Sugar Crunchies and Friends

 

Gluten-Free Sugar Crunchies

Gluten-Free Sugar Crunchies


One of the many wonderful things about doing what I do is being able to correspond with the kind, caring and interesting people who write to me. I really do feel like I have friends all over the world even though I haven’t actually met many of them face to face. The list is long and it would be hard for me to name them all here, but one thing is for sure, I know their emails as soon as they pop up in my mail box and I eagerly open them with an anticipating smile. They bring me happiness in buckets and sometimes they also send me little gifts in the way of a treasured family recipe. Joan Leforestier, a long time member of the celiac community who helps to run the CSA Sacramento Area Chapter #24, sent such a recipe to me. She said it was an old favorite and that she had to double it whenever she made it. Now I know why. It’s a tweak of a simple sugar cookie that is knock’em-out-of-the-park good.

I researched the recipe and could only find it going back about seventy years in a revised version of The Settlement Cook Book; The Way to a Man’s Heart, by Mrs. Simon Kander. Mrs. Kander calls it “Plain Cookies”; she uses a lot more sugar than Joan and no nutmeg. But that nutmeg. Well, let me tell you, the nutmeg gives this cookie that certain something that keeps you coming back for more. I also reduced the baking temperature and the xanthan gum a tiny bit from the version Joan sent and I increased the vanilla extract.

So if you’re looking for a lovely, little cookie to go with a glass of iced tea or some of the lush summer fruit that is sure to come our way very soon, try this recipe in your own kitchen. It’s a little gift that I’m sharing because it’s too good to keep to myself. Thank you Joan Leforestier.

Gluten-free Sugar Crunchies

 

Sugar Crunchies (Gluten-Free)

Makes 30 cookies

1 1/2 cups Brown Rice Flour Mix
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup shortening
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon granulated sugar for rolling

*Find my Brown Rice Flour Mix in the recipe section of this blog.

  1. Preheat oven to 375ºF. Position rack in center of oven. Lightly grease cookie sheet with cooking spray.
  2. Combine flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg in a small bowl and set aside.
  3. Beat shortening and sugar in large bowl of electric mixer until light and creamy. Add egg and vanilla and mix until smooth. Add flour mixture and beat until a thick smooth dough is formed.
  4. Place 1 tablespoon granulated sugar in a small bowl. Use your hands to shape dough into 1-inch balls and very lightly roll in granulated sugar. Place balls 1-inch apart on cookie sheet. Use a fork to press ball of dough to about 1/4-inch think. (Unbaked dough can be stored in refrigerator for up to one week or frozen for up to two months. To freeze, wrap in plastic wrap and then wrap in foil.)
  5. Bake in center of oven for about 16-18 minutes until a light golden color. Allow cookies to sit on the cookie sheet for 2 -3 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely. Store in an airtight container. After three days, store in refrigerator. Can be kept in refrigerator for 2 weeks or frozen for up to one month.

Gluten-Free Cherry Frangipane Tart

 

It’s really all my mother’s fault. About eighteen months ago she called to tell me about a dessert that friends had brought to her house for a dinner party. She raved about the flavor, the texture and the beautiful color. What was all the fuss about? A cherry frangipane tart. She was practically swooning. And then the punch line: maybe you could make one?

Well, I found out that there are a lot of interpretations of frangipane in the cookbook world. I tried way too many of them but I learned a lot along the way. One of which is that you can never have enough frangipane tart because as soon as you think you never want to see it again, you start craving it.

Some of the versions I tired didn’t have enough filling. Some had a weird texture. More than a few had very little flavor. Or not enough cherries. Or too much sugar. Or not enough sugar. It was amazing how so many people could take the same basic recipe and, in the interest of creating of their own version, muddle it. In the end, I gave up on my favorite cookbook writers and did what any self respecting recipe developer would do: I created my own recipe for a cherry frangipane tart, one that met all my criteria- tender tart crust, full-of-flavor fruit, just enough sweetness, rich almond flavor, and enough filling to satisfy the longing for filling.

Although there are cookbook writers who swear you have to use almonds without skins, I found that it didn’t make a bit of difference to the taste or texture. I made it with fresh cherries when they were in season last summer and I made it with frozen when they weren’t. I found that when I bought the best frozen cherries I could, it was just as good if not better than fresh because the fruit was more consistent (and because I didn’t have to pit the darn things). In fact, I found an incredible line of frozen organic fruit from a company called Woodstock Foods. Their frozen Organic Dark Sweet Cherries taste like perfectly ripened cherries and the entire bag is filled with richly colored fruit that is already pitted. You simply let the cherries defrost, pat them dry to the best of your abilities and then spread them over the filling.

So if you’ve been all a tizzy about wanting to bake a frangipane tart to bring to a friend’s dinner party, but were too befuddled by the hundreds of different variations, try this one! And be reassured, if you’re not a cherry lover, the frangipane is also delicious with pears (poached or flash frozen like my cherries), and fresh peaches or plums.

