One of the most confusing things I found when I started eating and baking gluten free was which item I needed to buy as a flour vs starch when I was baking at home. It is confusing enough when you start out trying to bake GF and all of a sudden you went from white flour to having 20 different flours to combine! You then remember you need potato something and find there is both potato starch and potato flour sitting on the grocery store shelf. What to do!?
Depending on what baking ingredient you are talking about, this can either matter a ton or not at all. Helpful, right?! The two major players here are Tapioca and Potato, which are both available as starch and flour. The short story is that tapioca flour and starch is the same thing while potato flour and starch are different.
Why does it matter?
How each of these is processed determines what each item is. Especially in gluten free baking, where we are trying to replace the unique structure of gluten, we want to be specific about finding the correct item.
Potato “Flour” is made from the whole ground up potato. This means there is additional fiber and other components included. Whereas Potato “Starch” is just the isolated starch from the potato, and is just pure starch. If you used starch in place of flour in this case you would end up with a gummy product that was never quite done.
Tapioca starch and flour is the same thing, though. Some recipes rely heavily on tapioca starch – like these waffles – because it is used more like a flour. The words are used synonymously by manufacturers. Why is this? That is a great question I don’t have a great answer to! Without knowing everything involved, my guess would be there is not much else that can be gained by processing the root in a different manner and so we have what we have. The nice thing is that now some manufacturers are starting to help us out in this regard. Bob’s Redmill now has their packages clear labeled as saying “Tapioca Flour also known as Tapioca Starch”.
To sum up:
Potato Starch and Potato Flour are different things and bake very differently. Tapioca starch/flour is the same thing and is interchangeable. If you are shopping and get overwhelmed, remember to stop and take a deep breath. Google is your friend, and even just take a look at the packaging and what the product actually looks like. Starch and flour have a tendency to look different. Also, don’t be afraid to ask someone, they can probably help.
Remember getting stressed over the wrong ingredient will do far more damage long term than having a recipe turn out poorly. Enjoy life and enjoy learning to bake gluten free!
Want to eat bread now? Like homemade bread? Here’s your answer! I love bread a lot, if you haven’t noticed. Like, really really a lot. Probably too much. I certainly prefer a long ferment sourdough, but often times let’s be honest, that’s just not practical. Even a quick yeast roll can take too long sometimes with the kneading and rising. This has been true all throughout history. I can’t be the only one who lacks patience. Hence grocery store bread being such a hit! It’s not hard to make fresh bread, but it is time consuming and it doesn’t stay fresh very long without all the preservative. Enter: rustic quick breads! Quick breads of various kinds typically using baking soda to provide lift and have been cooked for generations to solve this exact issue. India has naan, American Indians have indian flat bread, Africa has several variations, and Ireland has these lovely delicious “farls”.
Quick Bread?
These provide a yummy bread product that requires much less skill than many yeast raised bread loaves can require. Soda breads also work way better when it comes to gluten free or einkorn because they thrive on lighter flours and actually do worse when there is lots of gluten to work with. We see this technique used in biscuits, in cornbread, and many other “farm” breads. Lots of options for anyone who wants to eat bread now.
I don’t have a specific gluten free recipe for this,so I will be working on one soon as I have one that will work great. This recipe is from Elliot Homestead. I halved everything below to make one pans worth which was perfect for our family of 4 (plus the baby) to have with dinner.
Einkorn Farls
Ingredients
1 ¾ Cups all-purpose Einkorn Flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda (don’t use the stuff that’s been in your fridge for 5 years please…)
¼ teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk
½ tablespoon apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
This will make enough for one 10 inch cast iron skillet. Assuming you won’t be interrupted 28 ½ times by your kids, go ahead and preheat your pan on low.
In a large bowl sift together all your dry ingredients. Sifting will help to lighten everything even more.
Make a well in the middle of your dry ingredients with your fingers.
