Soft, Warm Pretzels

So I tried making pretzels.   Although they didn't rise as much as I wanted they still tasted great.   I have some ideas I am going to try when I make these again since I learned a lot during this process.


So here is what I did:

1 teaspoon dried yeast
1/4 teaspoon sugar
5 fluid ounces warm milk
1 1/2 cups gluten free flour (I used Bette's featherlight rice flour blend)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Xanthan gum
1 ounce butter, melted
1 egg yolk lightly beaten
coarse sea salt (or other spices to sprinkle)

Place the yeast, sugar, and warm milk in a small bowl and stir well.  Leave in a warm, draft-free place for 10 minutes,  or until bubbles appear on the surface (I used my microwave which is over my stove it meets all the requirements and is safe from the dogs).  The mixture should be frothy and slightly increased in volume.  If your yeast doesn't foam it is dead and you will have to discard it and start again.

Place the flour , Xanthan gum, and salt in a large bowl ( I sifted the flour 2 times before continuing) and make a well in the center.  Add the  yeast mixture and the butter and mix to a rough dough with a spoon.  Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead until dough is smooth and elastic.   The recipe says to knead for 10 minutes, but my dough only needed to be worked for 5. 

At this point the recipe says to let the dough rise for an hour, punch it down, knead it again and shape into 12 pretzels.  Then the dough should rise again for 20-30 minutes.  See my comments below about this step.

Once the dough is shaped into pretzels, risen and ready lightly brush each pretzel with the egg yolk and sprinkle with salt or the spice mix of you choice.  I used a Italian herb and sea salt mixture that was wonderful on the pretzels.
Put the pretzels on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone tray liner

Pretzels should then be baked in  a 375 oven for 15-20 minutes until crisp and golden brown.
Put on a wire rack to cool and enjoy.  They should keep for a week in an air-tight container but mine did not last until the next day.

With the punching down of the dough and the second rising, I learned that gluten free yeast dough does not need the second rising.  I made pita bread after this and right before the first rising time I shaped the dough into the desired shapes and then let rise for an hour.  After that I baked the dough according to directions and they came out better than the pretzels.  I actually do not have any pictures of the pita bread since we ate it all before I could get some.  So I will make it again and get some pictures and post the recipe since having pita brad of flat bread is a nice change from Udi's bread and crackers.

Yeast bread is new territory for me since I didn't make them even when I was eating and cooking with gluten.  But it might be easier since I don't know what I am doing and have no previous experience or references to compare it to and no bad habits to unlearn.


Keep baking, keep eating and keep enjoying life.

Cupcakes!!

So I tried my hand at cupcakes.  I like cupcakes because they are just the right amount of cake and frosting.  This time I started with a wonderful recipe from 'Joy of Cooking' I have the 1997 version and I love it.  It is my cooking bible.  I think every person should have that one cookbook that they use over and over for ideas and inspiration.  I chose the 1-2-3-4 yellow cake recipe partly because it just sounded yummy and partly for the preparation which I thought would make the cake less dense.  I pretty much followed the recipe but I want to make them again and maybe fill them with chocolate.  Or jam, or a fresh fruit puree, or caramel...

So here is the recipe for Joy of Cooking gluten free 1-2-3-4 yellow cupcakes:

Have all ingredients at room temperature.  Preheat the oven to 350 and prepare your cupcake tins.  You can grease them or use the little paper cups which I prefer so I don't have as much cleanup.  Again I used Bettes featherlight rice flour mix, I just like the mouth feel it provides to baked goods.

Sift together twice:
2 2/3 cup gluten free flour mix
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon Xanthan gum (you can also use Guar gum)
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a different bowl combine:
1 cup milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla (or almond extract or lemon extract or a combination of extracts)

In a large bowl beat until creamy (about 30 seconds)
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter

Once butter is creamy add gradually and beat on high speed until lightened in color and texture
1 1/2 cups sugar (vanilla sugar would be nice to use here)

Add 1 at a time: 4 egg yolks (save the whites we will use them later)

Once the eggs are blended into the sugar butter mixture add the flour in 3 parts and the milk mixture in 2 parts.  Beat on low speed after each addition, use a spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl as needed.  Once the ingredients are combined set the bowl aside.

In another large bowl (I just wash the flour bowl and re-use it), beat on medium speed until soft peaks form:

4 large egg whites
scant 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

gradually add, beating on high speed: 1/4 cup sugar

Beat until the peaks are stiff but not dry.  (stiff peaks hold their shape after the mixer is removed from the bowl)

Using a rubber spatula, add 1/4 of the egg whites into the bowl with the flour mixture.  Once that is incorporated, fold in the remaining whites.

Using a ice cream scoop, or what ever method you prefer, put the batter into the prepared cupcake tins.  I usually get 2 1/2 dozen cupcakes from this recipe.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the enter comes out clean 25-35 minutes.  Check after 20-25 minutes to be sure that the cupcakes are not overcooked.  Remove from cupcake tins, don't leave the cupcakes in the hot tins too long as it will make the bottoms wet and soggy.  Let cool completely and frost.

