Gluten Free Chocolate Donuts with Chocolate Glaze: Baked, Beany and Beautiful!

I sit here stunned. Amazed that I baked up something that was not only edible, made with normally infuriating talc-like, slippery, gluten-free flours, but which looked kinda fancy; like something you might buy in a bakery.

I'm talkin' doughnuts, those circular little sweeties that form two-thirds of Homer Simpsons food pyramid; those coffee break staples and snack time scarfables that bring sugar and grease together in one carb-bursting handful of deliciousness. Oh, I tried lightening up my doughnut making foray with some garbanzo bean flour, by baking rather than frying, and by substituting in coconut oil instead of other oil or shortening. But I know doughnuts are lovely indulgences that wreck hell on one's middle-aged metabolism unless you are an annoyingly lean soul such as my Old Man.

Doughnuts and fritters are this month's baking challenge at the Gluten-Free Ratio Rally, hosted this time round by Meg of Gluten Free Boulangerie. Meg has all the other links to the toothsome doughnut varieties that other GF bloggers and awesome bakers have cooked up in their kitchens, so be sure to drop by on your coffee break.... The GF Ratio Rally is built on the premise that using ratios of flour:eggs:fat:liquid and measuring by volume will produce more predictable results in baking and I am sold on the concept after successfully churning out cream puffs and cherry bublanina cake with this group.

I was thinking about maybe sitting out this GF Ratio Rally challenge this month, as my Fear of Frying and visions of ending up with a greasy pan of burnt donut crumbs was scaring me off. But then I had a sign from Saint Honoratus, the patron saint of bakers, while I was making my weekly visit to my favorite charity thrift shop. Ever alert in the housewares section, I spied my Holy Grail: a bag of what I believed to be aluminum doughnut molds (they actually produce a rather skinny, though beautifully round, donut) but which I believe now to be individual jello molds. No matter, St. Honoratus gave me the self-confidence to put these new kitchen treasures to use, and after a thorough cleaning, drying and anointing with holy oil, or rather cooking spray, they were perfect for shaping my sticky and unwieldy donut batter into perfect little cake donuts.

I started with this great recipe for a vegan chocolate donut from this blogger, and then adapted it to be gluten-free and to incorporate the coconut oil for my exploration into the donut zone. I thought that the garbanzo bean flour would work beautifully in a chocolate doughnut, both in terms of taste and texture, and that proved to be the case. The dough was rather sticky, as most GF batters tend to be and really dripped rather slowly and thickly from my wooden spoon into the greased donut molds. It was a messy project, but satisfying, and the gooey batter leveled itself out after a minute or so, so I didn't have to smooth it into position.

These doughnuts are cakey, rather than CRISPY, like fried doughnuts. They had a not too sweet taste and the chocolate, gooey glaze was the perfect counterpoint. With a glass of cold milk or a mug of hot coffee on the side, (and I tried out both options), this made the perfect snack/breakfast/go-to-the-gym-motivator.

Gluten Free Chocolate Doughnuts with Chocolate Glaze


Cooking oil spray

3 oz. coconut oil, (liquified if your coconut oil has gone solid in the jar)

10 oz.  sugar

10 oz. gluten free flour (about 1-1/3 cups - I used a mixture of 1 cup brown rice flour and 1/3 cup garbanzo bean flour, also known as besan)

4 oz. baking cocoa (about 1/2 cup)

1-1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp. xanthan gum

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup milk mixed with 1/2 tsp. apple cider vinegar (let sit for 10 minutes to get thick)


3 eggs, lightly beaten

2 tsp. vanilla

Chocolate Glaze:

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 Tbsp. melted coconut oil

Doughnut Toppings of your choice (I used flaked coconut and sprinkles for my resident coconut-phobe)



Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  If you own doughnut molds or donut rings/small jello molds, lightly spray them with cooking spray. If you don't own such things, try a different recipe, because this batter is too oozy for shaping freehand.

Blend together sugar, flours, baking cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, xanthan gum and salt.

Add the  milk and vinegar mixture, coconut oil, eggs and vanilla. Mix just until the ingredients are combined.

Dribble 2 1/2 tablespoons of batter into each prepared doughnut mold. My batter was very thick and I had a lot of drips and drizzles all over the molds until I got the hang of it, so I kept a wet napkin at the ready to wipe things down.

Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool on the racks for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the doughnuts in the molds and invert them onto a baking sheet. Let cool another 10 minutes.

Make chocolate glaze by melted coconut oil over a low flame in a frying pan. Add chocolate chips, and, stirring continuously, let melt into a smooth chocolate glaze.While glaze is still warm, dip half of the doughnut into the chocolate sauce. Allow some to drip off and then dip glaze side down into your coconut or sprinkles. Let dry on a rack for at least another 10 minutes.

Makes 12 doughnuts. GF Ratios: 4:1.5:1.5:2.

These doughnuts are not super-sweet like a coffee-store donut or greasy like the cider donuts you get at an apple orchard. Instead, they are more cake-like and semi-sweet like a great cake donut, but they were a stone cold delight for my family. I am envisioning making spice cake and carrot cake versions in the future, and will certainly be checking out the other GF Ratio Rally recipes that other bloggers have posted over at GF Boulangerie. St. Honoratus would want me to.