Combine all the wet ingredients in a separate bowl and let sit a couple minutes. This lets the vinegar slightly sour the milk which we want. (you can also just pour them all in the well and not dirty another bowl and let it sit)
Use a spoon to combine the dough. It will be wet and soft and squishy.
Transfer the dough to a heavily floured surface and knead for two minutes, until smooth. Form it into a ball.
Using your fingers, squish the dough into a 10-12″ rough.
Cut the rounds into quarters and gently transfer them to the preheated cast iron skillets. Reduce the heat under the skillets to low, and then allow the farls to cook until slightly browned, about 4-5 minutes. Flip the farls over and continue to cook for another 10 minutes, until cooked through and gently browned.
That’s it!
Ok- go eat bread now! This is the quickest of quick breads – 15 min start to finish once you get used to making them! The texture is filling yet smooth and indulgent. Smother it in some good butter, dip it in the bone broth from your meal, or even break it and smear with jelly for dessert! Let us know if you make these and how they come out for you!
Whether you’re looking for breakfast or dessert: the humble galette is the answer! If you made me choose one dessert for the rest of my life, I would choose pie, hands down. There would be no hesitation in my mind what so ever! Granted my wife and I would have some issues at that point as she would probably choose cake, but that’s another story for another day. The nice thing about choosing pie is I really get 3 desserts at that point: traditional pie, tarts, and galettes! They are really just variations on the same concept, yummy flaky crust wrapped around delicious fillings.
I was looking for something easy, delicious, and straight forward to make as we were all a bit under the weather when I originally made this. I do loves pies, but they can be a bit time consuming and fussy. Galettes are the perfect answer for that. They are meant to be rustic looking and not perfect. They are easy to come together and can be as simple or as fancy as you like!
I made this galette with einkorn since our kiddos are now totally off of all nuts and rice. Here is a link for a grain and gluten free alternative if you are out of einkorn or cannot eat it. You can ultimately use any pie crust recipe for this. I used the crust recipe from Elliot Homestead as I needed a quick and easy recipe.
The filling is just a basic apple pie filling: Applies, spices, a touch of coconut sugar. You can easily get fancy with the ingredients or how you put it in. I didn’t want to spend the time carefully shingling in the apples so I just dumped them in. It would be prettier if you laid them out, though!
Next time you want a fun breakfast or dessert without too much fuss, give this a try!
8 Tablespoons Butter, cold and cut into small cubes
¼ Cup Ice Water
By Hand:
Combine all dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
Add butter, cut in with a pastry cutter until butter is pea sized. Don’t over combine.
Add in water a Tablespoon at a time until the dough is just combined and sticks together when pinched.
Gently press dough into a round, and wrap in plastic wrap or parchment paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Food Processor:
Combine all dry ingredients in the bowl of your food processor and pulse to combine
Add butter, pulse to combine until the butter is pea sized and everything is a sandy texture.
Add in water a table spoon at a time, pulsing after each addition, until the dough is just combined and sticks together when pinched.
Gently press dough into a round, and wrap in plastic wrap or parchment paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Filling:
4-5 Medium sized apples (a tarter apple is generally better, granny smith etc)
2 Tablespoons Coconut Sugar
½ teaspoon nutmeg (fresh grated is best)
2 teaspoons cinnamon
¼ teaspoon of ground clove
Optional: 3-4 Tablespoons butter
1 Egg White
1-2 Tablespoons coconut sugar
Preheat oven to 375.
Slice the apples 1/8 inch thick.
Toss the apples with all ingredients other than the butter, until well combined.
Place the round of dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper.
Roll out dough into a 12 inch circle. Carefully peel off the top layer of parchment paper.
Either carefully arrange or just dump on the apples into the center of the round of dough. Leave about a 3 inch space on all sides of the filling.
Carefully fold up the dough over the filling. If it breaks a little, that is ok, it is just adds to the rustic charm. Slide the parchment paper and dough onto a baking sheet.