I make my own frosting but you can use any type of gluten free frosting and decorations you want.  I make a basic white icing: Combine 2 cups sifted powdered sugar, 1/2 stick of butter (4 Tablespoons)  when combined add 3-4 Tablespoons milk or any liquid (you can add prepared coffee or liquor here), 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1/8 teaspoon salt.  Combine and correct the consistency to what you want.  

You can add lemon juice as the liquid and some grated lemon zest and make lemon frosting, or use oranges for orange frosting, or powdered chocolate, or use coffee as the liquid and then add the powdered chocolate for a mocha frosting. You are only limited by your own imagination.  If you are not sure how it will taste take a small part of the sugar/butter mixture and experiment with it.


I like to use a pastry bag to frost cupcakes since you have more control and there is less chance to damage the cupcakes.  You can use a plastic baggie with a corner cut off in place of a pastry bag.  I don't use any of my decorating tips since I don't have any that I feel are big enough for frosting so I just pipe it out the end of the bag.

For this cupcake I used chocolate ganache: heat 1 cup cream until just boiling remove from the heat and add 4 oz chopped chocolate stir to combine and then let sit for 10 minutes.  Stir until perfectly smooth and then let cool to the desired consistency.  I simply dipped the tops of the cupcake in the ganache and let it cool some more.  I used edible pearls on top for decoration.

This cupcake has the basic white frosting with vanilla added.  I used the pastry bag to pipe the frosting on the cake and then used red decorating sugar and a chocolate chip on top.

These are probably some of the best cupcakes I have ever made, and people don't believe me when I tell them they are gluten free.

Enjoy!  Next time soft chewy pretzels.

MMMM Blueberry Muffins!

So I had a bit of a baking frenzy and made not only Maple Blueberry Muffins with brown sugar cinnamon topping but I also made cupcakes.  This post is for the muffins and then cupcakes will be on my next post.  Now onto the Muffins!

I started out with a basic muffin recipe and then modified it to create the muffins I wanted.  The basic recipe for muffins is
2 1/2 cups self rising flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups milk
2 lightly beaten eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
5 oz melted and cooled butter

My flour of choice is Bette's Featherlight Blend, it is a wonderful rice flour mixture that is ground super fine.  It is almost like powder.  The fine grind makes it perfect for baked goods since it doesn't come out with a grainy texture.

To make the rice flour into self rising flour add 2 teaspoons of baking powder to 1 cup of flour, stir together and then sift the mixture several times.

I find that it is essential to sift gluten free flours and dry ingredients together at least 2 times before adding the wet ingredients.  This makes the finished product lighter.

For the binding agent I like to use Xanthan Gum.  I find that 1 teaspoon per 2 cups of flour works best for most baked goods.  You can use which ever binding agent you like best.  When sifting the dry ingredients I like to put half the flour in the sifter add the other dry ingredients (baking powder, salt, xanthan gum, etc.) then cover with the remaining flour so that I can mix and sift at the same time.

So I took my gluten free ingredients and made me some muffins.  I wanted to make maple syrup blueberry muffins so I made a few changes in the basic recipe.

Sift 2 1/2 cups GF flour mixture,  1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder, and 1 teaspoon Xanthan gum together.  Sift 2 times and then add the 1/2 cup sugar to the bowl.   Mix gently and then make a well in the center of the dry ingredients.

Combine the 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup maple syrup, the 2 lightly beaten eggs and the teaspoon of vanilla together and then pour in to the well in the dry ingredients.  Add the cooled melted butter and then fold until just combined.  Do not over beat or the muffins will become tough and rubbery.

Toss 10 oz blueberries in some granulated sugar (this keeps them from sticking together and allows for a more even distribution of berries in the muffins) and add to the batter.  Stir gently to incorporate.  You can also add the berries to the flour mixture before you add the wet ingredients.

Fill your muffin tins.  I line my muffin tins with the paper cups for ease of clean up and removal of the muffins from the pans.  I used an ice cream scoop to put the batter in the pans.  It is faster and makes less of a mess on the pans.  The ice cream scoops with the trigger and the little part that actively removes the ice cream from the scoop work best.  But you can fill your muffin tins however you like.

I wanted to make a crumble topping for the muffins but discovered I was out of butter.  So I mixed brown sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkled it on top of the batter before baking.

Bake muffins for 20-25 minutes until they are risen, golden and come away from the sides of the holes.  A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean.  I used standard size muffin pans and my muffins were done in 20 minutes.  I actually set my timer for 18 minutes and checked the muffins then since all ovens are different and I did not want to over cook the muffins.  The larger your muffin pans the longer they will take to cook.  So mini-muffins should be cooked for probably 15 minutes and large oversized muffins should cook for 25 or more minutes.  

Gluten free muffins won't rise as high as muffins made with wheat flour so you can fill your muffin tins a bit fuller.  This will get you nice tall muffins with a lovely top.

This is what my muffins turned out like.  I got about 2 dozen muffins from this recipe so I took them into work and fed them to my co-workers.  Everyone ate them and then asked who brought in the muffins.  They didn't even realize that they were GF. 

So that is maple blueberry muffins with brown sugar cinnamon topping.  Next time Cupcakes!