A Japanese New Year's Treat of Pumpkin Mochi

Investigating naturally gluten-free foods is one way of dispensing with the frustrations of a GF diet. In Japan, there is a tradition of making mochi (pronounced mo-chee) during New Year's festivities, with families and neighbors gathering together to pound steamed glutinous rice (glutinous as in sticky, not full of gluten) in special stone mortars to make a mochi dough paste. This mochi dough is then rolled, molded and decorated into little cakes to eat and offer at Buddhist or Shinto altars.

Mochi has become wildly popular in Hawai'i as well, and there are a seemingly infinite ways of blending in various fruits, flavorings and other additions to make a beautiful rainbow of mochi. It is easy to make mochi using a box of sweet rice flour, which I have found locally in natural foods stores and Asian markets marketed as Mochiko by Koda Farms. I first saw mention of mochi when I read Victoria Abbott Riccardi's book "Untangling My Chopsticks: a Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto" and then checked out blueberry and cherry mochi recipes on The Food Librarian's blog, as well as this cool Pumpkin Mochi variation on Kirbie's Cravings.

Since I have lots of pumpkin puree in my freezer from the mammoth harvest of Rouge Vif d'Etampes pumpkins from our 2009 garden, I thawed some out and made up a big batch of these moist little rice cakes. I spiced them up with some allspice, nutmeg and cloves and they were a hit with the family. They made such a big batch, that I froze some. They are very moist and have sugar in them, so be careful to eat them quickly (I had a few that got moldy by the third day and the dog enjoyed them).

This Pumpkin Mochi is my submission to Grow Your Own, a blog event started by Andrea's Recipes and hosted this month by House of Annie, which celebrates home grown and foraged foods from around the world.

I am delighted to have discovered this Japanese delicacy and will be experimenting with other flavors in the future for sure.

Let's Cook the Books with Some Parkin in Honor of Elizabeth Goudge

A spot of tea and a spicy bite of parkin, an oat-laden gingerbread from England's Yorkshire country made our windy and cool (some might say parky) summer afternoon extra special. I made this English tea-time treat in celebration of Elizabeth Goudge's well-loved juvenile fantasy book, "The Little White Horse". This book is the current book selection for Cook the Books, the online foodie book club that was started last year by me and my bibliophilic blogger friends Johanna of Food Junkie, Not Junk Food and Deb of Kahakai Kitchen.

For each bimonthly round of Cook the Books we have chosen a book to read and then ruminate upon for culinary and bloggity inspiration. We have previously read and blogged about Sicilian cuisine for Lily Prior's novel "La Cucina", explored Middle Eastern food for Diana Abu-Jaber's delicious memoir "The Language of Baklava", and cooked up delights for bad boy chef Anthony Bourdain's book "Kitchen Confidential".



It was my turn to host Cook the Books again and so I thought to change things up a bit. Goudge's book, "The Little White Horse", is our first foray into the world of juvenile literature and fantasy and I found it to be a delightful escape into a world of coziness and comfort. Goudge's writing reminded me of my youthful devouring of George Macdonald's Curdie series and of reading C.S. Lewis' wonderful Narnia series as an older reader. Having similarly swallowed the Harry Potter series whole in reading them to my children (and reading ahead) I can see where author J.K. Rowling drew inspiration from Goudge's book, self-described by Rowling as one of her childhood favorites, for the mouthwatering Hogwarts feast scenes and tremendously sensual descriptions of train carts full of a vast array of Wizard sweets. I had thought that these feast scenes and colorful, descriptive character names were straight out of Charles Dickens' canon, but after reading "The Little White Horse", I sensed the inspiration from this jewel of a novel and imagined the young J.K. snuggled up with it, reading and re-reading it during wintry Scottish blizzards.

The litany of English baked goods which emanated from Moonacre Manor's castle kitchen was what most intrigued me about Goudge's book. I enjoying researching fairy cakes, rock cakes, syllabub, and other tea-time treats. I decided to make a Saffron Cake, the culinary history of which is amply described in this blog post. I had some saffron in the spice cupboard which was fairly well aged from having been purchased for some special recipe of distant memory, as well as some leftover rosewater from another kitchen experiment, so I thought I would take a stab at this recipe for Golden Saffron Cake.



Alas, in my attempts to convert this recipe to a gluten-free version and in perhaps having elderly saffron threads, my Golden Saffron Cake, though rather smart looking, turned out to be medicinal tasting and in my husband's words, like something that had been stashed away in Aunt Tilda's drawer of undergarments, next to the packet of moth balls. I don't even want to think about an elder Auntie's niceties when I'm noshing away. Or at all, for that matter. The cake had a lovely crumb, but it was inedible, and its golden remainder was handed over to our trusty kitchen hound, Martha, for disposal. So back to the Crispy Kitchen I went to figure out something else for the Cook the Books post.

End of the school year madness got in the way, however. With two active teenagers around, there were music concerts to attend, softball and soccer games to squire the young 'uns to, academic awards ceremonies (not to boast (too much) but those Jag girls are brains, don't you know), sports banquets, gardens to plant, etc., etc. So my culinary artistry was stymied by various time constraints, so I do beg everyone's pardon who was waiting for the Cook the Books hostess to get with it and post already.

