Product Review: King Arthur Brownie Mix

I had a brownie craving the other day and found a Brownie Mix by King Arthur at the grocery store. (Give me a break, I'm 8 months pregnant!) I have been really pleased with the King Arthur chocolate cake mix so I decided to try the brownies. I had some guests over for dinner who were not gluten intolerant when I made this mix.

The good:

• tasted really good--especially with ice cream on top!
• very fast and easy to make
• King Arthur produces their products in a facility free of the top 8 allergens--that means no soy or dairy so my son can eat them!
• our guests never gave an inkling that they suspected I was feeding them gluten-free food. The subject would never have even come up if they hadn't asked about my son's milk allergy.

The not-so-good:

• They totally fell apart. They might work better if you let them cool completely, but then you lose the sensation of warm, fresh-baked brownies.
• They were really good, but not quite as good as the "gluten" brownies I used to crave.
• The mix only makes an 8x8 pan--hardly enough for a pregnant woman and her dinner guests. :)
• It's over $4 for one box

I think the brownies would be improved by the addition of chocolate chips. Especially if you like a sweeter flavor, adding milk chocolate chips would sweeten them up a little.

Gluten/Dairy/Soy Free Orange Rolls

I tried to make orange syrup to put on my pancakes the other day. It didn't really work at all. But I couldn't let it go to waste so I decided to make it into a glaze and put it on some orange rolls. I found a recipe that looked promising at Lauraleacooks.com. I tried it and it tasted really good. I'll post what I did below. BUT WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO MAKE GLUTEN-FREE BREAD RISE?!? I always end up with dense lumps instead of bread or rolls.

Despite the density though, these do taste pretty darn good.

Ingredients:

1 cup rice milk

1/2 cup oil

1/2 c granulated sugar

2 1/2 c GF flour (I used 1 cup oat, 1 cup brown rice, and 1/2 cup sweet rice flour)

3/4 c potato starch

3/4 c tapioca starch

4 tsp xanthan gum

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp yeast

grated rind of 1 orange (I would actually recommend using 2 oranges because 1 didn't seem like enough to me)

3 eggs, room temperature

Glaze:

1/4 c orange juice

1/4 tsp almond extract

1 tbsp softened soy/dairy free margarine or butter

1 1/2 c confectioners sugar

grated orange rind (optional)

Directions for dough:

Set eggs out in a bowl of warm water until they are room temperature. Scald the milk (heat until just before boiling point), then remove from heat and add oil. Let cool until it is lukewarm.

Mix sugar, flour, starches, xanthan gum, and salt, in a bowl. (I use a Bosch mixer with a bread arm, but you can also mix and knead by hand if you don't have a Bosch or Kitchen-Aid type contraption). Pour yeast evenly on top of flour mixture. When milk is lukewarm, pour it over the yeast. Crack the eggs over the top of the whole mixture and sprinkle in orange rind. Mix with the bread arm for 10 minutes or until flour is fully mixed in (or knead until flour is mixed in).

Put oil on your hands and seperate the dough into two balls. Rub outside with bowl or pour oil in the bottom of your bowl and roll the balls in the oil until it is completely covered. Cover with plastic wrap and put in a warm place to rise.

The original recipe said to let it rise until double, but mine had not doubled after two hours so I gave up and moved on to the next step:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9x12 pans and separate and roll out dough into about 24 balls and lay them in the pans. Let rolls rise until they have doubled again. (Mine did rise more, but not double and I was starving so I just cooked them after about 30-40 minutes). Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Directions for glaze:

Mix softened margarine with almond extract and orange rind and slowly blend in orange juice. Slowly blend in the sugar until the desired consistency is reached. If you want a stronger orange flavor you can use a more concentrated orange juice. When rolls are cooled, drizzle glaze over the top of all of them.

*You can also include something like dried cranberries or blueberries in the bread dough, or fresh or frozen blueberries or raspberries in the glaze.

Gluten/Soy/Milk Free Gingerbread House

I used to love making graham cracker houses with my family when I was a kid. I made my husband and foreign exchange student make them a few years ago even though none of us were kids because I love doing it so much. I was sad when I realized that I couldn't do that anymore.

