Gluten-Free Cookie Dough

We freely admit to liking cookie dough better than actual cookies around here, so I like having a standby recipe to whip up a mini-batch of the stuff. I'm not at all into the taste of uncooked sorghum, so I use a somewhat modified featherweight flour mix for this (it's one of the reasons I started keeping white rice flour in my cupboard).

This is enough for two people to eat out of the bowl, or to freeze and throw into a batch of homemade ice cream. The recipe below is for chocolate chip cookies, but you can make a sugar cookie dough by omitting the chips tossing in another ½ tbsp each of sugar and earth balance.

2 tbsp white rice flour
1 ½ tbsp tapioca flour
1 ½ tbsp potato starch
1/8 tsp salt
2 ½ tbsp cane sugar
1 ½ tbsp earth balance
½ tbsp soy or nut milk
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp chocolate chips

In a very small bowl, briefly cream together the earth balance and sugar. Add the vanilla extract. In an even smaller bowl, combine the flours and starches, salt, and baking powder. Stir the dry mix into the wet, and add as much of the non-dairy milk as needed to bring the dough to the right consistency. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Eat until you feel sick!

(This recipe is not for baking. Seriously. Caveat crustulum.)

Gluten-Free Chai Tea Cake

I've been itching to try out a non-chocolate cake for awhile now, and started with the recipe for chai latte cupcakes from VCToTW (though the only thing I ended up keeping from the recipe was the flavor profile). I've been playing around with flax goo as an egg substitute and really like how much it binds and coagulates after baking if you make it an hour or so ahead of time, so I went with that instead of the soy yogurt the original recipe calls for. I used sugar whipped into a solid fat to get more of a rise out of the cake, upped the salt and baking powder, raised the cooking temp and lowered the baking time, threw in some coconut, and added some potato starch to my usual flour mix to lighten it some.

The cake is light and fluffy and it blows away the box mix that stole my heart all those months ago. We ended up eating half of it instead of dinner. Woops.

1 cup soy or nut milk
4 black tea bags or 2 tbsp loose black tea
¼ cup dried unsweetened coconut
½ cup earth balance, softened
¾ cup cane sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp flax seed
3 tbsp warm water
¾ cup sorghum flour
¼ cup tapioca flour
¼ cup potato starch
2 tbsp almond flour
1 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
1 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground cloves
pinch of ground black pepper

Pulverize the flax seeds in a coffee grinder, then mix thoroughly into the warm water. Let this sit for at least an hour before using - during that time it will become less like a thick slurry and more like a gelled mass (it's more pleasant than it sounds, really).

In a small saucepan, heat the non-dairy milk just short of boiling. Add the tea and coconut and cover, then let steep for 10 minutes. Strain out the coconut and remove the tea, squeezing any remaining liquid out of both. You should have around ¾ cup liquid left at this point.

In a large bowl, cream together the earth balance and shortening, then add the vanilla, flax goo, and tea-milk mixture and whisk together until well incorporated. In a separate bowl, whisk or sift together the flours, baking powder, salt, xanthan gum, and spices. Whisk the dry into the wet, then pour the batter into an oiled cake pan. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes or until inside is tested to be dry.

We liked the cake so much as is that we decided not to frost it, though a double recipe made in separate cake pans and layered together with a lightly spiced vanilla coconut frosting wouldn't be a bad idea. If going without frosting, sprinkle some extra cane sugar evenly over the top of the poured batter before baking.

Vegan Coconut Milk Ice Cream

One of the nice things about being gluten-free is that you always have a stock of xanthan gum on hand for things like this.

1½ - 1¾ cups coconut milk
½ cup soy or nut milk
½ cup cane sugar
½ tsp xanthan gum
pinch of salt
flavoring (see below)

We just picked up a quart capacity ice cream maker - which is really something I should've picked up years ago - and this recipe is by far the favorite. I have a nice all-steel blender and make the recipe from start to finish in there, though a blender isn't necessary if you're using store-bought coconut milk and have a whisk on hand.