At last I found some unencumbered hours to spend by my oven, and decided to whip up some parkin. Parkin is a chewy gingerbread traditionally made in England's North Country with oats and plenty of ground ginger, then stashed away to ripen until it is sticky and moist. Again, I had to make my Parkin gluten-free, so I made a few adjustments to this recipe, and we enjoyed a square of parkin recently with a nice cuppa and a dollop of buttercream to fuel us up for an afternoon of yard work.



Here's my adaptation of a hearty Yorkshire Parkin recipe:

2-1/4 sticks butter, room temperature
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup corn syrup (golden syrup is most traditional)

4 cups gluten-free flour (I used a mixture of sorghum, brown rice and leftover packaged GF flour mix)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 Tbsp. ground ginger
3 cups gluten-free rolled oats, whizzed in food processor until coarsely ground
1 tsp. xanthan gum

3 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease a 9 x 12 glass baking dish with shortening or butter.

In saucepan, heat together butter, brown sugar, molasses and corn syrup until butter is melted and sugar grains are smooth.

Stir together flour, baking soda, ginger, ground oats and xanthan gum. Add in melted butter-syrup mixture and stir until thoroughly mixed.

Stir in beaten eggs and blend thoroughly.

Pour into prepared baking dish.

Bake 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of pan comes out clean.

Cool completely in pan before serving. Ideally, parkin can be aged at room temperature in a closed tin least three days to one week before consuming, so that it has a chance to ripen and soften.

Makes about 15 squares of parkin.

I am delighted to report that Deborah Gaudin, of the British Elizabeth Goudge Society, will be judging the submissions for this round of Cook the Books after the June 26 deadline and can't wait to see what everyone has come up with. Be sure to check back at the Cook the Books blog to see our roundup of tasty "Little White Horse" inspirations.

Wrapping up a Culinary Tour Around the World with Sweet Potato Pudding

The fun and informative Culinary Tour Around the World started by Joan at Foodalogue concludes with a tribute to the food of the Southern United States. Joan has been a wonderful guide and explorer and I have learned much and had fun in the kitchen exploring the foods of Norway, Poland, Mongolia (I know, I know, my contribution was only Mongolian-esque, not a true dish from Mongolia!), India, France and Ethiopia.

I wish I could have joined the intrepid Joan on more of the stops along the way, but that's what I could research and whip out for each weekly deadline. I stand in awe of Joan in her talents in coming up with beautiful food and photos for each stop on our journey.

For the last stop on this culinary itinerary, we are exploring the Southern United States. The sweet potato is a Southern food staple, loving the region's long, warm growing season. My family does enjoy its orange taters, whether roasted plain or mashed up with butter and brown sugar and roasted again as Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes. We do love our Smoky Sweet Potato Soup and Sweet Potato Fries, but the best-loved Sweet Potato recipe in the Crispy Cook repertoire, is Sweet Potato Pie.

Fiddling with pie pastry, gluten-free or in the halycon Pre-GF days, however, is not my forte, so I decided to just go ahead and make a Sweet Potato Pudding the other day to serve as a side dish. No crust, just filling, and why not? It was yummy and full of Vitamin A, fiber and sweet flavor. And I didn't have to drive myself crazy with trying to pat a slippery Franken-crust together.



Just be sure to protect your delectable dish from roving Chow Hounds while it's cooling!

Here's my easy recipe for:

Sweet Potato Pudding

3 large sweet potatoes

3 Tbsp. softened butter
2 eggs, beaten lightly
1 (5 oz.) can evaporated milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger

Prick sweet potatoes with a fork several times and place on baking sheet. Bake in a 400 degree F oven until soft, about 45 minutes. Let cool. Peel and mash sweet potatoes.

Grease a 2 quart casserole dish with softened butter.

Mix potatoes with eggs, evaporated milk, brown sugar, salt and spices until smooth. Spoon into prepared casseroled.

Bake at 350 degrees until lightly browned on top, about 35-40 minutes.

Serves 6.

Joan has a great Foodalogue Family Food Fight to conclude her great Culinary Tour Around the World so be sure to hop over there for some entertainment and some mouthwatering recipes.

Pomegranate Cranachan

Those POM Wonderful folks sent me a case of pomegranate juice to play with. I had tried the POM before, as my daughters raved about having it at friends' houses. I like that this brand is 100% juice, rather than mixed with that diabolical high-fructose corn syrup that you find in so many other "juice blends". Unlike my girls, I find straight POM a bit too tart to drink straight, but love it mixed with other juices or sparkling water.

My daughters kept raiding my POM stash (they love those curvaceous bottles!) so I had to hide the remainder until I had time in the kitchen to think up a good way to cook with them. I had seen several inspiring posts on making pomegranate molasses on the Internet, so I tried my hand at that first.

I took two 8 oz. bottles of pomegranate juice and brought it to a boil in a small saucepan. Then I lowered the heat, but let it simmer merrily for a full hour, until it was reduced to 1/3 cup. It thickened up quite a bit upon cooling.

