A Toast! To New Successes!

While it has been a clean minute (or year) since I last blogged my foods, so lets recap a few of my food stories that turned out fabu!

more recently (easter 2014) I attempted my first brioche in the form of an Easter bread, which I never before had made. It was so well liked, my mother already has plans for what to do with this brioche next! The recipe you can find on finecooking.com as Authentic French Broiche

Scones! Well, Mothers day tea party approaching swiftly had me in the mood to test a few batches before the day fell upon us. You see, I have never made scones. They are trickier than biscuits! I have tested 2 recipes. One is the most popular/high rated scone recipe on allrecipes.com. The second I found on smitten kitchen. It was apparently the test kitchens. 

Bread bowls, via King Arthur Flours recipe, but altered for adding my KAF sourdough starter. Rave reviews on these! Even by my picky gourmande bro in law.

just a pinch's site "best white cake ever". Topped with an altered white chocolate buttercream (for higher ratios of white chocolate, used Lindt bars). and my own raspberry (seedless) filling. This was a big hit. 

OH MY GOD.... THIS CAKE IS A KEEPER! IT GOT MOISTER EACH DAY! IT ONLY LASTED 4 DAYS, BUT WAS SOOO MOIST EACH TIME! You could almost ball it up with your fingers. 

Chocolate crinkles! 1st made a 2013 christmas cookie party, but remade to test a lower than suggested cooking time to achieve more moist fudgeness. The site escapes me, but its popular on pinterest and features a teal/light blue background. these were great!

more on the cake....

Sourdough cinnamon rolls from a doughnut dough recipe in an oldddd sourdough cook book. The dough is soooo the best for this. Hubs hates how typical cinny rolls get tougher and dryer each morning. He says "only good fresh". But with this dough, PROBLEM SOLVED!

Appitizer for Thanksgiving 2013. Brie en croute wrapped in puff pastry topped with brown sugar and pecans. Surrounded by fancy crackers and gala apples. HIT! BIG TIME!

This is the sourdough donut recipe used for the cinny rolls above, they taste SOOOO MUCHHH like krispie kremes! Hubs loves these! Everyone does!

baked pumpkin cake donuts with apple cidar glaze!

Success with gluten free biscuits! typical biscuit recipe used, but subbed better batter AP flour. 

THIS IS A HUGE DEAL! GF BISCUITS ARE SOOOOO HARDDDD TO ACHEIVE!

Better Batter Bread Bomb?

Gluten Free-ified Crescent Rolls

PLEASE NOTE THE ABOVE PIC ARE NOT MY RESULT! THEY ARE TO ILLUSTRATE WHAT I HAD BEEN AIMING FOR. 

Took a recipe off ALLRECIPES.COM for SWEET DINNER ROLLS, it was high rated, and tried to make it with my BETTER BATTER ALL PURPOSE FLOUR. 

Well.....

guess what? It was a total bomb. 

Well, not total. but the BLANDEST TASTING rolls ever. They were soft enough, and the dough felt good, but it just was off. Not to mention my skills in rolling out crescent shaped rolls is way below amateur hour. They turned out quite unattractive! More-so than these....

by a country mile!

I was a tad upset I wasted the flour on it. 

I read a blog on bread/baking tests a gluten free blogger did (find it here), on three major GF flours. And she actually adores BB flour. And rates C4C well also. I have not yet tried the C4C (CUP 4 CUP) flour myself, but I am thinking I should. 

I'd really like to bridge the gap between this ....

and the gf versions...

that just don't turn out the same. 

There are those who make super fantastic GF breads. Some even attractive.

You can always get good tips from these, figure out what they do that works. 

Like at ART OF GLUTEN FREE BAKING. 

I will keep trying to get better at my GF bread making. But until then, since I'm only "intolerant" and not celiac, I might have to cheat a bit on occasion to get my baking crazies out. 

Find more info and recipes @ http://glutenfreeonashoestring.com/recipes/

have a good day.

Belated Better Batter Review

Better Batter Review

Ok, If your eating Gluten Free, then perhaps you have began to hear the buzz about this stuff! I had, in the past, posted that at some point I wanted to try it and C4C (cup for cup). I have not tried C4C yet, but better batter fell into my arms from a local store shelf and is now my best pal!

What is Gluten free? Avoiding foods containing Gluten, typically due to an intolerance or Celiac disease. Generally, its not done without cause though. Its an expensive pain in the booty!

What is it about better batter that is different? I suspect its the lemon derived pectin. I've used gelatin, xanthan and etc but seems pectin is the winner winner carby dinner on this one. 

Now, besides having a distintively adorable container, BETTER BATTER has a name for itself in the world of gluten free for one bigtime "miracle"! BISCUITS! 

The Gluten free mom that took and made these biscuit beauties basically said she about cried when she ate them, realizing it tasted like a real biscuit and not a grainy crumbly mess. I have also made the pretty lil' biscuits. I can vouch, they are gluten free miracles. Remind me alot of chickfila's biscuits actually. I plan on playing more with the recipe but am very happy!

