PB&J Banana Bread

I'll be honest: there was a moment, as I slid the loaf pan into the oven, when I thought: This is going to be heavy and dry. And possibly inedible. I should really have tried the original recipe first, or at least gone with a more familiar substitution like apple sauce.

I was very relieved to discover how wrong I was!

Welcome back to Lent, when my baking experiments get a little weird. Once I again, I set aside consumption of various things I normally love, including sugar and (at least most of the time) butter, cheese and eggs.

I was trying to explain the reasoning behind this to a friend a few weeks ago, and it didn't go very well—partly because my friend was feeling silly while I was trying to answer seriously, and partly because my usual words were not quite resonating for me. And then, on the first Sunday in Lent, I heard another friend, Rev. Meaghan Kelly of New Church, preach on the subject of giving up coffee—not for Lent, just in general. To paraphrase, she said something like, I realized I needed a cup of coffee to feel like the world is a good place. And if I'm depending on a beverage to feel like the world is a good place, I probably need to stop drinking coffee for awhile. [She may not have said "for awhile." My brain can't fathom the alternative, though, so I'm going to pretend she did.]

And I guess that's what I do when I set aside (I prefer that phrase, rather than "give up") consuming coffee, tea, alcohol, sugar, television, fiction literature ... all things I enjoy and consider to be evidence that the world is a good place. I need to stop escaping and start reconnecting with friends, family and God.

Which probably makes recipes like this one a little beside the point. Because I definitely would have a harder time considering the world a good place if I couldn't have peanut butter. But, six and a half weeks is just a really long time to go without the occasional sensory pleasure. And the flavor and belly-filling heartiness of peanut butter come through really nicely in this modified recipe based on Rebecca Reilly's Peanut Butter Banana Bread.

A couple of notes: I buy my natural peanut butter (peanuts and salt, only) and fruit-sweetened fruit spread (which I call "jelly") at Trader Joe's, but you can find them in a lot of stores. This bread is not at all sweet, but does have nice, subtle flavors that hint mostly at peanuts and banana. I used strawberry fruit spread, but couldn't really taste it in the bread, so any flavor should be fine.

I was really pleased with how fluffy and nicely-browned this turned out!
The concentrated fruit-sugar in the jelly must have been enough to get some nice browning going.

PB&J Banana Bread

1 c. brown rice flour

2/3 c. potato starch

1/3 c. sweet rice flour

1 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. xanthan gum

1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt

1/2 c. natural peanut butter

1/2 c. fruit-sweetened fruit spread

2 ripe bananas, peeled

Preheat over to 350°F. Line a 9"x5" loaf pan with parchment paper.

Combine all dry ingredients (brown rice flour through salt) in a bowl. Stir gently with a whisk to homogenize a little.

Place peanut butter, fruit spread and peeled bananas in the bowl of a mixer. Mix on low, then speed up to medium for a couple of minutes, until bananas have incorporated completely and mixture is starting to lighten. Turn off mixer.

Add dry ingredients, then turn mixer on low speed and mix until just completely incorporated.

Use a rubber spatula to spread the batter into the pan. It will be very stiff and seem a little sticky and dry. This is okay, as it turns out!

Bake 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Use the parchment paper to lift the loaf out of the pan, and cool on a wire rack at least 10 minutes before slicing.

Makes about 10 generous slices.

Delicious with a glass of milk, or some herbal tea! [Herbal tea is not made from tea leaves, so I do drink it during Lent. Trader Joe's Ruby Red Chai with milk was a perfect accompaniment, this morning.]

Whole-grain GF Waffles

Waffles are really not that hard to make. So why have I been so intimidated by them, most of my life?

Sure, you have to get the dry/liquid balance right. There's the question of whether or not it's necessary to separate the eggs & beat the whites. The waffle iron has to be adequately seasoned or oiled, so the waffles don't stick. And, if you get ever-so-slightly over-generous when pouring the batter, you'll meet with the inevitable heartbreak and anguish of waffle-iron overflow. Oh, the tears and recriminations! [Pretty sure that last line was stolen from an episode of Buffy I just re-watched.]