Next I wanted to try using some of my tart pomegranate molasses in a traditional Scottish dessert recipe, Cranachan, which is basically a rich parfait of whipped cream, toasted oatmeal and berries. One of my gluten-free blogger buddies with a serious sweet tooth, Trav, had recently posted a recipe for Raspberry Cranachan, which I wanted to use fresh pomegranates in, but they are now out of stock and out of season at my local market, so I modified Trav's recipe a bit to incorporate my POM bounty. Here, then, is my recipe for:

POM Cranachan

1 cup rolled oats (Bob's Red Mill has a certified gluten-free brand)

1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup sugar

1 cup fresh raspberries, washed

4 Tbsp. honey
3 Tbsp. whiskey
1 Tbsp. pomegranate molasses

2 additional Tbsp. pomegranate molasses

Spread oats on cookie sheet or toaster oven pan and toast until golden brown at 450 degrees F. It only took my oats 7 minutes to reach the right shade, so keep an eye on them and stir them around at least twice during the cooking. Let cool.

Whip cream and sugar together until they form soft peaks. Set aside.

In small saucepan, mix honey, whiskey and 1 Tbsp. pomegranate molasses together. Bring to a boil and heat for a minute or so. Let cool.

Fold toasted oats into whipped cream. Add cooled honey-whiskey mixture and blend carefully.

Make sure to set aside some of the raspberries for garnishing the top of your cranachan.

Assemble your cranachans (this makes four servings) by dolloping some of the cream mixture into goblets or wine glasses. Top with some raspberries and a drizzle of the remaining pomegranate molasses. Repeat layers.

Cover and chill for 15 minutes (the oats soak up some of the moisture from the cream and get a lovely soft, chewy texture).

Serves four.



My Pom Cranachans got a mixed review from the Crispy Gang. Husband Dan liked it, but the kids thought the dessert wasn't sweet enough and that the whole experience was like "eating a candle". I guess they don't like oats in their whipped cream confections.

I'm going to use the remaining bits of precious Pom molasses in a barbecue sauce as created on Jill's luminously-photographed blog, Hey, that tastes good!, and then I'll just have to go out and refresh my POM stash. And find a new hiding place!

Novel Food: Snowballs for Robertson Davies

It is time for the sixth mouthwatering installment of that fun foodie event for brainy cooks, Novel Food. This quarterly blog event is co-hosted by Simona of Briciole and Lisa of A Champaign Taste and offers participants a chance to share some favorite books and the culinary creations inspired by them. In the past I have joined in Novel Food fun with a delicious Yemenite Eggplant Salad inspired by Diana Abu-Jaber's novel "Crescent" (and now am looking forward to reading Abu-Jaber's food-laced memoir "The Language of Baklava" for the second Cook the Books event).

One of my all-time favorite authors is the late Robertson Davies. I have enjoyed reading my way through his body of works, which include ghost stories, plays, literary criticism, essays about books, humor, and of course, his novels. The greatest of these is his Deptford trilogy, begun in "Fifth Business" with a young boys' snowball fight. Dunstan Ramsey uses a minister and his pregnant wife as cover from his friend/enemy Percy, and the unfortunate mother-to-be is struck in the head by a snowball with a stone center, causing brain damage to her and a difficult birth for her infant son. Throughout the remainder of this book, and the successive novels in the Deptford Trilogy, "The Manticore" and "World of Wonders", this single act follows Dunstan and the other characters, including the premature baby, for the duration of their lives.

Davies' literary works are packed with plot lines and musings on art, magic, music, psychology and philosophy, and yet they remain easy to read and get lost in. They resonate with wit and passion and I have enjoyed everything I have dipped into, even his editorial pieces from the Peterborough Examiner writing under his curmudgeonly alter-ego, Samuel Marchbanks.

To honor Davies and his wonderful writings, I fashioned some snowballs of my own, although they are of a decidedly less dangerous and more delicious nature. The oldfashioned treat, popcorn balls, are incredibly easy to make with the following recipe which I found here.



You have to work quickly and carefully to shape the popcorn balls before the mixture cools and hardens, but they are otherwise easy little snack treats to whip up and will be enjoyed by my daughters' indoor soccer team (if they last around), rechristened as Soccer Balls.

Be sure to check back with Briciole in a few days to see the roundup of a culinary-literary World of Wonders with Novel Food.

Poached Pears in Rioja, Ghoulishly Good!

I was doubly inspired to cook up something with pears because they are the fresh produce of the month over at Marta's An Italian in the US blog, and because I saw a cool recipe for pears poached in Spanish Rioja wine in one of the new cookbooks that ambled into the bookshop and was spirited home immediately, "The Cooking Club Cookbook" (by six cute young NYC publishing industry chicks, NY: Villard, 2002).

I have never done anything with pears other than to gobble them up out of hand, so I thought I'd give the poaching recipe a whirl. The Cooking Club Cookbook shows off the once-a-month Sunday afternoon get togethers that the authors had to hone their cooking skills. They picked different themes and cuisines for the chapters in the book and the first one, a Spanish menu, had lots of great and somewhat easy-sounding recipes. The Pears Rioja called for a flambe at the end, however, and given that the Crispy Cook has curly, escapist locks and a somewhat clumsy nature, I opted not to get any crispier with that finishing technique.

I found another recipe for Poached Pears in Red Wine over at this website, but it called for a scandalous amount of wine (2 whole cups!) and I was not willing to part with that much grapery. Taking the best parts of each recipe, (in my humble virgin pear-cooking opinion) I came up with this tasty recipe. We tried it as is and it's good, but it is even more delightful as a topping for vanilla ice cream.