But this year I learned that I actually had two choices. I could uses Kinikinnik Smoreables to build houses with, or I could try to make my own gingerbread. Since it would take a whole lot of Smoreables to build a house I opted to try to make my own gingerbread for the first time ever! I searched the internet and found this recipe and was going to try it because the almond meal sounded good. However, a friend of mine posted a different recipe and I had both up at the same time. I accidentally started following my friend's recipe instead so I just went with that one, with a few adaptations. I'll try the other one next year. ;) The recipe as I used it is posted below.

For candy we used various gluten-free cereals, cashews, Glutino pretzels (they contain soy lecithin but my son never reacts to the lecithin so we still use them), spice drops, Nerds, Skittles, M&M's (for my dairy-eating daughter), and gummy bears.

I'm not sure why Blogger keeps inserting this picture upside down but I'm tired of trying to fix it so you'll just have to use your imagination.

Recipe:

2/3 c sweet rice flour*

2/3 + 1/4 c gluten free oat flour (I use a grinder to grind up Bob's GF oats)

2/3 + 1/4 c almond meal

2/3 c potato starch

1/3 c tapioca starch

*If you grind your own flour you may want to add just a touch of extra liquid to the recipe and let the dough sit for a little while to soak up the moisture.

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c molasses

1 1/2 tsp ginger

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp cloves

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 c palm oil shortening

1 egg, beaten (I haven't tried it with egg replacer but I might next time because it turns out that my son is still having problems with egg).

Directions:

In a saucepan, mix sugar, molasses, ginger, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, mix flour mixture together in a mixing bowl. Once sugar mixture is boiling, remove it from heat and stir in soda (it will foam up). Melt in shortening. Slowly stir in flour mixture. Knead dough until fully mixed.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

Lay out plastic wrap or parchment paper on rolling surface. (Some recommend to use a floured surface but for me it worked better to just use plastic wrap.) Divid the dough into two equal portions. Set one aside with a wet towel over it to keep it from drying up. Smash the other flat and lay it on rolling surface. Place plastic wrap over the top and roll it until it is about 1/4 inch thick.

Create pattern pieces using wax paper (don't use mailing envelopes like I tried, because you won't be able to peel the paper off the dough). You can draw your own or look one up on the internet. Place the pattern over your dough, cut it out, and move it to a greased cookie sheet. They shift a bit when you move them so you may have to trim them later.

Bake for about 12 minutes. Let them cool for just a minute and then move them to a cooling rack. (Don't wait too long or you will regret it, they harden pretty fast and it is difficult to get them off without breaking them).

For me, this recipe made two houses with pieces about 4x6 inches, and four gingerbread men. Except that I was short one piece on one of my houses so it probably would not have made any gingerbread men if I had remembered the last piece.

Next you need to make frosting to put the house together. I used Royal Frosting this time, but it's not going to cut it next year because like I said earlier, I found out my son still doesn't handle eggs well. The egg-white in the frosting was just too much for him. But for you...here it is:

2 egg whites

2 tsp lemon juice

3 c powdered sugar

Put egg whites and lemon juice in a mixing bowl. Beat until the mixture is frothy.

Add the powdered sugar and beat in. Once the sugar is mixed in well enough that it doesn't fly all over the place, beat on high until the frosting is shiny and it peaks.


Spoon it into a frosting bag and cover what you do not use with a damp cloth to keep it from drying out.

Now you are ready to put your house together. Do this the day before you plan to decorate it so it has time to dry up and gather strength.

I had a really hard time putting mine together because I didn't trim the pieces and they weren't stable enough to stay up. Finally I gave up and trimmed all the edges straight with a serrated knife. I had my son hold up one wall while I attached others to it for stability. I made the base and left the roof for later because I didn't want to take any chances.

In the picture at the top you will also notice that one roof is different from the other. That is because I forgot to make one piece and so I used Kinikinnik Smoreables to finish it off. I thought they made a pretty cute roof so maybe next year I will make the house out of gingerbread and use crackers for the top. That way there will be enough dough leftover to make a few more gingerbread men.