 

 

Gluten-Free Cherry Frangipane Tart

Here’s a luscious almond cream filling you can use with cherries, peaches, plums or pears.

Makes one 9-inch tart

1 9-inch Traditional Pie Crust dough (recipe below)

1/2 cup unsalted butter (or butter substitute)
1/2 – 2/3 cup granulated sugar (depending on sweetness of cherries)
1 large egg
1 cup finely ground almonds
1 tablespoon brown rice flour mix*
1 tablespoon Amaretto (or dark rum)
1 teaspoon almond extract
3 cups fresh sweet cherries (about 1 pound), washed, dried and pitted (or 10-12 ounces good quality frozen** (about 2 1/2 cups), thawed, drained and gently patted dry with paper towel).

To prepare Pie Crust:

  1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Position rack in center of oven. Grease 9-inch tart pan with cooking spray, and generously dust with rice flour. Place pie pastry into tart pan and make sure sides are at least 1 1/2 inches high. Bake crust in oven for about 25 minutes until golden and cooked through. Cool on rack while preparing filling (do not put filling into hot crust or the butter will melt and separate; crust can be warm, but not hot)

To prepare Filling:

  1. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl of electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Add egg, almonds, flour, Amaretto, almond extract and beat until smooth and creamy. Spread frangipane evenly over bottom of baked tart crust. Then, spread pitted cherries across the top of the frangipane (try to place cherries smooth side up).
  2. Bake tart in center of oven for 40-50 minutes until frangipane is puffed and light brown in color across the entire surface, including the middle. Remove from oven and cool on a rack. Serve tart warm or at room temperature.

 

Cooks Notes: Tart can be made one day ahead. Store tightly covered in refrigerator. Best when eaten within two days of baking.


*Find my Brown Rice Flour Mix in the Guide to Flour Mix section of this blog.

**Frozen cherries should be weighed and measured while frozen. I recommend Woodstock Organic Sweet Dark Cherries www.woodstock-foods.com.

 

Food Philosopher’s® Gluten-Free
Traditional Pie Crust 
From Gluten-Free Baking Classics
This recipe also appears on Foodphilosopher.com

Makes one 8- or 9-inch pie crust or tart crust.

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons Brown Rice Flour Mix*
2 tablespoons sweet rice flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces (or butter substitute)
1 large egg
2 teaspoons orange juice or lemon juice

  1. Spray 9-inch pie pan or tart pan (with removable bottom) with cooking spray. Generously dust with rice flour.
  2. Mix flours, sugar, xanthan gum, and salt in large bowl of electric mixer. Add butter and mix until crumbly and resembling coarse meal.
  3. Add egg and orange juice. Mix on low speed until dough holds together; it should not be sticky. Form dough into a ball, using your hands, and place on a sheet of wax paper. Top with a second sheet of wax paper and flatten dough to 1 -inch thickness. Dough can be frozen at this point for up to 1 month; wrap in plastic wrap and then use foil as an outer wrap.
  4. Roll out dough between the 2 sheets of wax paper. If dough seems tacky, refrigerate for 15 minutes before proceeding. Remove top sheet of wax paper and invert dough into pie/tart pan. Remove remaining sheet of wax paper, and crimp edges for single-crust pie. Dough can also be frozen at this point for up to 1 month; line pie shell with wax paper, wrap in plastic wrap, and use foil as an outer wrap.

*Find my Brown Rice Flour Mix in the Guide to Flour Mix section of this blog.

Cooks note: When you prebake or parbake this crust, do so at a lower temperature than is commonly used for pie crusts made with wheat (see directions below). This is to make sure the dough cooks before it browns. If you notice the crust rising in the middle while it is baking, open the oven quickly and prick it once with the point of a sharp knife or press the crust down lightly. Partially bake this pie crust whenever you are making a fruit pie or quiche.

To partially bake (parbake) a bottom pie crust:
Preheat oven to 375°F. Bake pastry for 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven. Fill and bake as per recipe.

To prebake a bottom pie crust:
Preheat oven to 375°F. Gently prick pastry in 3 or 4 places with a fork. Bake pastry for about 25 minutes or until golden. Remove from oven and cool completely on a wire rack. Prebaked pie shells can be stored in airtight plastic containers or plastic wrap in refrigerator for 3 days. For longer storage, wrap in plastic wrap and then in foil, and store in freezer for up to 2 weeks.

 ©2013 by Annalise Roberts

 

 

Gluten-Free French Sauces from More Than Gourmet

 

More Than Gourmet®, the gluten-free friendly sauce and stock company has done it again. They’ve introduced a line of high quality, all natural French sauces that home cooks can use to dress up any meal they want. There are five different kinds and they’re all excellent: Hollandaise, Béarnaise, Dijon Mustard, Lemon Dill, and Roquefort. The consistency and the flavors are as good or better than other sauces I bought in my pre-gluten-free days, and they’re significantly better than anything that might be available to gluten-free home cooks. Indeed, there are excellent gluten-free sauces, stocks and demi-glaces available to professional chefs, but unless you want a huge amount, they’re not available in small enough quantities for home cooks to buy for themselves.