Cooking it filled the kitchen with an imperial and suitably autumnal spiciness and it was great to be able to go to the market and buy hard fruit that didn't need ripening before cooking.




POACHED PEARS IN RIOJA

4 hard pears, peeled and cored. (I used Bosc pears and cored them easily with my apple corer)

1/2 cup Rioja or other dry red wine
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
Juice of one lemon
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground cloves

Combine wine, vanilla, sugar and spices in medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring, until sugar is dissolved. Keep an eye on the heat so it doesn't boil over. Let cook until desired syrupiness is achieved (about 10-15 minutes).

Slice pears into 1/4 inch slices. Add half of pear slices and cook over low heat, until medium-soft, about 10 minutes. Remove with slotted spoon and add in remaining pears to cook. Add in first batch of pears and cool.

Cover and chill at least 2 hours or until cold.

Makes 6-8 dessert servings.

Today is the last day of the Fresh Produce of the Month's pear edition, so call on Marta in the next week to see the roundup of fruity recipes.

And a Happy, Healthy and Safe Halloween to all!

Gluten-Free Blueberry Pizza

It's blueberry season in upstate New York so I am programmed to buy an obligatory couple of pints to play with in the kitchen. In my pre-caffeinated state this morning I was attempting to find my gluten-free blueberry pancake recipe (is it one of the dog-eared pages in one of a hundred or so cookbooks? Or in my piles of bespattered papers that are going to be typed neatly and organized into plastic-sheeted notebook SOMEDAY?). Too daunting.

On the way I pulled out Carol Fenster's "Wheat-Free Recipes and Menus" (Littleton, CO: Savory Palate, 199) and was diverted by a recipe for Peach Clafouti (rhymes with Doug Flutie), which I thought could be easily converted into a bluer concoction. After sucking down some more java, I was able to adapt Ms. Fenster's peachy recipe into this delightful breakfast blueberry pizza, which was eaten by four hungry humans in less than eight minutes.

Blueberry Pizza

2 Tbsp. shortening

3 Tbsp. white rice flour
1 Tbsp. potato starch (don't confuse this with potato flour, which is a different animal)
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 Tbsp. corn oil

1 pint blueberries, rinsed and free of stems

Powdered sugar

Grease an ovenproof skillet with shortening. I used my trusty 10 inch cast iron frying pan, which made this blueberry pizza wonderfully CRISPY, but a smaller 8 or 9 inch skillet would be alright, and would just make the pizza a little softer and thicker.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Blend together white rice flour, potato starch, salt, eggs, milk, vanilla, oil and cinnamon in mixing bowl or blender.

Heat skillet over medium heat on stove. Add 1/3 of the pizza batter to the pan and cook 2-3 minutes, or until it looks like a mostly cooked pancake or crepe. Sprinkle blueberries over the top and pour on the rest of the batter.

Place in oven and bake 35-40 minutes or until nicely browned and puffy. Sprinkle with powdered sugar to taste (3-4 Tbsp. should do for the whole pizza).

Cut into 6 wedges (so 4 people have to fight over the extras).

We ate this warm, but I would imagine that it is also nice cold.

Black Raspberry Parfait

We have a spot in our backyard where we dump the grass from our mower and let it rot awhile before using it as mulch in our gardens. All along this grassy bower are wild raspberry bushes which the birds usually get to before I remember they are ripening. This year, however, I was out weeding in the vegetable garden and saw some bright red bird scat on one of my tomato leaves. An ornithological message! I hied it over to the raspberries as quickly as I could.

Half an hour later I had 2 cups of velvety dark purple berries and a collection of scratches all over my arms, but no matter, it was time to reward my family with a great seasonal dessert. It's simple and luscious and you could make it with other types of seasonal berries and cut-up fruit.

Black Raspberry Parfait

2 cups black raspberries
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla
2 Tbsp. sugar

Whip cream with vanilla and sugar until soft peaks form. Layer some berries in each of four wine or parfait glasses and then add some whipped cream and repeat once more. Chill 1-2 hours before serving.

Serves 4.

I am submitting this recipe to the Grow Your Own event hosted by Andrea's Recipes, which features home grown or foraged edibles. With gardens bursting with produce in the Northern Hemisphere, there should be a cornucopia of entries at the roundup.

The Search for a Gluten-Free Cannoli

Last month, my daughter needed to make an Italian food to bring to school and wanted to bring cannolis. It was easy enough to find a recipe for the filling, but the cannoli shells seemed too daunting to attempt, gluten-free or not, so we went to our local supermarket and bought a batch of unfilled shells.

We filled them with a blend of ricotta cheese blended with some vanilla, instant coffee powder and powdered sugar and then stuffed the filling into a plastic bag with a corner snipped off for a makeshift pastry bag. Then we dipped the ends of the cannolis in mini-chocolate chips and Badda Bing! They looked rather splendid and I can assure that none were left on the plate by my daughter's classmates.


I still wanted to scout out a gluten-free cannoli shell recipe so I could use the leftover ricotta filling to make Dan some of these beauties, but I couldn't find any information on the Internet or in any of my gluten-free cookbooks, so I think the wheat gluten may be somewhat vital to the architecture of these crispy little tubes. Perhaps some Daring Baker out there would like to tackle this as a gluten-free baking challenge?