Okay, there are challenges. Granted. But now that I've made waffles a handful of times from batter, I think I've developed a pretty good feel for avoiding these most common pitfalls. (The egg question, by the way? Doesn't seem to matter for my standard waffle iron. I think it might make a difference when using a Belgian waffle iron.) The logical next step, I decided, was to take a little more control over what goes into the waffles—more whole grains, no sweeteners because the syrup takes care of that—and that means making them from scratch.

Equipment recommendation: If your waffle iron needs to be greased, and you're like me and don't tend to keep cooking spray around, get a silicone pastry brush. I grabbed a pair from Ikea the last time I was there, and while they're not wonderfully delicate for use in actual pastry, they are fantastic for lightly brushing oil or melted butter onto a hot waffle iron.

If you have a shelf or two full of gluten free cookbooks, as I do, then you may have noticed the two things I've noticed: (1) a lot of GF cookbooks don't bother with pancakes or waffles, and (2) when they do, the recipes often seem to be unnecessarily complex. I'm just not going to mess with all that when I'm hungry after church on Sunday. But, fortunately, Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking, by Kelli Bronski and Peter Bronski, contains a pretty straightforward waffle recipe that I was able to use as a guide. I halved their recipe and still made enough for four full-sized waffles on my Cuisinart Round Classic Waffle Maker [link provided as a size reference]; I also changed the flour blend, because my main objective was to used whole-grain flours.

Bob's Red Mill, which is pretty widely available these days, makes all of the types of flour I used, plus xanthan gum and a baking powder I believe is GF. Argo baking powder, which is what I had on-hand, is also GF.

WHOLE-GRAIN WAFFLES

1/3 c. millet flour

1/3 c. sorghum flour

1/4 c. teff flour

1/4 tsp. xanthan gum

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. GF baking powder

1 egg, separated if making Belgian waffles

3/4 c. milk

2 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted, plus a little extra for brushing the iron, if needed

maple syrup, fruit, or other topping as desired

1. Measure the flours, xanthan gum, salt, and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Whisk to blend.

2. Plug in waffle iron and set to desired darkness (if settings are available), a little lighter than for refined-flour waffles.

3. If separating the egg, place the white into a separate bowl, big enough to accommodate beaters or some vigorous whisking. Beat until stiff peaks form, then set aside.

4. Add the egg yolk (or whole egg) and milk, and mix well. Drizzle in the melted butter and mix until well-combined. If the white was beaten separately, fold it in, gently, until just incorporated.

5. When the waffle iron is ready, brush it lightly with melted butter, then add enough batter to fill the center of the iron bed, leaving about a 2-inch border when the batter has been spread out a little. It will expand toward the edges! Adjust the quantity as needed for your particular machine.

6. Leave the waffle iron alone until it indicates that the waffle is done, then gently remove it with a heatproof utensil such as a silicone spatula. If you have hungry people waiting, pop the hot waffle onto someone's plate and pass the syrup! Otherwise, place the waffle on a baking rack so it doesn't get soggy. Cool waffles freeze well and can be reheated in a toaster or toaster oven on a busy morning!

makes 4 large, round waffles

Time to make the donuts ...

No, seriously, I made donuts!

Lent is over, Alleluia!, and I've been trying to find a sane balance between eating the kinds of healthy things that made me feel good during Lent and eating the kinds of sugary things I often enjoy. My solution has been to save at least four days a week as days when I don't eat any sugar at all, but allow myself a few days when I have some sweets. I'm finding that I don't crave sweets as much, and if I start to, I may have to cut sugar back to fewer days. It's probably just my personality, but I need some sort of absolute prohibition (even if it's only a day or two at a time) to keep myself from taking a flying leap off the wagon.