This picture (above) is why we are so happy! Anyone who has ever used normal gluten free dough knows how crumbley and messy it is. Enough to make you give up! But BB's dough FEELS LIKE REAL DOUGH! You can squish, kneed and mold it! ITS FANTASTIC! I mean you can make almost ANYTHING with this stuff!

The website has a ton of recipes that are pre-measured for the mixes. However, you can use it in almost any recipe you find. With yeast breads its been suggested you double the liquids however. But I myself have made soft lovely pancakes, beautiful biscuits, fudgey brownies, cake donuts, and etc. Its really great stuff. I can't imagion the C4C being able to be better than this batter, but I say bring it on! 

The mixes can make life a lil' more convenient. I'd have to say my only 3 gripes really are as follows....

1. Size is small per box is about-ish 3-4 cups.

2. not sold enough places, I'm lucky to find it at Homegoods

3. health factor, wish they could incorporate healthier gf flours in the mix. white rice takes the lead.

Besides that, I am impressed!

More pics to come when I experiment more, keep an eye open for more food blogs containing the words "better batter".  As for the ones on this page, not mine, but all made with this lovely flour!

happy cooking!

Gluten Free Cake Donuts

RECIPE IS ADAPTED FROM BON APPÉTIT'S "SOUR CREAM DOUGHNUTS"

Gluten Free Cake Donuts!

Now, I don't dabble in photography, I do not have any stuff or conditions to do so, so try not to be to sad that my donut pics or blogs pics are not of as cute of pics as some are.

The recipe included in the link, plus these changes....

1. all purpose - use better batter all purpose flour

2. cinnamon - 1/2 the cinnamon, grate FRESH REAL CINNAMON BARK and add a dash of nutmeg.

3. sourcream - 1/4 sour cream, 1/4 greek yogurt, 1/2 buttermilk

4. vanilla - that plus itsy splash of rum

5. oil - i had to use a mix (low on oils) but mine was mostly avocado oil, I'd recommend trying grape-seed or nut oils. Or even coconut if you are into that sort of thing.

the instructions list a maple glaze and streusel mix, sounded very good. I lacked the stuff, so did a normal glaze (warning normal donut glazes set better on yeast donuts than the texture of cake ones)

and I did some in a mix of cinnamon and powdered sugar. MY FAVE! 

Everything else is really just following the instructions they give. Really with BETTER BATTER you can use any recipe and very easily make it gluten free. 

I even dipped a few extras in chocolate! I do not have pics of them, but seriously yummers!

I implore you to try making them! 

Want healthier GF donuts? Bake, use substitutes for fats, use all yogurt instead of sour cream, use  splenda instead of sugar, whatever flours you want, oat or whatever, and even the fake egg stuff. 

I read an article on REAL SIMPLE that said that a cake donut, almonds and chocolate milk are a decent breakfast. THATS ALL I NEED TO HEAR!

Though in the future I'd like to mix in protein powders and other nutritious vitamin filled mixes and use a mix of xylitol and agave. You know, better morning donut, healthy. But its my first set of donuts, like...ever. So i'm pretty happy :) 

So was hubby! 

Happy cooking all!

Battle of the Gluten Free Flours

Battle of the GF Flours

I've tried making my own blends, gets to be a pain in the butt. I've tried Bob's Red Mill and Pamela's (both baking mix and vanilla cake mix) and like both well enough. But they are better with cakes, cookies and "quick breads". Not biscuits, rolls, pizza, etc. I aim to find flour I can make (huge huge challenge) FLAKY LAYER BISCUITS for Jacob. He simply adored the America's Test Kitchen recipe for Flaky Layer Biscuits I made him. They were better than canned could ever be, since the bread had a fresher "just baked" kinda texture. 

HOWEVER, Biscuits are the more IMPOSSIBLE goal, one that most gluten freer's don't ever seem to reach a happy place with. Its difficult to do breads and biscuits due to gf flours tendancy to get a "grainy" texture. I made one half decent one and they were half breed gf. Not 100%, I had to mix normal with gf to get them. The 100% GF ones were awful, like a corn bread textured biscuit. 

Now I did make fabulous gf cinny rolls, but I made my own flour blend and used quite a bit of garbanzo bean flour in them, which resulted in a much better texture. 

I have big plans in my future for popovers, yeast rolls, pie crusts, flaky puff pastries, biscuits and breads. I wish to find the flour that can handle it. 

The TOP Contenders?

Seems for this type of thing the top names floating around are King Aurther, Jules, C4C, and Better Batter. Now Better Batter has quite a cult following. Its been around long enough and impressed alot of people with the results. The other one I'm quite curious about is C4C. It is created by reputable chef's, and is now sold in one of my favorite stores, Williams Sonoma. Which, to my knowledge, are not known for carrying that sort of thing. Making it a very impressing option. Jules has a following, but I've heard more of BB, and King Aurther is truelly King in the normal flour world, but about mid level in the gf world. Probably equal to Bob's and Pamela's.  So IF I do choose to pick new flours to begin a "BATTLE OF THE BLENDS", I am thinking those two, C4C and BB, are my picks for the fight. Fight for who is the best bread (and biscuit) flour.

Addendum

Found a few links to try:

GF Puff Pastry

Crescent/Dinner Rolls

GF Popovers