I did find some mention that a gluten-free pizzelle, a crispy sort of Italian fried cookie, might be a good substitute cannoli shell if rolled around a metal cannoli tube. Apparently you also need a special pizzelle iron to make these cookies, so I was further thwarted in my quest for a gluten-free cannoli, although here is a link to a pizzelle recipe for those dessert makers more stubborn than I.

All was not lost for Dan's sweet tooth, however, as I made him a different kind of Italian treat with some cannoli goodness: a Sicilian-style Cassata Cake. I figured a good, firm sponge cake would be an easy gluten-free thing to bake up, and it thankfully was according to this recipe.. I then let the sponge cakes cool and topped each layer with some of the coffee-flavored ricotta filling and there was a tasty, cannoli-like dessert for Dan, which he enjoyed especially over several mornings with his cup of coffee.

Now if only some gluten-free baking entrepreneur would manufacture a gluten-free cannoli shell that I could purchase through the mail and stick in the freezer to pull out as needed for my sweetheart......

Peanut Butter Eclair Cake for the Peanut Butter Boy

Nick the Peanut Butter Boy, whose food blog is a paean to the nutty paste and whom I suspect may be a gluten-free blogger as well, is having his third Great Peanut Butter Exposition. This foodie contest involves peanut buttery cakes and so this was the perfect excuse to try out Lea is Gluten Free's Peanut Butter Eclair Cake, one of the oldest recipes in my To-Be-Cooked pile. I am not planning to officially enter the contest as this is not my original recipe, but just wanted to join in the cooking fun.

The recipe takes a while, as you must cook stuff on the stove, mix it in a mixer, cool it, throw on another mixer batch of peanut butter pudding, cool some more and then top off with whipped cream (I don't do Cool Whip with its periodic-table-of-contents ingredients list) and chocolate sauce, so it's not a recipe I would make often.

The caloric content is probably off the charts too, so there's another reason to limit supply, but the demand for it among my family and friends was high! A dessert winner! It's a gooey, rich, comfort dessert that seemed to get better the next morning, when we had it for a completely decadent breakfast. But I'm sure the Peanut Butter Boy would approve of that, he of the Peanut Butter and Banana Omelets and Chocolate/PB/Cream Cheese Toast Spreads.....

I didn't have any Tom's Light Gluten Free Bread Mix on hand as Lea used in her recipe, so I used a box of Gluten-Free Pantry's French Bread and Pizza Mix. The base was a bit, well, pizza-like and probably more chewy than desired. The next time I make this treat I would try a blend of rice flour and corn starch to get it to be a more delicate texture. We brought a batch of this deliciousness to my daughter's softball banquet last night and the Bulldogs (70-2 this year!) polished off the batch, though I did see some of the eclair part left behind in the pan.

The Peanut Butter Boy's Cake Contest continues on through the rest of this month, so you can still have time to whip up something worthy of George Washington Carver's favorite legume and enter in this fun foodie event.

Adopt a Gluten-Free Blogger: The GFCF Experience

For the last two three rounds of the Adopt A Gluten-Free Blogger Event started by Sea at the Book of Yum, my adoptees were all female bloggers, but this time I thought I'd check out one of the male GF bloggers, Thomas at the GFCF Experience. He also happens to be the current host for this round, which runs through June 9th.

The GFCF Experience is a labor of love for this devoted father of four, one of whom resides on the autism spectrum. A gluten-free, casein-free diet has been shown to have many beneficial effects in treating kids with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Thomas' blog has many informative links and resources on this subject. He is also an awesome cook, as a list of his many recipes show.

I tried out the Brownie Tart recipe that Thomas had modified to be GFCF from the Barefoot Contessa. I didn't have a 9 inch tart pan and used an 8 inch springform pan instead. I also didn't have a bag of gluten-free flour mix on hand and substituted brown rice flour. The tart came out nice and chewy, with a meltingly rich chocolate-coffee taste, that was perfect with a cup of coffee on the side. Bravo GFCF! Another dessert winner for our family recipe box!

Check back with The GFCF Experience after June 9th for a roundup of all the blogger recipes from adoptees.

Lime Cheesecake with a Raspberry Swirl, Decadently Gluten-Free

June's Royal Food Joust at the Leftover Queen's Foodie Blogroll involves the use of raspberries, limes and almonds. This fun cooking challenge encourages the participants to use three ingredients picked from the previous month's winner and this fruity troika immediately made me think of cheesecake. I was planning on bringing a dessert to our family Memorial Day barbecue, and after a little bit of experimentation and cookbook research, decided on this twist on my basic cheesecake recipe.

It was a hit with all dessert lovers and the lime made a nice and tangy middle. The nut crust eliminated the need for any wheat flour, so it's a naturally gluten-free recipe that satisfied everyone's sweet tooth.

Lime Cheesecake with a Raspberry Swirl

Crust:
1 10 oz. bag sliced almonds (about 2 cups)
¼ cup butter, melted
¼ cup brown sugar

Filling:
2 lbs. cream cheese, softened (I used half regular cream cheese and ½ low-fat cream cheese)
1-1/2 cups sugar
Juice of 2 limes
Pinch of salt
4 eggs

Raspberry Swirl:
6 oz. frozen whole raspberries
1Tbsp. cornstarch
½ cup sugar

Butter a 10 inch springform pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In food processor, process almonds until they are a fine meal. Dust bottom and sides of springform pan with almond meal. Add melted butter to remaining almonds and mix in brown sugar. Press onto the bottom of the springform pan.