Meanwhile, I found some interesting recipes during Lent, and have been looking for opportunities to try them. One of those was Gluten-Free Maple Glazed Banana Donuts from Udi's Gluten Free Foods. I even bought myself a donut pan and everything! I used rice milk instead of almond milk, because it's what I had, but otherwise I tried to stay true to the recipe for this first attempt.

It went pretty well. I think the recipe is actually supposed to make 9-12 donuts (I couldn't find that info anywhere in the recipe, please tell me if you see it!), and I slightly over-filled the donut trenches before figuring that out. (I had some leftover batter, even so, and baked that in the bottoms of four cupcake cups.) The size of the finished product is totally reasonable, but I ended up baking them 14 minutes and I think they really needed longer.

Right after coming out of the oven

Also, I tried to get cute and dip the less-pretty side in the glaze, in hopes that the glaze would cover that and make the whole thing look pretty, but the glaze only soaked in. Possible that I should have waited longer before glazing, or that I should have just dipped the less-porous top side. [I should include a shout-out here to the Carlisle (MA) Tap-and-Sap Society. I bought a pint from their 2009 run at last year's Old Home Day, and have been rationing it carefully until I can get some more. But, I thought my first donut attempt was a worthy enough cause to use a few Tbs.]

Still, they do look like donuts!

The texture is basically like a soft sponge cake, light but too delicate to dunk into coffee or anything like that. They would probably be a little more solid with a few more minutes in the oven. They're also all kinds of sweet, which was barely mitigated by the cup of strong, black coffee I had alongside, but the banana and maple flavors were very tasty.

All in all, I would try this recipe again. I think I would either look for a way to make the glaze with less sugar or try to work the maple flavor into the donuts and skip the glaze altogether. One obvious idea would be to replace some or all of the sugar with maple syrup, and add some flour to balance; the liquid:ratio balance could also be maintained, potentially, by omitting the milk. (It was a coincidence that I had rice milk on-hand, incidentally. In the future I'm sure dairy milk would work fine for those, like myself, with no dairy issues.)

Final verdict: These were easy to make and the price of ingredients, which are things an average gluten free baker would have around, anyway, was way lower than a box of Kinnikinnick or Glutino donuts in my local supermarkets. Definitely worthwhile!

And now, I definitely have to get back out and run today ...

Apple Juice-Sweetened Pumpkin Nut Muffins

Yet more variations on the theme of (a) Pantry Creativity and (b) my Lenten fast. I had about 1/2 c. canned pumpkin leftover from a holiday-season recipe, which I had carefully frozen for future use. Knowing that applesauce can make a good egg substitute in baked goods, I thought pumpkin mash might work, too. Working with a pumpkin pie recipe for spice ideas, I came up with this recipe.

Note: These are not particularly sweet, at all. I think they taste great with a cup of rooibos tea with milk and a banana or a little greek yogurt on the side, but if you want something sweeter, try adding a tsp or two of agave nectar. Also, they're not terribly strong in pumpkin flavor, just nice and moist. If you really want a pumpkin taste, try doubling the pumpkin and reducing the apple juice.

My secret weapon in all muffin-baking is my silicone muffin cups. I just line them up on an old cookie sheet, fill and bake. Gluten-free muffins pop right out of them, which is great because those little paper cups tend to stick to frozen baked goods, and I always end up freezing muffins for future consumption.

Thanks are due to Rebecca Reilly's Gluten-Free Baking for the framework of this recipe, especially the flour ratios.

Apologies for the blurriness of this photo. It was morning, after all...

APPLE JUICE-SWEETENED PUMPKIN NUT MUFFINS

1 c brown rice flour

1/2 c stone-ground cornmeal

1/2 c tapioca starch

2 tsp gluten-free baking powder (such as Argo)

1 tsp egg replacer

1/2 tsp xanthan gum

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp nutmeg

dash allspice

pinch salt

1/2 c canned pumpkin

1/4 c canola oil

1/4 c ground flaxseed

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 1/4 c apple juice

1/2 c apple-sweetened dried cranberries

1/2 c pecan pieces

Preheat the oven to 375°F and prepare 12 regular-size muffin cups (grease, paper, or use silicone as mentioned above).

