Christmas Baking- Gluten and Dairy Free!

My official taster (Austin) enjoyed many samples tonight, including a slice of the lemon bundt cake with lemon-orange glaze

Since I have been gluten free, baking has been a daunting task- baking had always been such an enjoyable part of my life, but not using flour has been a different story. I am still getting the hang of how to make things that actually taste good and bake correctly. After a few (ok, way more than a few) disasters, I have found a few ways to make gluten/dairy free baking more enjoyable and most importantly, tasty!

All the ingredients out before beginning- such promise :)

Tonight I made three treats: lemon bundt cake with lemon-orange glaze, almond cookies with chocolate, and gingerbread brownies with "hot" chocolate sour cream icing.

* Note * Since I did not make these recipes up, I will leave it to the reader to either buy the wonderful mix or the cookbook. I did however, include how I subsituted to make things dairy free, and of course added my own twists to the recipes- included here.

Lemon Bundt Cake (adapted from Sylvan Border Farm Cake Mix)

I made a lemon cake today from a mix but added candied lemon peel and dairy free sour cream to the mix- not only does it make it more personal, but it also really helps with the flavor and texture. This particular mix calls for orange juice, oil, and 4 eggs- so fun and easy! I added candied lemon peel and dairy free sour cream to give it my own twist. I love adding things like sour cream/cream cheese (df of course!) to mixes to help with texture and taste. The result was dense but moist, tangy and sweet. In fact, it got the best compliment I can hope for, "this does not taste gluten free!" Yay!

Actually, in general a trick I use if I am using a gf cake/brownie/cookie mix- I always add something special to the batter. If making chocolate brownies I may add a bag of mini dark chocolate chips- the melted chocolate in each bite improves what can be dry to a more moist texture- and can mask the somewhat abrasive flavor of some mixes that use garbanzo bean flour (I find it a bit off putting in a dessert). For me, experimenting is half the fun! Please send your suggestions for how you have improved upon gf mixes!

Almond Cookies with Chocolate (adapted from The Best Ever Wheat and Gluten Free Baking Book)

When I lived in France the biggest treat was a freshly baked almond croissant- a buttery, flaky croissant filled with almond paste and slivered almonds and topped with powdered sugar. It was incredible. While those days are gone, I relish using almond paste in my baking- sweet nutty flavor imparts great texture as well.

The recipe was fairly straight forward and already mostly dairy free.

These cookies called for butter so the only substitute I had to make was Nucoa.

My twist- instead of making only crescents I made other shapes as well, and I finished each cookie with melted chocolate and unsweetened coconut.

GF Gingerbread Brownies with "Hot" Chocolate Sour Cream Icing (gingerbread adapted from The Best Ever Wheat and Gluten Free Baking Book)

This gingerbread is more like a brownie- it uses teff, buckwheat and quinoa flours and is hearty and healthy- with all the Christmas-y flavor expected in gingerbread. I like to grind all my spices- ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves- as opposed to buying the ground spices from the store. I think there is a small but important flavor difference in fresh ground. I use a coffee grinder especially dedicated for spices (with a husband who is a coffee purist, it is a necessity!).
For flours- Bob's Redmill is the best! They have a huge selection of GF flours. Today I could not find quinoa so instead we bought the grain in bulk and ground it into flour (pictured below- the grain and the resulting flour).

This recipe called for one cup of buttermilk- to make it Austin friendly I substituted a half cup of Dairy Free (I love Tofutti) sour cream and a half cup of soy milk. We always substitute Nucoa for butter.

After they came out of the oven I frosted them with my very own "hot" chocolate-sour cream icing. The "hot" is actually some cayenne powder. It sounds weird, but it provides great contrast to the gingerbread. I melted two squares of semisweet chocolate, added about 1/3 cup of Dairy Free sour cream, and then mixed in powdered sugar until I liked the consistency (I like my frosting thick!). Then I added cayenne to taste.

It really brings out the chocolate flavor and adds a touch of heat to the sweet- hence "hot" chocolate :) . If you didn't know it was in there, you may not notice it! But the resulting explosion of flavors in this brownie is incredible!