeds and the cinnamon into my coffee grinder and it worked very well- I needed to put the cinnamon in there because the seeds themselves weren't enough material to grind on their own).

Add cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, baking soda, and baking powder to the flour. If you have a sifter, sift everything together. If not, mix VERY well to make sure everything is a uniform consistency.

Add dry mixture to wet mixture, stir to combine.

Use olive oil to grease a loaf pan, pour mixture into pan.
**note: after taking out of oven and taste-testing, I realized that the center really didn't cook quick enough and the sides/top/bottom cooked much quicker. I would highly suggest that you pour most of the mixture into a loaf pan, but also make 2 or 3 regular-sized muffins or 4-5 mini-muffins with the mixture. That way, your bread will bake perfectly! :)

Bake for about 40 minutes or until done!


Cardamom:


..... I just took the bread out of the oven.... WOW. It is REALLY GOOD. The cardamom gives it a really interesting flavor, it is sweet enough without being obnoxiously sweet (many quick bread recipes call for A LOT of sugar- I've seen pumpkin bread recipes with 2 cups of sugar- OMG!), with a not-so-overpowering banana flavor. YUM. The gluten-free flour blend recipe also worked really well with the flavors of the banana and spices that went into the bread & it is healthier than most banana bread recipes out there!!!

Success! :)

Gluten-free pumpkin bread & carrot cake

Here are a couple of recipes I developed a while ago for gluten-free pumpkin bread and carrot cake :)


Gluten-Free Pumpkin Bread

1 3/4 cup Brown Rice Baking Mix (Fearn brand)
1/2 cup potato starch flour (Ener-G brand)
1/2 cup tapioca flour (Ener-G brand)
1 cup almond flour, packed
1/4 cup white rice flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
3 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 heaping tsp cloves

**These are dry. Mix all together very well. If possible sift them so they are all the same consistency.


6 eggs
2 cups applesauce
2/3 cup grapeseed oil
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup

20 oz pumpkin (equivalent to 1 (15 oz) can + 1/3 (15 oz) can)

**Blend together wet ingredients with hand mixer

**After you are done separately mixing wet and dry ingredients, combine!

Cook until done!




Gluten-free carrot cake

1/4 cup brown rice baking mix
3/4 cup white rice flour
1/2 cup potato flour
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp bk sda
1 tsp bk podwr
1 tsp cinn
1/4 tsp nutmeg
pinch cloves

**Mix dry

4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup maple syrup

**Blend wet

*Combine wet+ dry

*Add slightly less than 4 cups of carrots

*Bake until done!


***BOTH Recipes are to be baked at 350 degrees F.

Gluten-free granola

Things that are true of most granola on the market:
1.) Not gluten-free
2.) Even if it is gluten-free, it is REALLY expensive and/or doesn't taste very good
3.) Full of sugar and oil
4.) What you get is what you get. Can't customize it.


I made granola a really long time ago and it was so easy and came out so delicious that I don't know why I have waited so long to make it again.... oh yeah, I remember now... every time I buy all of the add-ins (raisins, nuts, etc.), I end up eating them before I can make anything with them... oops!

Anyway, I wanted to make some granola so I didn't have to go spend $10 a pound on bulk gluten-free granola at Greenstar- seriously, $10 a pound!?

I like to use applesauce and maple syrup to add moisture and a little flavor & sweetness to the oats instead of sugar and oil because applesauce and maple syrup are quite a bit healthier (most granola has cups of sugar and oil, yuck). The combination of the maple syrup, applesauce, and cinnamon smelled just like apple crisp when it cooked and made me super hungry for dinner #2 :)


Gluten-free maple apple crisp granola

Ingredients:

3 cups gluten free oats
1/2 heaping cup applesauce
1/4 cup Grade B (dark) maple syrup
1 teaspoon cinnamon

******these first 4 ingredients combine to form the base of the granola (oats, applesauce, maple syrup, cinnamon)

******The following ingredients are just what I had on hand, and can be modified however you like. If you don't like coconut, don't add it! If you hate raisins, throw in some cranberries. Seriously, any dried fruit would taste soo good with this granola :)
1 cup coconut
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup cashews
1 cup raisins
1 cup currants
6 dried dates, pitted and chopped


Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a large bowl, combine gluten-free oats, cinnamon, applesauce, and maple syrup. Stir until all combined and all of the oats are evenly coated with the cinnamon, applesauce, and maple syrup mixture.

Grease a large cookie sheet with olive oil, and spread out mixture on cookie sheet so it is about 1/2 inch thick. Put in the oven, when you start to smell it cooking, that means you need to start mixing it. Mix it about every 10-15 minutes so that the granola all cooks evenly. It takes about an hour to bake (mine actually took less, but I am not exactly sure how long). You know it is done when you pick up a piece of granola and it feels crunchy in your fingers, and when you taste it, it is crunchy and not soft at all.

Before your granola is completely done cooking (~5-10 mins before), you can add in some of your optional ingredients such as raisins, dried fruit, and nuts. This dries the fruit out a little bit and toasts the nuts so when you store the granola, the oats will not absorb any of the residual moisture left in the fruit. Personally, I like my nuts raw, so I usually won't even put them in the oven.

Once done, take out of the oven and store in an airtight container.

This granola is REALLY tasty with milk like a cereal, or as a topping for yogurt (or even hot oatmeal!)... yummmm! :)

01.01.11.