Combine dry ingredients (top half of list, through salt) in a medium-sized bowl and whisk gently to blend.

In a small bowl, combine pumpkin, oil, flaxseed, vinegar, and a little of the apple juice. Stir well with whisk. Whisk in some more apple juice until a thick, liquify consistency is reached. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add pumpkin mixture, stirring from the center to incorporate dry ingredients. Once most of the dry ingredients are incorporated, add more apple juice if needed to make a thick but almost-pourable batter. Stir in cranberries and pecans.

Spoon into muffin cups and bake 18 minutes. Cool on a wire rack, turned out of muffin cups if possible.

"Sweet" Rice Flour Crêpes

"Sweet" rice flour is a flour made from glutinous or "sticky" rice. It's available at many Asian grocery stores. I found a 5-lb bag of it in a Korean grocery store in Ayer, MA, quite a few years ago and have been chipping away at it ever since. It keeps just fine when closed well and kept in the fridge (most gluten-free flours do better stored in the fridge rather than at room temperature), but somehow there's a little voice inside my head that keeps saying, "use that stuff up!" so I'm always trying to think of new ways to do it.

It's Lent again, so I gave up all kinds of things again for my Lenten fast (a nearly-vegan diet focusing on whole grains, legumes, vegetables, dried fruits and occasional nuts, plus skim milk and homemade skim-milk plain yogurt; no sugars, honey, maple syrup, etc., no caffeine, no alcohol, small portions, no snacking). On Sundays, there is a rule that says you're supposed to indulge in small amounts of what you gave up, to remember that Sunday is always a special day, even in Lent. Me, I like to go for some butter, cheese and eggs. Two of those are represented in this recipe.

UPDATE: I've increased the amount of milk from 1 c. to 1 1/2 c., because I seem to use at least twice what I originally indicated. Start with 1 1/2 c., but be ready to add significantly more. The sweet rice flour just seems to absorb a lot of liquid.

This recipe is heavily based on the basic crêpe recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, which I highly recommend. I made half this quantity (which, in turn, is half of Bittman's recipe), but it involved using half an egg, which is more trouble than most people would consider worthwhile. I knew I was going to use a great, chunky farmstand applesauce for the filling, so I added the cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and agave nectar. I recommend adding some kind of flavoring (garlic would be a tasty addition for a savory crêpe), because sweet rice flour is actually a little bland-tasting on its own, despite the name.

If you've never made crêpes before, be ready for a learning curve. (I, for example, just learned while typing this post that the first e in "crêpes" has a circumflex, not a grave accent, on it. After all these years of thinking I was clever. Oops.) But seriously, the first couple may just look horrible, and that's really okay. Make sure your griddle is flat, preferably with low sides, that your batter is very thin, that the heat is at a nice medium level, and that you use butter generously, and eventually you'll probably get the hang of it. At least, I pretty much have, and I'm no great shakes at this kind of thing.

UPDATE: I made these again and took a photo this time!

SWEET RICE FLOUR CREPES (GF, nut-free, vegan)

Serves 2

1/2 c. sweet rice flour

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. xanthan gum

a pinch of salt

1 egg

1 tsp. agave nectar (adjust to taste)

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 Tbs. butter, melted and cooled

1 1/2 c. milk, more or less as needed

Whisk the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Beat the egg lightly, then whisk in agave nectar, vanilla, butter and half the milk, and whisk liquids into dry ingredients, mixing until very well blended. Add more milk as necessary to achieve a very pourable batter. If there is time, refrigerate batter for a couple of hours before cooking.

Turn on oven to warm setting and place an oven-safe plate on the middle rack.

Place a griddle over medium heat. When hot, coat well with butter. (I just pick up the whole stick and quickly rub one end all over the hot griddle.) If you overdo this, you'll notice the batter sliding around a little as you add it, so this is one of the many variables to adjust until you find what works best for you.

Check consistency of batter and add milk if needed. I ended up adding quite a lot, maybe even half again what I mention above.

