Chocolate Crinkles - GF

Cookie-baking-time ! I used this recipe to make some chocolate cookies. They taste very good, you can't even tell they're gluten-free ! They are very sweet, so I might add less sugar next time I make them....


This is also my entry for Sugar High Friday this month: Sweet Without the Wheat. The challenge is to make a dessert without any wheat whatsoever. Great challenge for me, being coeliac ;-) Fact is, there are quite some desserts that are naturally gluten-free, for instance chocolate mousse, pudding, fudge, ... But I choose cookies this time.

Chocolate Crinkles

Ingredients:
• 125ml vegetable oil
• 115g dark chocolate
• 400g sugar
• 3 eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 250g rice flour mix
• 1/2 t xanthan gum
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 t baking powder

Melt chocolate, then mix with oil and sugar. Mix in eggs, one at a time. Stir in the vanilla, then add the rice flour mix, xanthan gum, salt and baking powder. Mix everything together, then stick the bowl in the fridge for a few hours.
Heat oven to 175°C. Form dough into small balls. Place them on a greased cookie sheet (about 3cm apart), and bake 10-12 minutes.

GF Quiche

My boyfriend mentioned it had been quite a while since we had a quiche. Well, yeah, I know. But gluten-free dough is just ... not really a pleasure to make. But I decided to go through that "hell" , and to enjoy eating my GF quiche twice as much.


Gluten-Free Spinach-Ricotta Quiche

Ingredients for the crust:
• 60g quinoa flour
• 190g gluten-free flour mix
• 125g butter
• 75ml water
• 1 egg
• pinch of salt, herbs, ... (to taste)

Sieve the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the middle. Add the egg, the cubed butter and salt. Work the ingredients into a smooth dough. It will be very sticky, and as the butter gets soft it will be harder to make a dough, so try to mix it quickly. Put it in the fridge for about 1 hour. Cover your baking form with the dough. I found it hard to work with the dough as it is very sticky. I had to put my form+dough in the fridge to chill several times. When finished, poke some holes into it with a fork and pre-bake your crust for about 10 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 200°C.

This dough isn't really "fun" to make, but believe me, the crust does taste good !


Use filling of your choice. My quiche was filled with a mixture of spinach (400g), ricotta (250g), 3 eggs, some muchrooms and herbs.

Brioches

I made brioches for Mother's Day. Now you're all thinking about French Brioche - but that's not entirely the same as Flemish Brioche. Our brioche has less eggs and less butter - Flemish Brioches are more sober. But believe me, they still are tasty ! This isn't gluten-free, so I can't eat it any more. That's a pity... But hey, that doesn't mean that my family can't enjoy them :-)

PS. I didn't follow the basic recipe for these, but an alternate version that uses less yeast and needs more time to rise. This way the crumb should be more elastic and (even) more tasteful.


Flemish Brioches

Ingredients:
• 1kg flour
• 17g salt
• 47g fresh yeast or 16g instant yeast
• 450ml milk (room temperature)
• 1 egg
• 75g sugar
• 150g butter
• Filling at your choice - I made some with raisins, and some with chocolate.
• This makes about 30 brioches.

Mix the egg with the milk (make sure it's not too cold !). Add all the yeast and half of the flour. Stir and leave it to rest for 30 - 60 minutes (it should form small bubbles). Add the rest of the ingredients and knead well until you get an elastic dough. Let it rise for 100 minutes. Then form the brioches. Again, let it rise for 60 - 80 minutes. Bake in a hot oven at 240°C for 8 - 10 minutes.

Oven Dried Tomatoes

I'm in the mood for trying new things. Yesterday I decided to cut up a couple tomatoes, and make some "Sun-Dried Tomatoes" myself ! Which are, in fact, oven dried.


Oven Dried Tomatoes

Ingredients:
• A couple tomatoes (I used 3)
• Some Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper

Slice the tomatoes. Discart most of the seeds. Sprinkle them with salt, pepper and olive oil - and some herbs if you like. Put the tomatoes - cut side up - on a baking plate. Let them oven-dry on the lowest heat, for 6 to 10 hours (to taste).


These were delicious on a piece of toasted GF bread with Philadelphia Pesto.

Les Croissants

I made these for my boyfriend, so they are not glutenfree. Perhaps I should try a glutenfree version for myself, but I can survive without croissants, so there's no hurry :-) I just wanted to make him a treat, so I decided to try this. I had never made croissants before. According to my boyfriend they taste just like croissants from a bakkery, although I thought the texture would be a bit more dense or thick. (Rolling out the dough was difficult.) Also, I'm planning on making a surprise-breakfast for my parents on Mother's Day. I hope that works out.

Croissants

Ingredients:
• 1kg flour
• 17g salt
• 70g fresh yeast, or 23g instant yeast
• 420ml milk
• 2 eggs
• 60g sugar
• 60g butter
• 350g butter
• Makes about 30 croissants

Dissolve the yeast and the eggs in cold milk. Add 2/3 of the flour and mix. Add sugar, salt, 60g butter and the rest of the flour. Let it rest for 30 minutes. Knead the dough until it's elastic. Cover in plastic foil and let it rest for 10 minutes. Roll out the dough and make a large rectangle of 50 x 20 cm. Knead the rest of the butter with your hands until soft, and spread it over 2/3 of the width. Fold the 'dry' 1/3 to the middle, then fold the buttered 1/3 to the middle. Turn the 'packet' a quarter, roll out lightly, and form a new rectangle. Picture yourself 4 parts; fold both ends to the middle, then fold it like a book. Again turn it a quarter, roll out to a rectangle and fold it like you did the first time: 3 parts; fold one piece to the middle, then fold the other piece to the middle. Wrap the package in plastic foil and put it in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Roll out the dough to a rectangle of 2,5 mm thick. Cut bands of 20 cm. Make triangles with a base of 12 cm. Roll them up from base to top. Put the 'croissants' on a baking plate and let them rise for 60 minutes. Bake them in a preheated oven at 220°C, for about 10 - 15 minutes.

Strawberry Mozzarella Salad

I wanted something light for lunch. Something different. So I had this traditional Mozzarella dish, "Insalata Caprese", but with strawberries. Yumm.

Mozzarella-Strawberry-Basil Salad

• Mozzarella - the high quality stuff
• Several strawberries - I think I used 6
• Fresh basil
• Olive oil

It couldn't be more easy. You just slice the mozzarella and strawberries. Then you compose the salad: Alternate slices of mozzarella with sliced strawberry. Sprinkle pieces of fresh basil over the salad. Add freshly ground peper to taste, and finally drizzle on some good olive oil. Serve straigh away.