Finally Tried Some Recipes

I haven't posted in awhile but I haven't really felt there was anything to say recently.  I've been trying my hardest not to eat anything with wheat flour in it and have done pretty well at that.  I did eat one last Girl Scout Thin Mint before giving my stash away.  I forgot I'd have to give those up and that was a sad day!  If you know me, you know my weakness is mint chocolate anything.

I also cleaned out my pantry and either threw away or gave away almost everything made with wheat flour.  I kept a few things my husband can eat.  Then I cleaned out the freezer to make room for storing all my special flours.

I've been waiting for a weekend when I could try out some gluten-free recipes and this past weekend was it!  And I'm pretty excited about them.

First I tried gluten-free Oreos.  They are awesome!  I'd eat these even if I didn't have to.  I got the recipe from the blog Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef.  These are pretty simple.  I do have some pointers before I post the recipe and directions.  It says to put the dry mixture in a stand mixer before adding the egg and butter.  I thought I'd use my hand mixer to combine the dry and wet ingredients.  Big mistake!  First, I had a giant cocoa powder cloud everywhere!  I'm still cleaning cocoa powder dust off the counters!  Then it took forever for it to come together.  I finally got out my Kitchen Aid and it was done in like 30 seconds with a lot less dust.  So use the stand mixer!!!  We made the dough balls too big.  My Oreos are more like whoopie pie size.  So when it says a teaspoon of dough, stick to that.  I found that smashing the dough balls with a glass worked better than trying to do it by hand.  I just used a juice glass and sprayed the bottom with cooking spray after every few cookies and it worked like a charm.  The cookies are uniform looking and almost perfectly round.  My filling came out too thick to spread so I thinned it.  Milk would work best for this since the filling is made with butter.  If you do decide to thin it, remember just a drop or two at a time.  Once you go too thin, you can't go back!  So below is the recipe and also a picture.

For the cookies:

80 grams sweet rice flour
60 grams white rice flour
35 grams teff flour
2 grams (1/2 teaspoon) xanthan gum
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (we used Dagoba organic)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar (we used 1/2 cup organic cane sugar and 1/2 cup coconut palm sugar)
140 grams (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the creamy filling:
58 grams (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
4 tablespoons vegetable shortening
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preparing to bake. Preheat the oven to 375°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat.

Making the cookie dough. Put the sweet rice flour, white rice flour, and teff flour in the bowl of a stand mixer. Using a whisk, stir the flours together to combine and aerate them. Add the xanthan gum, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Turn the mixer on and let everything combine in motion. While the mixer is running on low speed, add large pieces of the butter until they are all incorporated. Add the egg and mix well. (At this point, you might think the dough will be too dry. Keep mixing. It will come together.)

Baking the cookies. Scoop a rounded teaspoon of batter and form a ball. Gently flatten the dough in the palm of your hand. After you have flattened, smooth the edges of the cookie dough disk to make it evenly rounded. Place the dough disks onto the prepared baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. (These will not spread, but you do not want them to touch each other.)

Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 5 minutes, then turn the baking sheet 180 degrees. Bake until the cookies are crisp on the edges with just a touch of softness in the center, about 5 more minutes. Take the cookies out of the oven. After a few moments, transfer the cookies to a cooling rack. Allow them to cool completely.

Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Making the creamy filling. Put the butter and vegetable shortening into the bowl of the stand mixer. (Clean the cookie dough out first!) Whip them up together, then add the sugar and vanilla extract. Beat the filling on high until it is fluffy frosting, about 5 minutes. (Be sure to turn off the stand mixer and scrape down the sides occasionally.)

Assembling the cookies. If you have a pastry bag with a 1/2-inch round tip, you can pipe tiny dots of filling onto a cookie. We couldn't find ours, so we used a teaspoon measure and our fingers to spread the blob of creamy filling toward the edges but not entirely there. Gently, press the second cookie down onto the filling and watch the filling reach the edges.

Continue until all the cookies are little chocolate sandwiches with a creamy filling. 

Makes 25 to 30 Oreos.

I also made peppernuts this weekend.  My husband calls these "tiny cookies" and can't understand all the hype about them.  My freshman year in college my mom sent a box of peppernuts to me and I was beyond excited!  I think I ate them all in 2 days.  My husband, then boyfriend, didn't get it.  He thought they were good but just a small cookie and why eat a bunch of small cookies when you can eat one big one?  But they are one of my favorite holiday treats.  They're the kind of thing you only make once a year because they are a lot of work so I always look forward to peppernut day.

There are way too many various recipes to count.  I personally prefer the orange slice peppernut.  But cutting up the orange slices takes me a whole week of work so I just went with the anise peppernuts this time.  I haven't found a good method for cutting up orange slices; they are too sticky.

I'd say the peppernuts came out pretty good.  I used my regular recipe but substituted the 4 cups of flour with a flour mixture recipe I got from my mom.  They are definitely more crunchy than when I use regular flour and they are flatter.  When I took them out of the oven they were pretty fluffy but as they cooled they flattened out.  I'm not sure what that's about but they taste just as good as the wheat flour version.  I'll post the recipe and flour mixture recipe below with a picture.

If you've never made peppernuts before, they freeze really well.

Flour Mixture Recipe:

1 cup brown rice flour

1 1/4 cups white rice flour

1/4 cup potato starch

2/3 cup tapioca starch or flour

3/4 cup sweet rice flour

1/3 cup cornstarch

2 tsp. xantham gum

Anise Peppernuts:

3/4 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup brown Karo syrup

1 egg

1 tsp. cloves

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. anise seed, ground

1 tsp. soda in 1 Tbsp. hot water

1/2 tsp. salt

4 cups flour or flour mixture

Cream shortening and sugar.  Beat in egg.  Add syrup and soda mixed in hot water.  Sift remaining dry ingredients and stir until dough is well mixed.  Chill overnight in covered container.  Roll into pencil sized ropes and cute the size of a dime.  Place on greased baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 7-8 minutes or until golden brown.

Happy Baking!