I made the coconut milk from scratch, taking 2 cups boiling water and steeping 1 cup dried unsweetened coconut along with the sugar for around ten minutes, then blending for around 30 seconds (hot liquids can sometimes leak out the top when blended, so begin by pulsing, then giving it a full blend). Strain out the solid coconut from the mixture and return to the blender, adding the soy milk and salt, then sprinkling the xanthan gum on the top of the mixture. Blend until the xanthan gum is incorporated - the mixture should look noticeably thicker at this point.

If using store-bought coconut milk, combine the coconut milk over low heat and whisk in the sugar until incorporated. Remove from the heat, add the soy or nut milk, and whisk the xanthan gum into a small portion of the mixture, then add this back into the rest of the mix.

Add flavoring to the mixture, then chill in the refrigerator until cold.

A half hour before using, add the mixture to the freezer - you want the mix to be as cold as possible before adding it to the ice cream maker, but without letting it start to freeze, so keep an eye on it. It helps to take the mix out after 15 minutes, blend or stir briefly, then return to the freezer for the other 15. Add the mix to your ice cream maker and process according to directions.

For flavoring, any mix of extracts or fresh fruit will work. I'm pretty partial to 1 tsp vanilla extract and ½ tsp almond extract, with 1/3 cup chopped almonds mixed in after the mixture has started to freeze, or 1 tsp peppermint extract and ½ tsp vanilla extract, with chocolate flakes mixed in (pictured above).

Gluten-Free Chocolate Cupcakes

I've never really freaked out over a gluten-free recipe tasting that much like its gluten-full counterpart, but I had a minor freak-out when I tried these. These cupcakes are moist and delicious and don't fall apart at all and are so, so good.

I read a great review of Elana Amsterdam's almond flour cookbook in my local paper last week and have been into the idea of baking with almond flour ever since, but I also know her recipes can get a little egg-crazy. The almond flour doesn't play a huge role here, since all of the other cake recipes I've seen that are heavy on the almond flour also seem to rely on just a huge amount of eggs to provide structure, but I want to play around with adding at least as much almond flour as starch. For science. (But since it's so much more expensive than other flours, I have no problem keeping it sparse - I just blanched and ground my own for this with some leftover bulk almonds we had in the kitchen).

¾ cup sorghum flour
¼ cup potato flour
1/8 cup almond flour or ground walnuts
3/4 tsp xanthan gum
¾ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup soy or nut milk
1 tsp cider vinegar
½ cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract

In a large bowl, combine the milk and vinegar and let sit for a few minutes. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, xanthan gum, baking soda and powder, salt, cocoa, and cinnamon. Add the oil, sugar, and extract to the slightly curdled milk, then whisk the dry ingredients into the wet until combined. Pour into a muffin pan fit with cupcake liners and bake at 350 for around 18-20 minutes, or until inside is tested to be dry.

These cupcakes rise a good bit - seriously, I've never had a g-f cake recipe rise as much as this one - so only fill the each liner around 3/4 of the way up. Frost with chocolate frosting.

Chocolate Coconut Buttercream + Box Cake

Okay, so cake from a box doesn't actually need any need instructions beyond, you know, the box. This post is really just here to sing the praises of coconut oil and silken tofu eggs in veganizing this kind of recipe, and give me an excuse to post the buttercream.

1 box 365 brand g-f white cake mix
¼ cup coconut butter
¼ cup dairy-free margarine
¼ cup silken tofu
¾ cup non-dairy milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Place the coco butter and marg in a large mixing bowl and let soften. In a blender, combine the milk and tofu and blend until smooth and without lumps. Add the vanilla extract to the milk mixture. Beat the coco butter and marg with a mixer and incorporate the cake mix while continuously beating. Add the milk mixture and mix until well incorporated. Pour batter into a 9" round cake pan and bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until inside is tested to be dry. Let cool in the pan for ten minutes, then turn onto a rack to cool completely.

The cake doesn't do much in the way of rising, but it's considerably moist and delicious, especially topped with:

chocolate coconut buttercream

¼ cup coconut butter
¼ cup dairy-free margarine
½ cup cocoa powder
2 ½ cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup to ½ cup non-dairy milk (see below)

Place the coco butter and marg in a large mixing bowl and let soften. Whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth, then alternate the sugar and milk until completely incorporated. For a thicker frosting, use the lesser amount of non-dairy milk - if making a thinner frosting, it should be drizzled over the top of the cake before it has cooled completely. For thicker frosting, cake should be cooled completely before frosting top and sides. This recipe makes a decent amount of extra frosting, which is a good excuse to make cupcakes or eat it straight from the bowl. (Or you could always just halve the recipe.)