Happy new year :) While eating breakfast this morning (corn, peas, beets, potatoes, carrots all sauteed with some garlic and eggs, gluten-free bread, and homemade cheese (made by my friend, Laura),

I compiled a list titled "Things to remember in 2011 & for life. 01-01-2011 9:16 AM". This list consists of many things that I have thought about in the recent past that I hope to never forget. The list serves to remind me of things such as: "take time to reflect on the purpose for the things you do", "record your dreams", "take a little time at the end of each day to reflect on everything you accomplished in a mere twenty-four hours", "appreciate simple things around you, like the first crocus of spring or a winter sunset", and "cherish the beauty & solitude of each morning. use this as an excuse to get out of bed.".

I am working on developing a gluten-free chocolate chip cookie recipe. Why? Because everyone loves the classic chocolate chip cookie, and those who cannot eat gluten are sure to miss it. I attempted twice to bake delicious gluten-free chocolate chip cookies on Christmas eve with no success. Both times, the cookies fell flat, spread out, and did not rise a bit. Oh yeah, they were also very crunchy because they were so thin (on the plus side, however, they did taste REALLY good) and cooked too long. Anyway, I realized that my problem was not adding enough baking soda to the recipe, and not mixing the flour/baking soda/salt/xanthan gum mixture well enough so that all ingredients were evenly distributed. So... I decided to try again tonight.

First, I decided that I needed a good starting point in terms of flour. I wanted to try a very large combination of gluten-free flours in hopes that the combination of their flavors would yield a desirable cookie. I have all sorts of gluten-free flours at my house, and am just starting to experiment with combining them. Here is what I came up with:

Gluten-free flour blend #1 (yields 8 cups of gluten-free flour)

4 cups brown rice flour
1 cup potato starch flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup sweet white sorghum flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup chestnut flour
3/4 cup almond flour
6 teaspoons xanthan gum

*Combine all flours VERY well so that the resulting blend is uniform in texture and color. If you can, sift the flours together. If you don't have a sifter (I don't), I would recommend mixing it with your hands so that you can feel when all of the flours and xanthan gum are incorporated.


After I made this *experimental* flour blend, it was time to come up with a chocolate chip cookie recipe!

I really like soft, chewy cookies, so I decided to bake the cookies at a higher temperature for a short amount of time. I based this decision on an article on this website, , which notes that the bigger the cookie, the more moist it will stay after cooking (a key to a soft, chewy cookie), so I should bake big cookies "for a shorter time at a high temperature to firm them up and minimize spreading".

Step #1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit

Another key to keeping moisture and fluffiness in cookies is BUTTER which is usually creamed with the sugar, egg, and vanilla.
I took out the standard 2 sticks (equivalent to 1 stick) of butter, which were frozen (I decided to stick them in a bowl of warm water to soften them because I wanted softened butter, not melted butter for my recipe- does anyone know of any other tricks for defrosting butter? This worked pretty well, but I got impatient and wanted to make the cookies, so I ended up putting the sticks of butter in a bowl and mashing them up as well as I could, and putting it into the preheating oven in 30-second increments. I would take the bowl out, try to cream the butter with a fork, and put it back in. The end result was that most of the butter softened, but a little bit on the edges had started to melt a bit.

Anyway, I knew that I would also need brown sugar (light and dark), vanilla, eggs, baking soda, and salt for my recipe. Here is the ingredient list:


2 sticks butter (softened!)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar (packed)
1/4 cup light brown sugar (packed)
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups gluten free flour blend #1
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Looking back at the recipe now, I just realized that I only added half of the sugar I had intended to add! So I would actually suggest that you add an additional 3/4 cup of white sugar to the recipe because they ended up being much less sweet than a "regular" chocolate chip cookie is supposed to taste and could have really used a bit more sugar to balance out the taste of the flour blend. Here is what the recipe *should* look like:

Gluten-free chocolate chip cookies (yield ~a little more than 3 dozen cookies)
2 sticks butter (softened!)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar (packed)
1/4 cup light brown sugar (packed)
*3/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups gluten free flour blend #1
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
11.5 oz bag Nestle Milk Chocolate Chips

Okay. First step (after turning on the oven and not forgetting the sugar!) is to cream the 2 sticks of butter with the dark brown, light brown, and white sugars. Next, add the vanilla and eggs (beat one in, then the second). Set this bowl aside. In the other bowl, measure out 2 cups of the gluten-free flour blend you made earlier, and to it, add 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda and 1 teaspoon salt. Make sure to incorporate all of these dry ingredients thoroughly so that you don't have little chunks of baking soda here and there. If you can, sift these ingredients. After you are done combining the dry ingredients, add them to the wet sugar/butter/egg/vanilla mixture. Mix until dough is a uniform consistency, then add an entire 11.5 oz package (well I used technically less than a whole package because I couldn't stop eating the chocolate chips while I was baking!) of Nestle Milk Chocolate Chips. Mix everything together, then drop by rounded teaspoons onto a cookie sheet (I didn't grease mine, but you can if you want I guess). Bake for 7 minutes! No more than 7 minutes! Any minute more and they will burn! Trust your nose with these cookies! When you start to smell them cooking, that means they are done!

The cookies came out pretty good, but now I realize that you can taste the flour blend... it is a really interesting flavor- you can really taste the brown rice and chestnut flours.... I think it might be too chestnutty for me, but I really think that an addition of the 3/4 cup white sugar would do the trick- oh yeah, and I also forgot to put molasses in them! Well, these are a good starter cookie, I'd say, and now I have the other 6 cups of my gluten-free flour attempt #1 left to experiment with (I think it would make a really interesting pumpkin or banana bread, carrot cake, or oatmeal raisin cookies... hmmmm!).