When adding batter to the griddle, the trick will be to tip the pan around quickly so that the batter coats it in as thin a coating as possible. For the first, test crêpe, ladle a small amount of batter, maybe 2 Tbs. worth, into the pan with one hand while tipping the pan around with the other. Cook until the top side looks dry, then flip with a wide pancake turner. Cook until golden brown, then flip back if necessary to brown the first side. Avoid letting the crêpe become crispy. When done, transfer to the plate in the oven or, if it's really too ugly to serve (which it really might be), have yourself a snack, give the dog a treat, or just throw it away.

Add a little more butter to the griddle and now, if you're feeling brave, try a full ladle (about 1/4 c.) of batter, to create a full-sized crêpe. Continue as above (hopefully without feeding the dog again), then start the next crêpe in the same manner. Stack the finished crêpes neatly on the warm plate until all are ready to fill and serve.

To serve, fill with sweet or savory fillings of your choice, roll and sprinkle the top with sliced, toasted almonds, powdered sugar, fresh herbs, or drizzle with syrup or sauce.

How possibilities can change ...

It has been over a year since I've updated this blog, but I think about it regularly. It's hard to find time to post, yes, and even harder to find adequate time to take good photos of the things I cook (even when there is time to cook). But, I invented a recipe this morning that I'd like to share, and I have some thoughts, in any case.

When I began this blog, nearly four years ago, it was my assumption that my body type was pretty much set for life, whatever changes I might make in my habits. But last summer, I decided I wasn't happy enough with my habits and needed to make more lasting changes.

I was exercising too little, eating too much, too frequently, too unhealthily. I had lost the habit of going a few days between servings of sweets, and of cooking up good food that I could grab for a meal when I was in a hurry. I needed better motivation. So, I decided to try Wii Fit.

It was a significant initial investment, so I saved my money by quitting my YMCA membership and using my second-hand exercise bike for exercise for a few months until I had enough money for the Wii and the Wii Fit. I quickly discovered that I don't like the Wii Fit's reliance on the BMI as the only measure of the user's health, and the fat-shaming it gives you if you're outside the "normal" range. And was I outside the "normal" range? Oh yeah, I was "obese." Which is just a lovely thing to be told every morning.

But, I did like the activities themselves, and found it cathartic to yell at the Wii when it called me "obese" or "unbalanced." After all, it is a gaming system, so I made it a game. I decided to stick with it, did different combinations of exercises every day that added up to 30 minutes, and built up my will power to skip desserts and bring my portion sizes back down.

And, lo and behold, and really at least somewhat to my surprise, I actually did start to lose weight. And kept losing it. And losing it. I went from a BMI of something like 32.25 to my current 24.75. That's nearly 40 lbs, on my 5'2" frame, and puts me within the "normal" range for the first time in over half my life. More importantly, I have more energy than ever, and I can actually run. I'm planning to participate in a 5K race in June.

Today is the fourth Sunday in Lent, and I have started observing Lent much more, well, observantly in the past few years. I've decided that my health is a gift, and I should show my thanks by adhering strictly to my healthiest habits during Lent: 30 min aerobic exercise every day; meals made up of small portions of healthy foods like plain, nonfat yogurt, whole grains, vegetables, beans, and the occasional natural peanut butter and unsweetened jelly; no coffee or tea (except herbal); no alcohol; no sweets at all; no snacks. I also give up shopping for anything I could live without until Easter, so I end up doing a lot of creative cooking and rummaging through my pantry and freezer. I've eaten a LOT of various kinds of beans with brown rice.

And today, I made up a muffin recipe, thanks to the mashed roasted peaches I found in the freezer. (Note: I totally don't remember how I roasted the peaches and am too lazy this evening to find that recipe. If you don't want to try faking it, you can probably get the same effect by buying a can of peaches packed in juice without sugar and mashing them up with a potato masher.) This recipe is actually vegan! And decently tasty, although the muffins break pretty easily. But they contain no fat other than flaxseeds, are sweetened with brown rice syrup (Lundberg Farms is GF), and probably have at least a little protein in them.

