GLUTEN FREE CAKE IN A MUG - VERSION 4

I wrote about this a few days ago. The first attempt was yummy. The second and third versions, both with some "tweaking" were also yummy. Tonight, version four, was perfection.

I read online a suggestion to use Pamela's baking mix instead of sweet rice flour. So I did. Instead of the 3 whopping tablespoons of oil, I used 1 tablespoon of melted butter and 2 tablespoons non-fat Greek yogurt. I discovered in versions 2 and 3 that yogurt works better than applesauce.

I cut the 4 tablespoons of sugar back to 1 tablespoon of molasses (I love molasses) and 1 tablespoon of "raw" sugar. The raw sugar was handy, so that's what I used.

I ate it all before I thought to take a picture, but this version was much lighter and fluffier than the first three, due to the use of Pamela's and the xanthan gum that's in the baking mix. The chocolate chips, to me, are a waste. They tend to sink to the bottom and you end up with a wad of semi-melted chocolate chips all in one spot.

Alas, I was out of ice cream....

CHOCOLATE CAKE IN A MUG

This recipe came through a yahoo group I belong to. It sounded like a quick and easy way to get chocolate cake, so I tried it. It's also casein free, soy free and corn free.

Gluten Free Chocolate Cake in a Mug
4 TBSP sweet rice flour
4 TBSP sugar
2 TBSP cocoa
1 egg
3 TBSP milk of your choice
3 TBSP oil
3 TBSP chocolate chips
1 dash gluten-free vanilla extract

1 large coffee mug

Mix all dry ingredients in the mug. Add the egg and mix well. Add the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips and mix. Add the vanilla extract. Microwave on high for 3 minutes if using a 1000 watt microwave.

Mine looked like this when it was done, and removed from the mug. I used a really big latte mug.


Okay, so here are my comments:

First, there's too much freaking sugar. The cake was way too sweet, so next time I'm going to cut the sugar by half. I used Dagoba organic cacao powder instead of the cheap stuff, but it still needed more chocolate (and really, can you have too much chocolate?). And when faced with the hunk of butter that is 3 tablespoons....well, I went for the applesauce as a substitute. Non-fat greek yogurt was my first choice, but I was out of it. Despite the overly sweet taste, it was still pretty good though.

So...I'll make it again, and my brain is whirling with ways to "tinker" with the recipe...like using millet or teff flour for half the flour, trying a dash of maple syrup instead of all that sugar, and tossing in some cinnamon and spices just for kicks. I'd like to thank Lotznausten for the inspiration to experiment with my food, even if it is just a little cake in a coffee mug.

Tres Leches Cake with a twist

I discovered Tres Leches cake right before I had to go gluten-free. I'm not much of a cake eater, but Tres Leches cake is the bomb. For the uninitiated, Tres Leches means "three milks" and the cake version is a cake upon which three kinds of milk has been poured and allowed to sit. Then it's "frosted" with whipped cream. NOT the stuff out of a can, but real whipped cream.

March is National Chocolate Lovers Month, and the seniors love it when we do activities that involve food, so just for kicks I decided to incorporate Tres Leches cake into our chocolate celebration by using a chocolate cake for the base. And, since I'd had a gluten free Tres Leches cake on the "to experiment with" list for some time now, I decided our chocolate celebration was the perfect opportunity to make a gluten free chocolate Tres Leches cake. With 25 people to eat it, it insured I wouldn't have tons of leftover cake hanging around just waiting to be eaten.

I found a gluten free Tres Leches cake recipe on the internet. Quite simple, actually. You bake a gluten free cake, then mix 1 can evaporated milk, 1 can of sweetened condensed milk and 1/2 cup of heavy cream together, then pour over a cooled sheet cake, into which you have poked holes with a fork. Then you let it sit for 30 minutes to soak up the liquid before frosting it with the freshly made whipped cream. Gluten free cake being dry as dust by nature, the soaking in milk prior to serving is actually a huge improvement. I used Betty Crocker, since that is what Publix had, but I think any gluten free cake will work. The edges can be problematic, just because it's hard to get liquid to "stick" to the vertical sides of the cake. But not wanting dry edges, I just kept scooping up the stuff from the bottom of the plate and pouring it back over the sides. And made sure that there were plenty of fork holes in the sides.

