Birthday treats: almond angel food cupcake with salted caramel ice cream.

Changes from the recipes:

- used an equal amount of multigrain mix a la glutenfreegirl instead of the mix she asks for

- still used xanthan

- for the ice cream, I used pure coconut cream(with no preservatives) that I found at the Asian store. this was convenient, but made the ice cream taste very, very coconutty since it has coconut bits in it as well. Which isn’t bad, it tastes like latik, but it wasn’t what I was going for. 

What I would change next time:

- use waaay less sugar for the ice cream. Maybe half of it, and not add the extra caramel. 

- use only coconut milk for both milk and cream. I did this for the mint choc chip ice cream and it came out fine! =D

PS - thanks to gelato queen(@eloquentpie) for pointing out I needed to freeze my previous ice creams more. hahaha. okay, i knew that but now i’ve learned to be patient! also, half filling your ice cream maker and making sure the base is thoroughly, thoroughly chilled, makes a huuuuge difference. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies redone. 

Those other ones came out weirdly dome shaped. These turned out MUCH better. I followed the same recipe, except subbing the same amount of ground chia seeds instead of xanthan gum. Someone commented that the previous cookies were ‘gummy’ and ‘stucky to your teeth- but in a good way!’. I didn’t think that was too complimentary, and thankfully, these are not gummy. They do have more of an oatmeal texture, but the overall crispy on the outside edges and chewier in the middle hold true to this cookie. 

Fresh mint chocolate chip + after eight coconut milk ice cream. say it with me: whoa.

Okay, that’s kind of a lie. It’s fresh mint + mint tea + some peppermint extract. But still, tasty! I didn’t have enough mint leaves(~2ounces), so I steeped two bags of mint tea for 5 minutes, and added one tsp of peppermint extract at the end. And, I replaced both milk and cream with coconut milk. Aaand used half the amount of sugar. Other than these alterations, I followed David Lebovitz’s recipe.

Yum. Tried out this recipe, with a few changes. Since I didn’t have honey or syrup, I made a simple strawberry preserve- a few teaspoons of sugar to a half cup of strawberries over low heat, keep stirring.

It froze beautifully in the ice cream maker, but I’m not sure how it will turn out in the freezer. I don’t have liquor which helps prevent it from freezing too hard. We shall see!  

Salted Caramel Dairy Free! Ice Cream, with Caramel and Chocolate Bits.

Sooo, I bought myself an early birthday present. Something I always wanted. An ice cream maker. It was available on Amazon UK.

I giddily brought it home yesterday and set to work on an ice cream base while the ice cream maker’s bowl was freezing for the requisite 24 hrs. I followed David Lebovitz recipe. BUT, subbed cream for coconut cream(scooped it from an unshaken full fat coconut milk can) and used the leftover coconut milk for the milk.

Verdict? Roomie says she can’t believe it’s dairy free. It tastes delicious and the cooling period in the fridge really brought out the salted caramel taste. It is a tad sweet, so I would probably try to make it with less sugar next time. 

More ice cream adventures to come!

Cooooookies. 

Sorry I’ve been a bit MIA(aside from Kyle, who reads this anyway?!), but I have plenty of recipes that are coming! And I’m starting off with a bang. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies. I used to make the gluten version of these cookies all the time. It was one of my go-to recipes if I wanted to impress people with my baking skillz. Aside from the wait time, they’re fairly simple to make. Understandably, I was super excited to see a gluten free version of the recipe.

There was a bit of a snag though. I didn’t have all the flours here in Spain*. But, I had a plan. When I went back to the States for Christmas, I bought allll the gluten free flour that I could fit into my bag and brought 15 pounds of baking material with me. Slightly insane, I know, but baked goods are worth it!

For my Operations Management class, one of the cases was for cookie making. The class prep note said, ‘Explore different recipes. Bring samples to class!’. Surprise, surprise I had a batch of these cookies in my fridge waiting to be baked. The even better surprise was that the cookies tasted AWESOME. Not a single person who tried them noticed any difference between these and regular cookies. 

Here’s the modified recipe based off one of my favorite gluten free blogs:

36-hour chocolate chip cookies, gluten-free
 adapted from David Leite’s chocolate chip cookie recipe

1 cup sorghum flour

1 cup tapioca starch

1 cup potato starch
1 cup millet flour(orig. recipe asked for amaranth but I didn’t have that)

1 tablespoon xanthan gum

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 1/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 large eggs, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

16 ounces chocolate chips(I used 8 oz of cut up dark chocolate, I like more cookie than chocolate, weird, I know)

sea salt

1. Measure each of the dry ingredients and sift together. I sift by measuring each of the flours, then mixing them with a whisk. Martha said its the same thing! 

2. In a separate bowl, mix the soft butter and sugars. The original recipe warns against overcreaming it, but since I was manually mixing them together, I don’t think I had that problem.  Add the eggs, 1 at a time, making sure each is fully incorporated before adding the next. Pour in the vanilla extract and mix briefly.

3. Add the dry ingredients into the batter, about 1/2 cup at a time, and then mixing. After mixing all the dry ingredients together, add the chocolate!

4. Most people scoop after the 36 hour period, but I find that its much easier to do with fresh dough. I scoop them to about the size of a golf ball, but if you have a scale, you can weigh them each at 3 1/2 ounces. 

5. Waiting time. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and put it in your refrigerator. Leave for 36-72 hours. The time allows the dry ingredients to absorb the wet ingredients and somehow, magically, results in a more caramelly, delicious cookie.

6. Take the dough out from the fridge and preheat the oven to 350°F/170C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a non-stick baking mat. Place cookies on baking sheet and sprinkle each cookie with sea salt or kosher salt. Bake the cookies about 15 minutes, or until the tops have turned golden brown. The middles should still be somewhat soft, however. Take the baking sheet out of the oven, and leave on the sheet for another 10 minutes. Cool, then eat!

7. Another option is to freeze the dough and bake cookies on demand. How amazing does that sound! If you follow this option, it will help to flatten out the dough slightly before freezing. I am too impatient to defrost the scoops before putting them in the oven, thus the cookies above which are a bit on the chubby side. Baking time will vary, but on average, it will take about 5 minutes longer than with refrigerated dough.

I usually end up with about 18 cookies, but it all depends on how big you make them.

*Note: Sorghum is Jowar flour and Millet is Bajari. I think they’re available at Indian specialty stores here, but I’m still trying to figure that part out.