With a fork, briefly whip the egg white. Brush it onto the dough. Sprinkle on the coconut sugar.
Optional: Dot on the additional butter on top of the filling.
Bake for approx. 50 minutes until set and golden brown.
It is best to allow the galette to cool before slicing and serving.
This is the size you want your butter.This is about what your dough should look like. You don’t want to totally combine the butter into the flour.Time to gently squish it into a round!My slices vary just a tad!You want all the slices well coated.
Parchment paper makes everything way easier and cleaner!
Gently fold up each section, it should look rustic!
I wanted to give y’all an update on our kids food allergies. One of the biggest reasons I want to do this is because of how it is going to effect the recipes that appear on here. As I mentioned, last time we knew for sure that one of our daughters had some nut allergies and was for sure allergic to rice and dairy. As I’ve been a fan of being more grain free anyway, I took that as a sign that we should just really focus on grain free recipes instead of gluten free.
Well… then the tummy trouble apocalypse came, for all 3 of our kids… My one daughter that we had tested most recently tested fine for almonds, just not some tree nuts. Well, apparently almonds might be on that list anyway. They do NOT do well with almond flour based products. So we are going to transition away from those as well.
There are of course many other options for grain free stuff, almond flour just works really well in my opinion. So in the future, you will see more einkorn based recipes as we know it works for our kiddos. I will be working on trying other recipes that look good and still are safe for our various kids food allergies.
An Inadvertent Review
Also, a minor review that was not supposed to be a review, Katie and I went to Romano’s Macaroni Grill for our anniversary. We wanted Italian food, and we wanted a higher quality than Olive Garden. Well, we ended up with a very mediocre experience, and very mediocre food for too much money.
They do have gluten free pasta, which is great. They do not have a gluten free or friendly actual menu, though. Not even just a sheet of paper someone threw together with the options. So the waiter had to remember what the options were. I did verify off of their allergen chart online after he walked away.
The food was fine, the actual pasta was fairly good, though poorly cooked as it was completely stuck together. For 2 entrees and salads plus tip, I was rather disappointed in what we got for $50.
Maybe you already go to Macaroni Grill and you love it and you can easily navigate the way they do GF items. If so, then great! If not, I wouldn’t bother. Olive Garden does a much better job of having the proper options laid out and it’s for less money. Maybe you even have a local restaurant that will do a better job for you!
As previously mentioned, I am a bit of a coffee snob. I love a really high quality cup of coffee, and I prefer to drink it black. One of the most important aspects of attaining a quality cup of coffee is the brew method. One of the best ways to do this, in my opinion, is with a french press. A french press is a bit limited in size, though. Sometimes you need a larger amount or you want it more automated. What I have for you today is a way to make your coffee pot better!
One of the downsides with coffee pots is that they rarely heat up the water to the correct temperature. The best temperature to brew coffee at is between 195 degrees and 205 degrees Fahrenheit. This helps to extract all of the things you want while minimizing the bitter bad flavors you don’t want. This water temperature is pretty easy to hit if you are boiling water on the stove and then adding it yourself. If we are using a machine, such as a coffee pot, that obviously makes things quite a bit more of a challenge.
Another aspect of properly brewing coffee is the amount of time the water sits on the coffee grounds. There are many fantastic brew methods that do not have the water sitting on the grounds. When we are dealing with a coffee pot that is brewing at a lower temperature than is ideal, if we can affect the amount of time the water stays on the grounds, that can improve our quality in the cup.
I originally learned about the most basic technique from my brother. Since then I have added a bit more to it.
How do I make my coffee pot better?
So we are going to be messing with temperature of brewing and the time the water spends on the grounds. For the first technique, you will want to reduce the total amount of water added to brew your pot by about 2 cups.
Here are the basics:
Heat water on the stove to 200ish degrees.
Take the carafe out from under the brew basket.
CAREFULLY pour your hot water over the grounds in the filter basket until about a half inch below the top of the filter.