The verdict: hands down, it was the best gluten free cake I've eaten, not that I've eaten many. However, what clinched it was that I served this cake to 28 gluten-eating people who never knew it wasn't regular cake. They liked it so much that several of them asked for seconds.

Oh, and it was even better the second day.

NOT QUITE A CUPCAKE...

My sister, the Cupcake Addict, makes some interesting cupcakes. One evening, she was making a pesto cupcake, which didn't sound like a cupcake flavor and she said it was a savory cupcake.

Since I first used Bob's Red Mill gluten free cornbread mix, I've thought it was more like a cake with cornmeal added. It doesn't have a whole lot of cornmeal in it, so it's not what a southern girl like me would call cornbread. The finished cornbread is fairly thick, kind of on the sweet side, and has the texture of cake. After a couple of brainstorm emails with Loztnausten, in which I tossed around the idea of using the BRM mix as a base for creativity, I took the plunge last night.

The idea had been churning to swirl pesto through muffins made with the BRM mix. That seemed like it would mix well with parmesan cheese and sundried tomatoes. I couldn't find my sundried tomatoes, but I did have some sundried tomato tapenade in the pantry, so figured I'd give that a whirl.

First off, I used buttermilk instead of the regular milk the mix called for, just because I had it in the fridge and wanted to use it up. Then, because I don't have a clue about the chemistry of baking, I measured the other things by "look" as opposed to any real measurement. I added about three heaping spoonfuls of homemade pesto, grated in about 1/2 cup of asaigo cheese, and put in several spoonfuls of the sundried tomato tapenade. Into muffin pans it went, and then into the oven.

The batter made 18 muffins. I filled my silicone pan, then pulled out the cast iron muffin pan, lined with cupcake cups for the rest. The finished product was quite tasty, and is pictured at the top.

Southern comfort food - Chicken Fried Steak

We buy a side of beef every summer from a guy up near Athens. It's grass fed and grain finished, no hormones, and no antibiotics. Best of all - it's cheap. Works out to about $3.50 a pound, and we know where the beef came from, plus we're supporting a local farmer instead of a megastore.

I'd never cooked chicken fried steak until we starting buying a side of beef. Partly because I was clueless about what to do with cubed steak, and partly because I never fried anything. But when you have 200+ pounds of beef in the freezer, you learn how to cook it real quick. I learned how to make chicken fried steak watching Tyler Florence on Food Network....only he was making chicken fried chicken. Dip the meat in buttermilk, roll in flour, dip it back in buttermilk, roll in flour again, and then let the meat sit for awhile to let the coating do its thing.

Okay....so how to make chicken fried steak gluten free....after last night's attempt at using a predominantly cornstarch-based flour mix to dredge and brown chicken for Fruited Chicken (that's another post entirely) failed miserably, I debated what to use. For this first foray into gluten free southern cooking, I decided to go with one of the various boxed flour blends sitting in my pantry. Gluten free pancake batter had worked great for fish batter (yet another post for another night), so I grabbed a bag of that as well. After reading all the labels, I finally decided to use the Whole Foods 365 brand gluten free baking mix. It's white rice flour, tapioca starch, potato starch and guar gum. Out of buttermilk, and not feeling the need to hit Publix at 5pm on a Friday afternoon with the eldest child in the car, I went through my gluten free cookbook and found a fried chicken recipe that used a mixture of egg and water as the wash for frying. I decided to go with a mix of egg and milk and then seasoned it well with Lawry's seasoning salt. Dip in the egg/milk mixture, dip in the gluten free baking mix (heavily seasoned as well), another dip in the egg/milk mixture and one more roll in the baking mix. Put the floured meat on a platter, let it hang out for awhile, then into the big ole cast iron skillet (is there any other way?) to fry.

The first indication that I might actually be successful was when the coating didn't fall off. When it started turning brown, I got happy. When it got crispy, I was thrilled. When it hit the plate and it tasted good, I was over the moon. (yeah, last night's failure was still fresh in my mind and my ego was still bruised) When the gluten-eating husband proclaimed that it was good....well, that was the crowning glory. Maybe tomorrow I'll take a picture of the finished product.