The More Than Gourmet® French sauces come in small pouches, three to a box. Each pouch is ideal for one or two servings, depending on how much sauce you like on your food. In fact, at my house we found that one of the little packets was perfect for two (we always had some leftover sauce when we prepared one per person). To serve them, you can either heat them up in the microwave for a few seconds (in or out of the pouch) or on the stove in a pot of boiling water (in the pouch for 5 minutes). Then you simply cut open the packet and squeeze out the sauce, either into a little bowl for people to help themselves, or directly over the food.

The sauces are not inexpensive, but they’re so good and so easy to use that they’re worth the splurge -as long as you aren’t serving a huge crowd around your table (in which case, I’d make the sauce myself). The ability to have perfectly seasoned hollandaise with fresh asparagus – at the last minute – on a weeknight- is really nice for someone like me who wouldn’t typically bother to make it unless I was having people for dinner (and even then, probably not too often).

But as I said, these sauces are a treat. I made eggs benedict for the first time in ten years (with the Hollandaise). I probably won’t make it again for another ten, but wow, it sure was fun! I used the Dijon Mustard Wine Sauce on slices of roast lamb for our family. I spooned the classic Béarnaise Sauce on beef tenderloin at a small dinner for friends. I loved the Lemon Dill Sauce on roast salmon and on steamed broccoli. We liked the Roquefort Sauce on potatoes and we’re looking forward to trying it on some other vegetables and perhaps, some meat.

All five sauces have a shelf life of several months. And although I haven’t seen them in my local grocery stores, they are available at the More Than Gourmet® website: http://www.morethangourmet.com/. The company also sells a great variety of other really good gluten-free stocks and demi-glaces, including a roasted vegetable demi-glace. Take note though: I am not a huge fan of their Ready-To-Use-Cooking-Stocks. 

 

 

Embrace the Slow FOOD NEWS Movement and Feed Your Mind

You might have noticed that I’ve been very quiet for the last month and a half. Or maybe you didn’t notice. Which is exactly my point. The number of food writers, food bloggers, food websites, food magazines, food TV shows, and cookbooks has grown exponentially. The gluten-free version of all these categories, though smaller, seems to have grown even more. There is an amazing amount of food content everywhere we look and very few curators. We can’t even count on publishers, because many of them have taken to simply repackaging blog posts into books.

I started to think that maybe there was too much information to sort through and consume, especially for those of us who live and breathe food. It was becoming hard to know where what I thought started and where what others thought stopped– there was just too much commotion. There was also this:

I noticed that I kept seeing the same recipes over and over with only minor tweaks of ingredients- on different websites and blogs.

I noticed that journalists and cookbook writers recycled the same columns and recipes over all of the many media they felt compelled to write or tweet for. I think many are spread too thin and that it prevents them from producing anything really significant.

I noticed that publishers judged the value of potential cookbooks on how many people followed or liked the author on social media instead of the quality of the recipes.

I noticed that I was spending less time with some of the same food magazines I used to pore over before the Internet took hold. I was already getting so much other content that they didn’t seem all that exciting. Then one day this past December, when I pushed myself to sit down, relax and really try to read through one, I found a very strange thing: it was no longer really there. It looked like a bulletin board page of pictures and small paragraphs of words and links to on-line content. As far as printed food magazines go, it was a very unsatisfying read, like the magazine equivalent of coitus interruptus. This magazine, which I had subscribed to for decades, was trying to be in two places at once, and as a result, it was not really well represented anywhere. I cancelled my subscription.

The good thing about the democratization of food content is that everyone gets a chance to be heard. The bad thing about the democratization of food content is that everyone gets a chance to be heard. And now, the huge throngs of people who create that content have to shout really loudly to be heard above the din. It makes for tiresome, repetitive and mediocre content. It also made me just want to shut up and take a break.

So I’ve spent some time off the grid. I’ve been on a kind of social network sabbatical, except for a peak here and there. I spent time looking at what’s going on in the food world that isn’t on the Internet. I spent time actually talking to people in the industry to see what they think. I spent time reading non-Internet based articles and books, ones in which the authors had the time to really think about what they wanted to say. I spent time developing new recipes, trying new products and surveying food trends in food stores and restaurants in different parts of the country. I spent a lot of time looking at the ingredients on processed food packages and noticed the growing number of companies making highly processed gluten-free food with ingredients that are difficult to pronounce. I looked at food advertising and took notice of food oriented public relation efforts. But mostly, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and being quiet; it’s been incredibly liberating and refreshing.

Do I feel more informed? I do actually. I feel like I’ve had the time to carefully fill my brain with a lot of thoughtful information and then I had the time to sort it out. I particularly enjoyed being able to talk to chefs, restaurant owners, grocers, farmers and organizers of farm markets and ask questions that they didn’t have to answer in a sound bite or tweet.

One other delicious result is that I found a couple of new products I’d like to tell you about it. I’ll be back soon.

 

 

(©)2013 by Annalise Roberts

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