there wasn’t only chicken pot pie for pi day, we also had a quick cherry pie. normally, i’m a fruit pie purist and like to use fresh fruits to be sure the starch used for thickening is gluten free, but i really wanted cherry pie and it’s not cherry season.
yes, i know another pound cake variation. i don’t know what it is that draws me to baking pound cakes, but it’s just very satisfying to me. in honor valentine’s day, i decided to fiddle with red velvet cake. i think the texture of this one could still use some refinement, but i was pretty happy with the finished cakelettes.
while working on a recipe for a fabulous cookie bar that i hope to post very soon, i tinkered with the recipe for traditional shortbread that i got from my friend Brenda. i needed a shortbread cookie as a base for sure, something not too sweet with a touch of saltiness to complement another ingredient, the Continue reading
join me for a late and sort of half-hearted celebration of national chocolate cake day. in my morning facebook feed, i spied a martha stewart post with a link to a recipe for boston cream cupcakes. i’m not really a cupcake girl so i set about adapting it into a gluten free cake recipe.
still riffing on pound cake here. this one is a buttermilk pound cake flavored with Maker’s Mark bourbon whisky and orange, inspired by a friend’s reminiscence of an orange bourbon pound cake. i was supposed to be working on a re-creation of that cake, but by the time i got to the glaze, i realized i could turn it into something akin to an old fashioned cocktail. woo hoo!
another riff on pound cake, this time for a weekend bruncheon. topped it with a simple chocolate ganache and served with bourbon vanilla ice cream and chocolate whipped cream. see the recipe after the jump
i love and i mean lurve butter cookies, particularly the french style with it’s buttery flavor and sandy texture. these particular cookies are hand kneaded from start to finish and have a lovely texture. i decided to make checkerboard and spiral cookies.
i had to scramble to put together something sweet for cocktails later. chocolate financiers seemed like a perfect dessert with raspberries, whipped cream and a nice chilled cava. the best thing is that financiers are mostly gluten free, anyway. they require only about a tablespoon of flour for structure, i used Cup4Cup but sweet rice flour or most any rice flour based blend will work and the batter is very forgiving, so long as you chill it thoroughly before baking. the french call this “le choc thermique”.
in gluten free baking, it allows the flours to fully absorb the liquid and gives a nicer less grainy texture. i’m afraid that, i’m going to eat all the financiers before my guests arrive.
this past weekend, i had a craving for chocolate cake, but wanted something with real substance and lots of flavor. i decided to fiddle around with the recipe for recipe for elvis’ favorite poundcake that i made a few weeks ago. i substituted valrhona cocoa for part of the gluten free flour blend and substituted sour cream for the heavy cream in the original recipe. see recipe below:
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recycling is the name of the game, this week. first, blintzes made using leftover crêpes and today, frozen custard made with the leftover chocolate pastry cream from the mille crêpes cake. check it out.
kiss my gluten free buns 