Oh, but I forgot to mention the gravy. Gotta have gravy with chicken fried steak. Hmmm....how to make gluten free gravy. Rather than experiment with the baking mix, I went with the gravy recipe on the Argo cornstarch label. It was supposedly for turkey, but being the brave and daring cook that I am, I decided to adapt it for cream gravy. So, I followed the directions, and when the cornstarch slurry hit the pan it turned into big lumps of gelatinous "stuff". Ugh.... Undaunted, and somewhat stubborn, I went ahead and poured in the milk...and then proceeded to whisk the hell out of it with the cuisinart gravy whisk. After a few discouraging minutes, I realized the damn stuff was starting to look like gravy. After copious amounts of black pepper (hey, I was raised in the south), it started to TASTE like gravy. Score!

Pass the fried okra!

A NEW USE FOR AN OLD BLOG - Welcome to Cooking Dangerously

Why am I here? Well, I got diagnosed with celiac disease in July, 2009. It required I remove all gluten (wheat, oats, rye, barley) from my diet forever. I found myself, at 42, having to re-learn how to cook. It's been a challenge, primarily because the American diet is FULL OF WHEAT. It's everywhere, even in things that you wouldn't expect to find wheat in...like canned chicken broth. And I'm a southern girl, so not being able to cook up biscuits, gravy and fried chicken, well, that's just wrong.

Anyway, this blog came about because Mike over at Taro and Ti recommended I blog about my cooking experiments. We co-own a yahoo group together and I've posted several times about some of the things I've tried since the diagnosis, like gluten free cornbread dressing (good), and zucchini bread (BAD). The biggest challenge is cooking things that are gluten free for me, but taste good for the three guys who live in my house. The kids aren't so picky, but the husband, well, let's just say that he has some sort of weird gluten free radar that tells him something is gluten free before I do.

So, with encouragement from Lotznausten and inspiration from the Gluten Free Girl, I present Cooking Dangerously - my experiments in gluten free cooking.

My first post is my experiment in making gluten free eggrolls. I had a recipe in my inbox from the Gluten Free Club, which is basically a mailing list where you mostly get recipes, but also ads to try and get you to join the club. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

1 or 2 tablespoons coconut oil or other cooking oil
1 pound ground pork
½ pound peeled shrimp, chopped
½ chopped onion
4 to 6 cloves garlic, minced
2 to 3 carrots, shredded or chopped
½ head cabbage chopped
2 tsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp soy sauce (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
½ cup scrambled eggs
Spring Roll Wraps (24)Directions:

Lightly brown pork with onions, garlic and shrimp and cook a minute or two more in hot oil. Stir in carrots and stir fry a minute more. Add in cabbage and stir fry until cabbage is wilted and soft. Season with sesame oil, soy sauce, salt and pepper to taste. Spread on large open pan or tray to cool before putting in wrappers (if you want egg rolls with eggs, stir in some scrambled eggs in the last minutes of cooking).

Soak spring roll wraps (tapioca starch wraps available in Asian section of most grocery stores) in water until soft and pliable, about 30 to 60 seconds. Put softened wrapper on flat surface. Add one heaping tablespoon filling on wrapper close to you. Roll up one turn rolling away from you, turn lateral ends inwards and finish rolling. Let rolls rest 20 minutes before frying, which is about as long as it takes to roll all this filling if you have help. The point is, they fry up better if they have "rested" for a while.

So, I followed the directions, all the way through, including the part about deep frying the rolls in an inch of oil. In the process I learned several things NOT to do, including not to deep fry them. The first time I tried frying them, the oil wasn't hot enough. The wrappers got soggy and fell apart. Second time around, the husband suggested double-wrapping them AND making sure the oil was actually hot enough to fry in. (350) This worked to a certain extent...but the double wrap apparently soaked up way too much oil. They were good, but greasy. I made mental notes of how to do this differently "next time", and decided "next time" would be tonight, when I repeated the filling recipe as a stir fry to use up the shrimp from last night. I decided to pan fry instead of deep fry and ditch the double-wrapping. Miracle of miracles, it worked!

So, here's my list of Dos and Don'ts for making gluten free eggrolls.

DON'T overfill the wrapper. That heaping tablespoon is about perfect.
DO wrap the wrapper tightly. Smaller and tighter is better.
DON'T deep fry. Pan fry with just enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan.
DON'T let the eggrolls touch in the pan AT ALL. They will stick. They will stick like glue.
DON'T try to turn the eggroll until the side that's in the oil is crispy. It will stick like glue.

Oh, and here's a picture of the finished product. There was one out of the four, on the right hand side of the plate, that was near perfect.