Gently stir the grounds and hot water together.
Let sit about 1 minute.
Replace your carafe and turn on the coffee maker. Voila! Amazingly better coffee out of your coffee pot for not much work.
Concerned about pouring the hot water? Using a hot water kettle helps a lot! You can also use a modified technique.
Instead of heating water we are just going to increase the amount of time the water spends on the grounds.
Remove your carafe.
With the lid of your coffee pot open turn on your coffee pot so the water starts flowing. Stir the water into the grounds.
Continue stirring until the water is about an inch below the top of your filter.
Close the lid and put your carafe back in.
Enjoy!
I realize this is a bit unconventional, and you can certainly buy a high quality coffee pot to brew coffee shop quality. While I am a coffee geek and love my toys, spending $250-$300 is not what I want to do right now. This enables me to spend $12 for a Mr Coffee Maker from Walmart for my occasional use and still get a good cup of coffee.
Please do be careful as this involves almost boiling water. As mentioned, using a hot water kettle of some kind would certainly make this easier and safer.
Let us know in the comments if you like these kind of tips!
What we are talking about here is going to be the use of “white space”. How to put in blank space so that you can have the flexibility to react to whatever comes up. If you have every minute of every day scheduled, you have no room to adapt to what arises.
We all know the feeling of that moment. When you have a plan in place for the day, and something not only wrecks that plan, but punches it in the face. Maybe it’s a sick child, a phone call from your boss, or just allergy season coming on.
Many things can and will disrupt our schedule. You may say there is really nothing that can be done, people get sick, clients change their end goal, and weather will decide what it had planned was the entirely wrong decision. This is very true, there is much we truly have no control of in this life, but we can control how we react and do a few things to give us the flexibility to adapt as best possible when these things happen.
But Schedules Are Good!
Let’s say your normal Saturday looks like this: You get up at 6AM, 6-8 is filled with breakfast, and getting the family to the soccer field for games until 1pm. Finally you get home at 1:30. You don’t want to waste the afternoon, so you have dutifully scheduled in homestead projects from 2-6 pm because that chicken coop won’t build itself. Dinner is from 6-7, and tomorrow is church, so everyone needs baths, snacks, diaper bags, etc. Finally everyone is in bed and asleep by 8:30. You still need to shower and get everyone’s things together for the morning so that it’s not completely hectic trying to get out the door to church. It is now 9:30. Finally you get to go to bed with the hope that no one awakens in the middle of the night crying because they fell out of bed or want a drink of water.
Things To Do
It’s a really good thing to have your kids do organized sports and even more important to be there.
Homesteading is awesome; it helps make you more self-sufficient and provides food for your family, fantastic!
Projects have got to get done, that is part of the deal, and progress is good.
Scheduling is great! We get even less done without a schedule, and making goals and putting them on a schedule helps you move forward in life.
People appreciate when others bathe.
Planning ahead so you aren’t rushing around on the morning of an event, whether that’s a daily or weekly event like church or school or a once a year event like a conference, helps to keep you from going insane and keeps you from being late.
These are all great things, no one would argue with that. The problem is that there is no room for things to go wrong, or for you to stop and have fun, or in our verbiage, no white space.
Problems
What happens if you get a flat tire on the way home from the soccer games? Changing the tire takes 45 minutes. Now your whole schedule is off. You either do not get all the work done you wanted on the chicken coop, or you keep the time spent on each thing the same and everything gets pushed back 45 minutes. Not only that but you are extra tired from being on the side of the freeway in the August heat, and stressed from the 18 wheelers flying by you, so you move slower and take longer. Now the kids don’t get in bed until 9:30 and you don’t get in bed until 10:30, further tiring out everyone for tomorrow and making Sunday a stressful day as well.
Maybe your 4 year old wants to play a game of candy land before bed. You can’t do it because that will push everyone’s bed times back too late and ruin tomorrow. It’s just one night you say, but you schedule every day this full and never take the time to play candy land.
