it’s kiss my gluten free buns’ second anniversary and we’re celebrating with biscuits crammed full of bacon! 
i know, it sounds crazy, but it’s really only decadent. it was just one of those filled with errands and crap you just don’t want to do. as evening rolled around, i decided that i deserved a treat, something savory but fun and that might pass for dinner under a blurry microscope. Continue reading
So, these are officially my favorite cookies, in the world, made by one of my favorite people! My dear friend Cathy (aka: mrs cathy), without whom I wouldn’t have my sweet kitteh Callie, made these awesome cookies gluten free for a brunch celebrating Callie’s 5th year living with me. These cookies are melt in your mouth great, beautifully crisp and have a gorgeous depth of flavor from the combination of brown sugars and a lovely warm bite of spice. I asked Cathy to share the recipe here and a little of the cookie’s background. Here’s Cathy…
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More than a sweet treat for me, these are the cookies of my people. Everyone in my family adores them. I’ve tinkered with the basic recipe for years, so when my sister went gluten-free I couldn’t wait to bake her a batch, thanks to Cup 4 Cup flour and the encouragement of my favorite GF blogger. They were terrific, with a melt-in-your-mouth quality that demands you eat another. I brought some to Lisa of KMGFB, who agreed and invited me to share them with you.
i was racking my brain and then the interwebs for some new toppings for a buttermilk coffeecake base. in the past, i have always topped coffee cake very simply with some streusel crumb, but i came across a blueberry coffee cake with a cream cheese center. still wanting a sort of simple cake and one that wasn’t too wet or too sweet, i started to fiddle with combining the two recipes. cherries are my all-time favorite fruit and i figured cherry preserves would be less wet and sweet than a pie style cornstarch thickened filling. i still wanted my streusel topping, but with some extra punch, so i added almond flour to the mix. My dear friend Brenda calls this the SuperNova Cake.
this recipe is exciting to me for two reasons, I get to use up some apples (I had crispins and pippins) 
that I had totally forgotten about and I get to use my new vitamix blender. flaugnarde is a french custardy cake similar to a claufotis (claufotis is usually filled with cherries, while flaugnarde are usually filled with apples, pears or other fruits.), it’s also a southern dessert and my grandmother from south carolina made a similar baked custard cake filled with peaches or prunes.
i always like to do a bread project for the New Year and this year i had a hankering for pretzels, but I didn’t have the energy to roll and shape pretzels. i had tried to make gluten free soft pretzels once before, but i found they mostly tasted of the baking soda. as it turns out, i had forgotten to add sugar to my dough, but i also realized that white sugar might not cut it in terms of depth of flavor and balancing the salt and baking soda, so this time i used turbinado (raw sugar) and i was very pleased with the flavor of the finished pretzel bites. 
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so far, i’ve been very pleased with the versatility of the ciabatta bread dough recipe, i posted a couple of weeks ago. this weekend, i used it to make two types of focaccia. it’s pretty simple just follow the ciabatta recipe in the link right through to the step of putting it into the pan and for the amount of dough in the recipe you can use a quarter sheet pan or two eighth sized sheet pans (sometimes called mini-sheet pans).
as promised, i went back and tinkered with the ciabatta recipe to see if i could make a dough that could hold it’s shape on a silpat or parchment, but would also keep the nice rise. here’s the dough before and after the rise:
i succeeded in keeping the rise, but i lost the air pockets that make a ciabatta, a ciabatta. 😦 Continue reading
I’m not sure what prompted it, but I had a major hankering for some crusty chewy bread today and I had an idea about getting a gluten free bread to rise into something airy, that would also have a crisp crust. 
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Now, we wait to see what happens in the judges vote. As promised, I’ve posted the “Tipsy Cranberry Almond Shorties” recipe,
below.
I am so grateful for and really sincerely appreciate every like and vote that was cast for my cookie, in this contest. Continue reading
my tipsy cranberry almond shorties are entered in the Cookie Rumble 2013. the assignment, to create a cookie that pairs perfectly with port wine. cranberry, almond, maldon sea salt, that’s the ticket! i think my recipe may be the only gluten free entry in the contest. here’s the link for the recipe and please vote for the cookies while you’re there. the contest requires voting via facebook, i know that doesn’t appeal to everyone, but i’d be very grateful to anyone who takes the time and trouble to vote. so, many thanks if you’re willing. you can vote for an entry once every 24 hours. voting ends november 15th. Please note that you need to first like the page and then find and click the vote button, which is just below the recipe and above the comments box. It’s a little confusing, I know.
when the contest ends, I’ll repost the recipe here, along with some additional step-by-step photos.
kiss my gluten free buns 