I made a GF pizza crust from the Bob's Red Mill Pizza Mix. I divided it into tw - baked one & refrigerated the dough of the rest. I cooked the toppings & then loaded them on top of the sauce & topped with cheese & baked. It came out very good. Not too thick, crisp & tasty. It's a brown rice crust & I didn't notice the grittiness so prevalent with white rice flour.

We'll see how the other lump of dough turns out in s couple of days....

muffins again, reprise...

I tried one of the muffins yesterday (30 sec in the microwave) & found it to be still quite tasty and less dry than the last time. Not bad!

Re: Muffins...again

Well, I had 2 of my banana prune muffins for breakfast with yogurt & blueberries. They are a bit drier now than when they were first baked, and a little crumbly when I tried to butter them, but the taste is ok. Into the freezer with the last 6, and I'll report in a week or so.

Mufins... Again!

One of the most frustrating things I have run into in baking is that, while things may taste good, and have fairly decent texture when newly baked, one they are a couple of days old, or after storing in refrigerator or (especially ) freezer, the texture begins to deteriorate.

Muffins that have been frozen become soft, crumbly and even mushy. They don't continue to hold together well. Breads tend to do the same.

So, I bake a batch of a dozen muffins, and because I don't scarf them all down, or feed them to my spouse, the become pretty gross in fairly short order. And my purpose for making muffins is the have a ready supply so that I can warm a couple in the microwave for breakfast when I am in the mood to eat muffins for breakfast! That dozen muffins might be in the freezer for up to 3 or 4 months! I just don't eat that much sweet bread! Variety is much more to my liking- so I eat cereal, or eggs, or muffins & yogurt; oatmeal, pancakes... you get the picture. I cannot eat the same thing day after day for breakfast! It's boring!!!

So, today I made some muffins. Started with a mix: Namaste Biscuit, etc. mix. 2 c of that (what was left in the bag + 1/2 c sugar. Snipped up the last few prunes (3/4 c ?) into the dry stuff & mixed it all up. I had one old banana, to which I added 1 egg, 1/4 c oil and 1/4 c milk. I poured the liquid into the dry stuff, mixed and decided I needed a bit more liquid, so I put in about 1/8 c more milk. Filled 9 muffin cups (paper liners) and baked 20 minutes. lightly browned & tested done with a toothpick. Turned them out onto a rack to cool. They are firmer (dryer) than the usual GF muffins. I took some pics....




After they cooled, I cut one in half, buttered one side (picture taken) & took a bite. So I could have added more sugar, but they really are sweet enough. Vanilla or maybe cinnamon probably would have jazzed up the flavor, but they are not bad. A bit dryer than most GF baked goods, but actually more texturally like wheat based muffins. One of the things I dislike about many of the GF things is that they are SO moist that they are almost gummy. So we'll see how they are after an overnight.

G F Recipe Books

I scored some new cookbooks at the Borders in DeKalb at 25% off. Specifically 2 new ones by Roben Ryberg: "The Gluten Free Kitchen", and "You Won't Believe it's Gluten Free". Plus a Slow Cooker Book called "Make it Fast, Cook it Slow" by Stephanie O'Dea. I was looking for a Slow Cooker book as I just bought myself a new slow cooker with 3 crocks: 2, 4 & 6 quart. The bonus is: everything in the book is Gluten Free!!! I really lucked out on that one.

So now I have a good range of basic GF recipe books with a broad range of pretty simple recipes. Easy to make as is, and pretty easy to embellish or make changes to. The only one I'm not particularly crazy about is the first one I bought: "Gluten Free Everyday" by Robert M. Landolphi. And the only reason I'm not fond of it, is that to make the stuff in this book, I'd need a dozen different flours. All of the others seem to use the KISS principal, and use bsically white rice, brown rice & garbanzo bean flours with Tapioca, corn and/or potato starch. The flours tend to be pretty perishable, so having to keep several specialty ones on hand clutters up the refrigerator and tends to get expensive.

So, besides the ones listed here, and the Cookie book mentioned before, I have "Gluten-Free Baking Classics" by Annalise Roberts. This one uses 1 of 3 flour blends, all of which are based on Brown Rice Flour. The yeast bread blends include Millet and Sorghum flours, both of which add flavor and fiber.

So from this small library, I should be able to keep myself in Breads, cookies and meals without having to add any more books. All I need now is time and my own imagination.

G F Chocolate Crinkles

I was VERY disappointed with these. They looked SO good when baked, but there was virtually no chocolate taste to them. The texture was soft and crumbly. By the time they'd sat a day or so, they became softer yet, and fell apart when picked up. I ended up throwing away more than half the batch. Ugh!!!!!

The Borders in a nearby town is one that is closing, so I stopped in to see what I could get in Gluten Free cookbooks. One was The Gluten Free Bible - more about that another time... but what got my juices flowing is the Gluten free Cookie Book by Roben Ryberg!

So tonight I tried one of the recipes - Chocolate Crinkles. They are made with Garbanzo Bean flour & unsweetened cocoa. Easy!!!!

A while ago, I made Betty Crocker Gluten Free Brownies again, but this time I jazzed them up a bit. Whe I was younger, with young kids, I used to make mint brownies all the time. Easy! Make a brownie mix, add nuts & bake as usual. When they are cool, make (or buy) butter cream frosting, tint it pale green & add mint flavoring. Spread on the cooled brownies. Then - for a 13X9 pan, melt 2 squares of unsweetened chocolate with 2 T of butter or margerine and drizzle it over the top. Tilt the pan to make it flow so it covers most of the frosting. Keep in the fridge.

You know? It works just fine on Gluten Free brownies! I only used 1 square of chocolate, & 1 T of butter, but it came out perfect. A gluten free total YUM!