Maybe it’s not that, but it’s that your spouse wants to go on a date, or friends want to get dinner, or your dad needs help, or your son wants to play catch, or you sprain your ankle. If you’re a family with food allergies, needing to have dinner can be a major scheduling problem on its own. The point is that life has lots to throw at us. Sometimes its fun opportunities, other times it’s unfortunate circumstances that come up. There will always be something to get in the way of your perfect day.
What’s the answer then?
The answer is to schedule in blank time to use for whatever you need to. Most people call it white space, but you can call it whatever you like. It will look different each day – maybe its one giant 1 hour block from 1pm-2pm. Maybe it’ a block of 15 minutes after each appointment to allow them to run a few minutes late. Maybe you factor in 45 minutes between your planned stop time on building that chicken coop and dinner. It’s good to play with the kids or finish up that door you’ve been fighting with for 2 hours!
You might be looking at this and thinking that you’ll get less done. I would argue you won’t, but even if you do, what you do get is peace of mind. It helps reduce your stress to have flexibility! You won’t have to worry about one wrench in the plans in the morning affecting the rest of the day. It means you get to pour into your kids and have fun! We need actually see them grow up, not just wake up when they are 16 and wonder where the time went and why they won’t talk to us. Sure you might have a super successful career and an awesome homestead, but I would argue that’s all wasted if your family is in shambles.
Enjoy Your New Found Flexibility
There will, of course, still be days where it is packed full. Work on being flexible with those days, too, strive to have them be few and far between, so that you can handle the stress well, and it not affect everything else. I would encourage you to take the time to factor in white space. It will only pay you back dividends in the future.
Having just talked about Einkorn the other day, I wanted to give y’all an easy recipe to enjoy. This is a long ferment, no knead bread. It’s a lazy man’s sourdough per say. Fermented foods are absolutely fantastic, and I think should be a part of our daily diet. I try my best to eat something fermented everyday, though oftentimes I forget… The advantage in a bread product (gluten free or otherwise) is that the fermentation process feeds on a good portion of the carbs reducing the carb load. It also makes it much easier to digest on our bodies. So if you are thinking about trying Einkorn but aren’t sure, this would be a great place to start.
I include some options to these steps because I think it makes the overall process easier, but you can just follow the basic steps. The fermentation time can vary on this. One week is ideal, 24 hours works, and 2-3 days is probably the sweet spot if you don’t want to wait forever but want better flavor,less carb load, and higher digestibility.
No Knead Bread
Ingredients:
6 1/2 Cups Flour (6 cups if using whole wheat)
3 Cups Warm Water
2 Packets or 1 1/2Tblsp Yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
Steps:
1. In a large container, a gallon or more in size, mix all ingredients
2. Cover loosely and let rise on the counter for 1-2 hours
3. Put in fridge for 24 hours to 1 week
4. When ready to bake: Wet or oil your hands and tear off roughly a quarter of the dough and gently shape into a loaf, smoothing the top. Place in pans or place on parchment or slide onto a pizza stone. Score the top of the loaves to release steam.
5. Let rise 40 minutes, after 30 minutes preheat the oven to 450. When preheated, bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and internal temp is 190-200.
6. I do recommend letting it cool at least a bit so you don’t burn yourself and so the texture will be better once cut.
Further Details
A long ferment bread like this recipe is also super nice as the holidays approach. It requires very little actual time involved. It makes a hearty loaf, so baking the day before and doing a gentle reheat of it on turkey day will be perfect, and not take up much of your valuable oven space the day of. This is what is called a no knead bread. So no kneading! You literally just mix all the ingredients, let it rise, and then bake it!
I’ve used multiple versions, but I think this is one of the best for most people. I’m a big fan of true sourdough, but that’s not easy for most people, so I shelved it for this recipe. The original recipe is from Gwen’s Nest, and she has lots of low carb recipes for those who are interested.