I used Annalise Roberts's Gluten-Free Baking Classics as a guide for some of the quantities.

PEACH GINGER MUFFINS (GF/Vegan)

Dry ingredients:

3/4 c. ground flaxseed meal

1 c. millet flour

1 c. garfava flour

3/4 tsp. xanthan gum

1 Tbs. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

Wet ingredients:

5/6 c. brown rice syrup

3/4 c. mashed, cooked peaches, in liquid

1/2 tsp. vanilla

In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients, whisking to combine thoroughly.

In a smaller bowl, combine the wet ingredients and stir well. The syrup is heavy, so you will need to stir thoroughly.

[The above steps can be done the night before, if you want to be able to make fresh muffins quickly in the morning—although, I actually was able to do this whole process pretty fast. Just close each container well and store in the fridge.]

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375°F. Grease 12 muffin cups with olive oil (I use a set of silicone baking cups arranged on a cookie sheet; if using a metal muffin tin, I'd suggest lining with paper).

Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients until well incorporated, then spoon into muffin cups, distributing evenly. The batter will not quite fill the cups.

Bake about 22 minutes, or until firm and slightly golden on top. Turn out onto a wire rack and cool. The first one was tasty when cooled just slightly.

I've frozen the rest for future breakfasts. Hoping they reheat well!

Buckwheat Blueberry Bread

Um.  Hi.

Back when I introduced myself, I believe I mentioned being a teacher. Which may explain my complete lack of posts since before September 1. Still, wow, that's embarrassing. I had such grand plans! But I am still trying to keep to the philosophy, if not the posting, so there's hope. And I have a big backlog of photos of projects that didn't get posted back in the summer. Keep peeking in here from time to time, and I'll try to keep putting something up from time to time.

Like today.

So, how've I been doing? Well, I've trained myself to feel full on much smaller portions, to eat more variety and less cheese, to snack less frequently and to eat ice cream and others sweets much less frequently. I've been taking yoga classes weekly since mid-September, and even practicing on my own sometimes. I've been wogging (alternately jogging and walking on a loop around my neighborhood) sporadically and have taken to ice skating weekly on Thursdays. I've given blood successfully, so my iron count must be fine, and my blood pressure is still nice and low. I haven't gotten around to going to a doctor yet, so I don't know any stats about my cholesterol, but I'm optimistic. And I finally called the office of a new doctor just before sitting down to write this, so I should be back on track with regular health care soon. (Okay, I need a dentist, too. I'm hoping the new doctor might have advice about local dentists who get the gluten-free thing.) I don't own a scale and haven't weighed myself, but I'm wearing one size smaller than I was last summer, and am getting comments from friends at work. I'm working really hard not to let my self-image get tied up in my weight, but I do feel better about myself, nonetheless.

A lot of my healthier eating has taken place through variety and portion control, more than through avoiding fats and sugars. I'm saving money by eating less and making my groceries last longer (and buying fewer of them when I shop).

So the recipe I invented today isn't exactly heart-healthy.

BUCKWHEAT BLUEBERRY BREAD

This is a sweet, almost toffee-ish bread with a crisp, chewy outside and soft inside. It's the descendant of my previous experiments with buckwheat-cornmeal pancakes, which I started doing when I had too much cooked buckwheat porridge and couldn't begin to face eating it anymore.



1 cup cornmeal
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp egg replacer
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup plain nonfat yogurt
1 cup cooked buckwheat porridge
1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease a 9"x5"x3" loaf pan and dust the bottom and lower sides with cornmeal.
2. In a small bowl, combine the cornmeal, baking soda, baking powder, salt, xanthan gum and egg replacer. Set aside.
3. In a larger bowl, cream the butter with a wooden spoon. Add the brown sugar and cream well to combine. Mix in the egg and vanilla, stirring well until smooth. Add yogurt and mix thoroughly. Add buckwheat porridge, using back of spoon to mash if it has become solid from sitting, and mix until well combined.
4. Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the wet ingredients until the surface is just coated, then mix them in. Repeat until all of dry ingredients have been added to wet, and the batter is uniform.
5. Fold in blueberries until well distributed. Pour batter into pan and use spoon to level top.
6. Bake about 1 hr, 10 min, or until bread is firm and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
7. Cool in pan about 10 minutes (which I didn't - oops!), then run a spatula around the edges of the pan before turning bread out onto a rack to cool completely.