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar with electric mixer until well blended, 1-2 minutes. Add lime juice and salt and beat another minute. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.

Pour cheesecake filling into prepared springform pan. Place on a cookie sheet.

Reserve a handful of raspberries for garnish. Place rest of raspberries and sugar in a small saucepot and bring to a boil, stirring. Add a tablespoon or two of water if this mixture needs a little more juice. Mix cornstarch with 2 Tbsp. water and blend into raspberries after they reach a boil. Lower heat and cook, stirring, about 5 minutes, or until thickened.

Swirl in raspberry puree into cheesecake, working rapidly so as to avoid turning the entire cheesecake pink. I found that working clockwise and making eight small swirls on the outer edge and one central swirl worked well.

Bake cheesecake at 350 degrees in center rack of oven for 50-60 minutes. Let cool on a rack until room temperature. Then cover and refrigerate overnight.

Garnish cheesecake with reserved raspberries.

Makes 8-10 servings.

Chocolate-Nut Fudge

Just about the easiest recipe I have in my trusty index card file is this one for fudge. Four ingredients, two steps, that's it. We needed some extra sweets for the book signing tomorrow at our shop, the gluten-free book signing and this fit the bill, as I was spending the day in the kitchen while Dan manned the shop.

You can make this fudge with any flavor of morsel, not just chocolate chips, so think butterscotch, peanut butter, white chocolate.....
Just be sure to check that all ingredients are gluten-free.

Here's the easiest recipe you'll ever try:

Chocolate-Nut Fudge

1 (12 oz.) pkg. chocolate chips
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 tsp. vanilla

Place chips and milk in a small pot and heat over low flame until melted, stirring every minute or so. This takes about 5 minutes. Add nuts and vanilla.

Butter a 9x9 or 7x10 pan. Pour fudge into pan and spread evenly. Cover and refrigerate until firm (about 2 hours).

Cut fudge into squares.

That's it! And it tastes like you sweated all day over a hot stove.

Makes about 24 pieces of fudge.

A Simple and Exotic Dessert

So I had this container of ricotta cheese kicking around the fridge and didn't feel like making lasagna or stuffed shells, so I prowled around for a recipe and found this delightful dessert on cooks.com. It's a snap to make and has a delicate blend of flavors that the two Jag adults dug, but the kids didn't really like (more for us!). Despite the unexotic name, it really was an intriguing palate pleaser and we'll make it again.

HINDU CHEESE DESSERT

1 c. creamed cottage cheese
1 c. Ricotta cheese
1/4 c. light brown sugar
Grated rind of 1 lemon (I skipped this ingredient because it reminds too much of bad fruitcake)
1-2 tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
1/3 c. slivered almonds, toasted

Combine cheeses and brown sugar. Beat until well blended. Add next 3 ingredients and 1/4 cup of the almonds; mix well. Put in serving dish or dishes and sprinkle with remaining almonds. Chill 1 hour or longer. Six servings. Delicate dessert, good after "strong" main course.

Serves 6.

Pavlova for Your Sweetheart

Our two daughters have been chosen to serve as Student Ambassadors in the People to People Program, which sends kids overseas to represent America in a positive light and interact with other students and adults during the summer months. Our oldest daughter is going to check out various parts of Europe, while the youngest is going to visit eastern Australia and New Zealand. Part of the preparation for the Student Ambassador program is to learn about the culture, government and history of your destination, so as chief cook in our household I researched some Aussie and Kiwi foodstuffs and found a naturally gluten-free dessert which produced an appropriately Pavlovian response (we all drooled), the Pavlova.

According to Wikipedia, this luscious dessert is alternately claimed to have been created by chefs in both countries down under in honor of the 1920s visits by renowned ballerina, Anna Pavlova. It consists of a meringue shell topped with whipped cream and fruit. It is traditionally eaten on Christmas, but with a red fruit topping, I think it would also be a perfect Valentine's Day treat.

Pavlovas can be covered with sliced kiwis, pomegranate seeds, berries of all kinds, and even candies, but I made a Pavlova with our family fruit favorite, strawberries. This is a rich and delicate dessert best eaten immediately after making, as the meringue outer shell only stays crispy for a little while before absorbing the moisture from the cream and fruit. There was a lot of washing up to do after making this, but the results were well worth it.

Look for some more Australian and New Zealand recipes in the future as we all prepare for this traveling opportunity. The kids are also doing some fundraising for all the expenses of these trips, and we are helping them with a special sale at our Internet book site, Old Saratoga Books. We have lots of cookbooks, history titles and books in 82 different categories listed there and if you are interested in any, you can enter the coupon code PTP to get 25% off any book order.

Onto the deliciousness of the Pavlova:

I turned to the Joy of Baking website for the basic recipe. Everything turned out well, except that I found that the meringue base stuck to the parchment paper quite effectively after baking and cooling. I had to juggle two spatulas to transfer it onto a platter for cream and fruit assemblage and it ended up in several pieces. I wonder if you should grease the parchment paper or just cut a circle out of it and serve the Pavlova with the paper stuck to it for diners to remove? In any event, the breakage was not noticeable once I slathered it with whipped cream and fruit, but if anyone has any Pavlova experience, please let me know.

