More Holiday Baking

Before I get to the baking I must tell you something else.  I went to our little grocery store here in Hesston yesterday, the Hesston Food Market, and they have gluten free Bisquick!  I was so excited!  I bought some in Lawrence at Hy Vee and you can hardly tell the difference between GF and regular waffle mix. I had my sister buy four boxes to bring home this weekend.  Now I don't have to have her get them.  I can get them myself.  Way to go HFM!  I also tried their gluten free pizza crusts last week and they aren't too bad.  They don't beat Pizza Hut or Papa John's but they work.

Now to the really important stuff.  This weekend is our Diener family Christmas.  For those of you not privileged enough to be a Diener, I will tell you it's basically a food fest.  First we eat lunch.  Then we open presents.  Then for some reason we break out about a million different snacks and pig out on those.  Then we eat supper.  My stomach hurts just thinking about that.  My Aunt Sharon always makes caramel from scratch and it's wonderful.  I'm in charge of the mint chocolate brownies.  My mom usually does puppy chow and cinnamon popcorn...you get the picture.  Snack time has changed in recent years because of the gluten free issue, but it's still a smorgasbord.

One of my other favorite things to make beside mint chocolate brownies (more on those later) is poppy seed bread.  I needed some for this weekend and it's snack day at work tomorrow so I'm taking the second loaf there.  Sorry to spoil that surprise for my co-workers.  I used my flour mixture from the previous baking post in place of the regular flour and it worked wonderfully.  My loaves are slightly shorter than normal but taste AMAZING!  You'll notice in my picture that one loaf is a wee bit shorter than the other.  That's where I cut off my sample piece.  The ends are soooo good!  I'm having a hard time not eating it all!  Below is a picture and the recipe if you want to try it.

Poppy seed Bread
2 cups flour or gluten free flour mixture
1 tsp. butter flavor
3/4 cup oil
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup milk
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. poppy seeds
2 eggs
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. almond flavor

Mix ingredients.  Pour into two greased loaf pans.  Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.  While hot and still in pan, drizzle with glaze.  Remove from pans after 10-15 minutes of cooling (loaves will fall out easily).

Glaze
1 Tbsp. orange juice
1 Tbsp. water
1/4 tsp. each vanilla, butter, almond flavor
6 Tbsp. powdered sugar

Back to the mint chocolate brownies.  The pan on the left is Betty Crocker gluten free brownie mix, also from Hesston Food Market.  The one on the right is a glutenous brownie.  Tomorrow night I'm going to make a green mint layer and then chill them.  When that's set, I add a chocolate layer on top and chill again.  YUMMY!