Blueberry Scones

My second recipe from Rebecca Reilly's Gluten-Free Baking has been as successful as the first! With my sister staying over and a basket of farmers'-market blueberries in the fridge, I decided to take a shot at making scones. One of the nice things about getting used to baking GF from scratch is that I've started to find that I have all the ingredients already at my house, usually with not more than one or two exceptions. In this case, I didn't have any heavy cream, but I needed some for a frosting recipe that I plan to try later this week, so I didn't mind going out to grab some. (If I'd known I'd need some for this recipe, and that my local Shaw's also only sells cream in pints [not half-pints], I would have ordered some from Munroe for this week's delivery. Ah, well.)

These were really easy to make, and came out very well. My sister, who can eat gluten, told me she thought they were tasty enough to serve to gluten eaters outside the family ... and even to Mom!

Sour Cream Coffeecake

As is probably obvious by now, I sometimes take a detour from the purely healthy, to try new baking (or other cooking, but mostly baking) projects. The aim is to expand and improve my GF-from-scratch baking repertoire, so that I know I can offer at parties - or bring to school gatherings - things that I can eat and my non-GF guests/colleagues will (and will want to) eat.

Luckily, I have the perfect taste-tester: my mother. She has been very unenthusiastic about some baked goods I've brought home in the past, so if she likes one of my creations, I know I'm on to something. It's like having an in-house Mikey.

She liked this one.

SOUR CREAM COFFEECAKE from Gluten-Free Baking by Rebecca Reilly

After trying only one recipe, I can already say that I wholeheartedly recommend this cookbook to everyone I know. I won't reprint the recipe here, other than my modifications/improvisations, but I do have photos!

This was also my chance, finally to try the silicone tube pan my friend N. and her parents gave me as a housewarming gift. Here it is, all greased and floured (with GF mix) and ready to go.



Notice the old baking sheet sitting under it: a must for silicone bakeware, which is very floppy.

The recipe calls for the streusel topping to contain walnuts, shredded coconut and mini chocolate chips, in equal measure. I wasn't in the mood for coconut or chocolate in my coffeecake (although I love both!), so I substituted almond meal for the coconut and more walnuts for the chocolate chips.

The walnuts I had on-hand were raw, so I toasted them in a dry skillet after chopping.



I then set them aside on a saucer until they were cool enough, so they didn't melt the butter in the streusel. Speaking of which, I was a bit confused at first about the direction to "pinch" the butter into the streusel. I decided to try in literally, by pinching off bits of butter from the stick (with very clean hands, of course) and dropping them into the flour. It worked nicely! It also seemed to work best to use my hands sort of to massage the ingredients into each other. The finished streusel was quite well blended.



The one other change I made in the streusel was to use crystallized fructose in place of sugar, because I had some in my pantry that I was trying to use up. Fructose is sweeter than sucrose, so I had to work out the correct amount to add, relative to the amount of sugar indicated in the recipe. This made a great example to use with my math tutee a couple of days later. Try it yourself: if 1 tsp fructose = 1 1/2 tsp sugar, and the recipe calls for 1/2 cup sugar, how much fructose did I use? (Answer below*.)

Next, of course, came the batter, which was pretty straightforward. Here it is, as I was just adding the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Have I mentioned that I love my mixer?



The batter is so dark because the only sugar in it is dark brown sugar. Yum!