Gluten-Free Tahinopita

I go through these weird fits a few times a year where I want nothing more than fresh garlic hummus with heaps of basil, so we usually get stuck with large tins of tahini in our fridge just waiting to go bad. Usually I'll just use some of it to make crispy tofu, but we had so much of it this time, I just really wanted something that would use the lot of it (like the tahinopita recipe I somehow remembered seeing on the vegan lunch box blog a few years back).

A few notable alterations - I went with a mix of equal parts sorghum flour, sweet rice flour, tapioca flour, and potato starch, which I like as a basic cake mix. I decreased the amount of flour a tiny bit, just to get a little more moistness in the cake, and to make the flour mix that much simpler to whip up. I used a touch less raisins than the original recipe, threw in the suggested walnuts, and since I ended up just shy of having the requisite 3/4 cup of tahini - I had just about 2/3 cup - I whisked in a little peanut butter to compensate.

½ cup sorghum flour
½ cup sweet brown rice flour
½ cup tapioca flour
½ cup potato starch
1 ½ tsp xanthan gum
3 ¼ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp sea salt
¾ tsp cinnamon
¾ cup tahini
¾ cup orange juice
½ cup sugar
½ cup raisins
1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Sift together the flour mix, baking powder, gum, salt, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Whisk together the tahini and orange juice, adding the juice slowly as you whisk, until incorporated. Add the sugar to the wet mix and beat with an electric mixer for several minutes, until smooth and lighter in color. Add the dry ingredients and mix until well incorporated, then add the raisins and walnuts to the resulting dough. Press the dough into a greased cake pan and 350 for ~35 minutes.

I knew going into this that having a dough rather than a batter would probably give me a somewhat crumbly cake, but it ended up holding together surprisingly well and wasn't dry. Like the original recipe says, this really does give you something that tastes like a huge raisin cookie, and the slightly crumbly texture I ended up with actually adds to that. The flavor is spot on, too.

On my second pass I might add a little almond or hazelnut milk to see what I get from something more batter-like than dough-like, and maybe ramp up the original cooking temp to 375 and adjust the cooking time. If you really wanted to cut the crumble, leaving out the sorghum flour and using equal parts of the other three would also help with that (but I'm a sucker for having at least half my flour mix be something other than a starch).

Gluten-Free Zucchini-Carrot Cake

BAM.

2 ½ cups flour mix (i use bob's RM all purpose baking mix)
1 ½ tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp ener-g egg replacer, dry
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup cane sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
½ tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
egg substitute (see below)
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup apple sauce
½ cup soy or nut milk
1 cup zucchini, grated
1 cup carrot, grated
1 cup raisins
½ cup chopped walnuts

For egg substitute, I either go with flax eggs (4 eggs worth) or silken tofu (3 eggs worth). For the flax, blend ¼ cup flax seed with ¾ cup warm water until the mixture is combined and foamy. For the silken tofu, blend ¾ cup of the tofu with the soy milk until the mixture is smooth. I personally prefer the flax goo for this.

Pour either substitute into a medium bowl and mix with the oil, apple sauce, and (if using flax eggs) milk. In large mixing bowl, sift together flour, xanthan gum, egg replacer, sugar, spices, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Add the wet to the dry and mix until incorporated, then fold in the carrots, zucchini, raisins, and walnuts. Pour in a greased baking dish and bake at 350 for ~40 minutes or until inside is tested to be dry (this is my high altitude baking time, so for those in lower altitudes, you might need to adjust).

This is one of those recipes where I really like using a bean-flour mix like Bob's Red Mill, since the strong flavors of the cake will compensate for any of garbanzo flour flavors that might stick behind after baking. I've yet to have an unmoist or crumbly loaf from this, but with the oil, applesauce, brown sugar, and two kinds of vegetables floating around in the batter, this isn't too surprising.