The Joy of Baking recipe calls for sliced fresh fruit, but I used most of a 16 oz. container of thawed sliced, sweetened strawberries, and this worked beautifully.

G'day and Happy Baking!

Using Up Pie Crust Scraps

As a little girl, I would love to help my mom and grandmas cook in the kitchen and one of the "specialties" I had was to take leftover pie dough trimmings and sculpt them into elaborate shapes for "cookies" or as Lilliputian pie shells for jam fillings. Neither tasted particularly good, but I had a lot of fun working the dough onto my own cookie sheet.

Now that I'm making gluten-free pie crusts and the time spent shopping for and money spent on various types of flours is so dear, I was eyeballing the scraps I had trimmed off two pumpkin pies I was baking the other day. The pie crust recipe I use is Bette Hagman's Featherlight Vinegar Crust (for recipe see my previous post for Apple Sour Cream Pie) and it is wonderfully flaky and has a nice flavor. I then spotted the bag of apples that had gone instantly mealy from the time I purchased them to their arrival at home. Voila! Apple crisp! The pastry scraps got fluffed around with a fork and I had an apple crisp topping. Double frugal score to boot!

Here's sort of a recipe:

6 past-due apples, peeled, cored, sliced
Brown sugar
Butter
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Pastry Scraps, fluffed up

Butter a small baking dish (1 quart will do). Toss apple slices with brown sugar and some cinnamon and nutmeg to taste. Sprinkle on pastry scraps, some more brown sugar and dot top with butter.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour.

Everybody ate it up, especially when I served it with our dinner, along with the pumpkin pies. Two desserts with dinner was a hit with the kids and I was pleased they were ingesting a vegetable and fruit on the same plate.

Chocolate of the Gods

We recently spent a lovely, lazy day at Friends Lake in the Adirondacks with Dan's cousins and enjoyed a great gluten-free feast hosted by our happening hosts, Mike and Jill. Jill has recently found out that she has a gluten sensitivity, so needless to say we were madly swapping recipes and cooking/restaurant tips. Jill spoiled us all with some decadent Chocolate Brownies, for which I begged for the recipe. They are more like a silken, semi-sweet kind of fudge and have a nice Aztec hint of spice. Run to the kitchen and whip up a batch of these:

Flourless Fudge Brownies

6 large eggs, room temperature

18 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped

1 cup unsalted butter

2 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 cup heavy cream

4 oz. dark chocolate, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
2. Prepare a 9-inch square baking pan by lining it with foil and spraying the foil with nonstick cooking spray or brushing it with vegetable oil.
3. Melt the semisweet chocolate and the butter in a double boiler (a pan set over a hot water bath); stir until smooth.
4. Add vanilla and cinnamon; stir thoroughly to combine.
5. Remove mixture from the heat and cool to room temperature.
6. In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the eggs on high speed until very frothy and about triple in volume (approximately 5 minutes).
7. Fold half of the beaten eggs into the chocolate mixture and combine.
8. Then fold in the remaining egg.
9. Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan and smooth the top with a spatula.
10. Place the pan of brownie batter into a larger pan, like a roasting pan and fill that pan with hot water half way up the side of the smaller pan containing the batter.
11. Place the pan on the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes.
12. Turn off the oven but keep the brownies in the closed oven for another 10 minutes.
13. After 10 minutes, remove the brownies pan from the larger water bath pan and place it on a wire rack to cool while making the glaze.
14. To make the glaze, heat the cream and the dark chocolate in a double boiler over simmering water.
15. Stir until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth.
16. Pour the hot glaze over the brownies and smooth it out with a spatula.
17. Set the pan aside to cool completely.
18. When cool, cover the pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
19. Cut chilled brownie into 12 squares.
20. Brownies taste best when allowed to come to room temperature for 30 minutes before serving.

Gluten-Free Cheesecake

My mom came over to spend some time with us and showered us with much-needed cooking, gardening and child care assistance. Also, a lot of love. She made us the delicious New York-style cheesecake which is shown above during its brief life before being devoured by a horde of hungry humans. She originally got the recipe from the back label of a certain cream cheese brand, but we adapted it to be safe for gluten-free diners. Here's our version:

Mom's Famous Cheesecake

3/4 cup crushed gluten-free cookies (we used gluten-free animal crackers from the store, but homemade gluten-free cookies would of course be preferable)
2 Tbsp. melted butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 (8 oz.) pkgs. cream cheese, softened
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs
Raspberry preserves

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line one round 9 inch cake pan with aluminum foil, folding edges over sides of pan.

Mix cookie crumbs with butter and 1 Tbsp. of the sugar. Press crumb mixture into bottom of cake pan.

Beat cream cheese, remaining sugar and 1/2 tsp. vanilla in large bowl with mixer until well blended. Add 1/2 cup sour cream and continue mixing. Add eggs, one at a time, blending well. Pour into cake pan.

Bake 40 minutes or until center is almost set. Mix remaining sour cream, another 1 Tbsp. sugar and remaining vanilla until well blended. Spread over top of cheesecake and bake an additional 10 minutes. Cool cheesecake.

When completely cooled, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2-3 hours before serving. Top with raspberry preserves or other preserves. Fresh ripe berries or other macerated fruits in season would also be lovely.

Serves 8. Leftovers unlikely.