Once the batter was mixed, it was time to layer it into the pan, alternated with the streusel. Partway into the second batter layer looked like this:



And then I baked it! The recipe gave different baking times for a bundt pan v. a tube pan, and I wasn't sure which way to go, especially since I'd never used silicone before. I ended up compromising, and went a little longer than the tube pan time, but not quite as long as the bundt pan time. I also did the toothpick test, and it came out clean.

The result:



Now comes the neat part about silicone bakeware, especially for gluten-free baked goods, which are often more fragile than their gluteny cousins. You can peel the pan away!



The center was a little harder, especially because the whole thing was still quite hot. In the future, I will probably wait more than the indicated 15 minutes before trying to remove the coffeecake from the pan.

Still, almost a clean getaway!



And it looked fine, once it was flipped over (impressions from the cooling rack notwithstanding).

When sliced, it looked almost perfect, imho …



… And it made for a very tasty breakfast.

I cut the cake in half and packaged up half of it to give to my friends L. and H. I then wrapped and froze one of the remaining quarters for later. The final quarter, I sliced into four pieces: ate one, gave one to Mom, and put the other two in a container in the fridge for the next two mornings' breakfasts.


* I used 1/3 cup fructose.

Variations on the theme of breakfast

As I mentioned before, one of my favorite breakfast standbys is plain yogurt with almonds and honey. When berries are available, they're a must-add for this morning treat. One little muffin is a nice accompaniment, too.



In my ongoing quest to get as many of my foods from local sources as possible, I've started having my dairy delivered. The yogurt, though delivered by my local dairy, is still Stonyfield, which is ... from Vermont, I think? Two states away, but as I like to say, they make states little around here. The milk, however, is from right here in RI.

How cool is it that I can place my milk-delivery order online?

Zucchini muffins!

I like to think there's a difference between obsessively thinking about food all the time, in a compulsive overeater sort of way, and thinking about food frequently because cooking creatively is a hobby and a joy. Sometimes, especially when I have perishable ingredients on hand, I like to daydream about how to use them best.

As I've mentioned, I went a bit overboard at the farmers' market last weekend, so I am now frantically embroiled in what my friend L. calls "the race against the rot." I've been eating salad at such a frantic pace that my broccoli - my favorite vegetable, as long as I can remember - is lying neglected at the bottom of the crisper.

Which means, of course, that the zucchini hardly stood a chance. Until I remembered about zucchini muffins.



I've never made them before, but luckily I had all the ingredients on-hand for Bette Hagman's recipe (from The Gluten-Free Gourmet), except the raisins, which I don't really like in zucchini muffins, anyway.

They came out very small, but toasty/crispy on the outside and moist/spongey on the inside. Absolutely lovely.

Despite having used organic white sugar, and the recipe calling for oil rather than butter, I decided these probably fall under the category of 'treat,' so I filled up most of the way with a bowl of brown rice, first, and then had my one muffin with a small glass of milk.



There's something really fantasic about fresh-from-the-oven muffins for breakfast. But, wow, is summer a rough time for having the oven turned on to 400°F (204°C)! Something to remember, as I plan other baking experiments for the rest of the summer.

Breakfast

Last Saturday, I went to a farmers' market for one of the first times ... definitely the first time I've gone alone. Predictably, I went a little overboard, got a little overwhelmed and carried away. Among other things, I came home with a pound of fresh spinach AND a ginormous bag of salad greens. Add to that the fact that I'm teaching this week at a program that provides lunch, and I'm eating salad three meals a day just to keep ahead of the wilting.

Yesterday, I had a spinach salad, consisting just of a huge pile of rinsed, torn up, fresh spinach, a drizzle of apple cider vinegar, and a few thin shaves of 75%-reduced-fat cheddar cheese. Also a glass of water and, when it was ready, a small bowl of brown rice.

Today, I'm a bit sick of salad. So I've gone back to an old favorite: plain yogurt (about 8 oz), topped with a small handful of raw almonds and a drizzle of local honey (bought in my hometown, which I suppose makes it my hometown honey!). YUM.



I'll probably end up having some salad before I head over to work, just out of obligation.