Also, after I discovered my son got sick off of royal frosting, I made a new kind to attach the candy with. It didn't really work all that well but it was enough to get a 4 and 2 year old through the process. I just mixed powdered sugar with rice milk and made it really thick. I left out the shortening/butter because those don't really dry out. I also added blue food coloring so my son could tell the difference between "safe" and "not safe" frosting.

I found a recipe that supposedly worked really well but I didn't try it. It called for glycerine and I was hesitant to put something that is commonly used in soaps and lotions in my frosting. Maybe next year though. ;)

Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie 2010 (soy/milk free version)

Last year I posted egg-free recipes, but my kids tolerate eggs now--at least in baking--so this year I am going with the Libby's world-famous pumpkin pie recipe from the back of the can of Libby's pumpkin. The recipe is on the back of the can but I'll type it up here so you will have it handy. You can use any pumpkin you want, but I have to say that I have never been satisfied with any other brand (or even fresh pumpkin) other than Libby's.

This recipe makes two pies. All I had to do to make it soy/dairy free is to substitute the evaporated milk with evaporated rice milk. The instructions below are how to make a soy/dairy/gluten free pie:

Step 1: evaporated milk

Pour about 64oz plain rice milk(2 boxes) or SoDelicious Coconut Milk into a large pan (at least twice as high as your liquid so your milk doesn't boil over). Simmer on med-high heat, stirring occasionally so it doesn't burn to the bottom of the pan. Boil it down until it reaches 12 oz--less than half of what you started with. This will take at least as long as it takes to prepare everything else.

(You can also do this with soy milk, but you will probably not need as much because soy milk is typically thicker than rice milk).

Step 2: pie crust

recipe adapted from the Gluten-Free Gourmet by Bette Hagman

1/2 c tapioca starch

1/2 c corn starch

1/4 c potato starch

1 rounded tsp xanthan gum

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c soy-free margarine

1/2 c palm oil shortening

1/4 tsp imitation butter flavoring (optional)

1 egg, cold

1 tbsp GF vinegar

4 tbsp ice water (if you use only 3 tbsp you don't need to chill the dough)

sweet rice flour for rolling

Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut in margarine and shortening until the mixture pieces are about the size of lima beans. With a fork, beat the egg, vinegar, and ice water together and stir into the batter. It will slowly get thicker as you stir. form it into a ball (or as close as you can get) and cover the bowl with a damp cloth. Refrigerate for at least 30 min, while you prepare the rest of the pies.

After the dough is chilled, reform it into a "brick" and divide it into how many pieces you need. (It makes three thin crusts or two thick ones). Lay out two pieces of saran wrap (connected at the edge to give you a large rolling surface) on your table or counter top and sprinkle rice flour or tapioca starch on top to prevent dough from sticking. Spread out dough as much as you can with your hands and lay it on the saran wrap. (You can also use parchment or wax paper but saran wrap is the easiest for getting the crust into the pan). Place another piece of saran wrap over the crust and roll until the size of your pie tin. Slowly peel off the saran wrap and lay a thinly greased pie tin upside-down over the crust. Carefully place your hand underneath and flip the pan and crust right-side-up. Peel off saran wrap and shape crust onto pan. With a fork, poke holes all over the crust to prevent it from bubbling up.

Step 3: pie filling

1 1/2 c sugar

1 tsp salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cloves

4 large eggs

1 29 oz can pumpkin puree

24 oz evaporated milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix powder ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Beat eggs into pumpkin a little at a time. Slowly beat in the powder mixture. Set aside until your evaporated rice milk has finished boiling and has cooled a little bit. Once milk is ready, slowly mix into the pumpkin mixture and then pour into pie crust.

Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees and bake 40-50 more minutes (I usually have to do it 55-60 minutes--not sure if that's because of the rice milk or the high altitude where I live) or until a knife comes out clean.

Gluten-Free Fruit Cobbler

I combined two different recipes for this cobbler. The filling comes from about.com and the breading comes from celiac.com.

Filling:

4 cups chopped fruit
1/2 cup sugar

3 Tbsp corn starch

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2/3 cup water or juice from canned fruit

1 Tbsp lemon juice

Topping:

1 cup GF flour (I used 1/2 cup GF oat, 1/4 c rice, 1/4 c potato starch)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp xanthan gum

1 c rice/soy/cow milk or buttermilk

Abt 2 tbsp butter, margarine, or soy/dairy-free buttery spread

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9x9 baking pan and place the fruit in the bottom of the pan. In a saucepan, sift sugar, corn starch and cinnamon. Add lemon juice and water or juice from can and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Boil at medium-hi heat until thick and bubbly. Pour over or mix with the fruit in the baking pan. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and xanthan gum. Slowly mix in milk with a whisk. Pour over fruit/filling mixture and dollop with butter or butter substitute. Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes or until top is golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. (Only insert the toothpick as far as the batter goes. Do not push it all the way down to the fruit).

Scallop Squash

I grew this in my garden just for fun and I have finally figured out what to do with it. This recipe turned out really good--and it is wide open for variation! I didn't actually measure any of it, so my ingredient list is a ball-park guess. Really you just put in what you like, and how much you like of it.

4 white bush squash (you could probably use butternut or acorn squash as well)

8 slices of bacon (or 10 if you peel off the fat).

1/2 onion, diced

1 c bread crumbs or crushed cereal or chips(I used rice and corn Chex)

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 tsp marjoram or rosemary

1 egg (optional, or you could use two eggs if you want the filling to be more firm)

1/2 c Parmesan cheese (optional)

10 cherry tomatoes cut in half (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut open the top of the squash and scrape out the innards like you would when carving a pumpkin and set aside. (If you want to speed up cooking you can cook them for a few minutes in the microwave while you prepare the filling). Cook the bacon and chop it up (I used pre-cooked). Add onions, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and marjoram or rosemary and mix together. Mix in egg and cheese. Stir in tomatoes if desired. Scoop into squash and place the lid back on top. Fill a baking dish or pan with a small amount of water on bottom and place squash in the pan. Bake for 45 min to an hour, until the inside of the squash is tender.

Variations: try mixing in cottage cheese or softened cream cheese. Experiment with different herbs such as lemon and dill, Italian herbs etc. Use rice or quinoa instead of bread crumbs. The possibilities are endless!

Tips for Testing the Diet Change

If you suspect you or your child has gluten-intolerance here are a few tips:

• The gluten protein is very similar to casein in milk and soy protein. It is often wise to avoid those as well too--at least at first.
• You can try a few approaches, depending on what sounds most overwhelming to you:
• 1. Eliminate just gluten, and if there is still a problem eliminate other potential irritants one at a time. This can take a long time and patience, but for some people gradual is easier.
• 2. Eliminate one or more of the main potential irritants and gradually reintroduce them, watching for reactions. (i.e., milk and gluten; milk, soy and gluten; etc). Don't introduce new foods for at least a month--three months is better. It can be overwhelming to try to figure out how to feed you or your child like this, but it is a more certain approach than #1.
• 3. Go to a very basic diet of rice, rice milk, fruits and vegetables, and basic meats with no add-ins (like avoid sausage and watch out for tuna because it sometimes has soybean oil). Introduce foods one at a time and watch for reactions. Don't introduce new foods for at least a month--three months is better. This can also be overwhelming for the same reasons as #2. But then there is no question as to what caused the reaction.
• Be very careful of cross-contamination. Gluten is sticky and even the smallest trace can cause a reaction in some people.
• It might get better before it gets worse. There may be withdrawal symptoms, similar to that of a drug. The body will not be used to it. (That never happened to us but I have seen it happen to others).
• Don't give up! Once you get a system down and get your house stocked with "strange" ingredients it will be relatively easy to make substitutions and get by.
• Keep a food/symptom journal to make sure you get accurate information. It can help a doctor with diagnosis as well.
• Just because medical tests come up negative doesn't mean there isn't a gluten problem. If you feel better--that's a pretty good indication that the diet is working, regardless of the diagnosis. Gluten-intolerance is hard to pick up by tests.