Most no knead bread recipes do make use of dutch ovens typically to bake in. Since you don’t knead the dough, it does not have much structure to hold a great shape. This kind of thing is not the end of the world though. If you start making it a ton, I would recommend you invest in a dutch oven to bake in, or you can also go the pizza stone route for a crispy bottom. You will just end up with a flatter bread, but it’s still a lovely “artisan” loaf. You can also use a loaf pan. Just go for it the first time and adjust the specifics as you do it more. It will be delicious no matter the shape!
This recipe enables you to enjoy the fantastic, fresh bread experience with very little effort, and it’s better for you! It’s also such a basic recipe you can easily make it with your kids. I had our girls help me make the dough, and it really added only about one extra minute to a 5 minute recipe.
So recipe time! You do need a large vessel, something like a gallon or 5 qt jar or crock is perfect. Get yourself out 6 1/2 cups of flour (we use Jovial Foods Einkorn Flour), 6 cups if you want whole wheat, 3 cups warm water, 2 packets or 1 1/2 T yeast, I prefer regular though instant works too, and 1 1/2t of salt, preferably something likes Redmond’s Sea Salt.
Then dump it together and mix! Too hot of water, and salt will both kill yeast, so you have to be careful on mixing. It’s also a pain to get the very bottom mixed properly if you dump it in at once. So I put my water and salt in the jar, and dissolved the salt, then I added half the flour, mixing it in after each cup, then the yeast, and then the rest of the flour, mixing as well after each cup. It came together beautifully, and didn’t give me a single issue.
Cover it loosely and let rise on the counter for an hour or two – it’s a long rise bread, so over fermentation isn’t a big deal, just keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t escape the jar.
At this point, put it in your fridge for your choice of time, the longer the better really! Even up to a couple weeks.
As I just made my batch today, I have no baking pictures… Sorry!
This does make a good amount of bread, so decide on your baking vessel of choice before getting further. 4 medium sized loaves in pans or on the stone? Sure! One big loaf in your 10 or 12 inch dutch oven? Sure!
Just a warning this dough is sticky, once again a result of not kneading, so you will want to wet, oil or flour your hands well.
If you are going to make loaves pull off about a quarter of the dough and gently shape it into a loaf shape, working to smooth the top. Place those in your parchment paper lined pans or on parchment paper on your counter to slide it onto your stone.
Let it rise for about 40 minutes, preheat your oven to 450 about 10 minutes before your rise is over.
It is wise to slash the top of your loaves with a razor blade or very sharp knife. This allows gasses to escape during baking and not crack the top of your loaf.
Bake for 25- 30 minutes until golden brown and delicious. As well look for an internal temperature of 190 or so degrees (yes i’m a food nerd).
I know, its done, so you must rip into it right away! It really is best if you wait. First off so you don’t burn the living daylights out of your mouth. Second, the longer you let the bread cool, the more the starches can set up, and not be gooey and smear.
So let it cool, at least a little, and then cut and enjoy, preferably with grass fed butter! If you’ve never tried Kerrygold, now is the time!
Pretty straight forward right? Like I said, mix it, rise it, bake it, I guess you can add eat it to the end. Let us know if you try this great no knead bread recipe!
As I mentioned in the review on the Real Bread Mix from California Country Organics, we were going to be trying their grain free cinnamon roll mix for my wife’s birthday. We did, and they are quite delicious! We even took them one step further and made them into orange rolls instead of just plain cinnamon rolls since this is a family tradition on her side for birthdays.
As with the other Real Bread mixes – is this a perfect substitute for a cinnamon roll? No, but its pretty darn good, and is one of the best grain free cinnamon roll I’ve ever had.
Much like the other mix, the taste is quite good. Due to the other flavors and sweetness from the cinnamon, orange, and sugar involved I could not taste any of the coconut flour.
The texture is a bit different than regular bread, as mentioned before, but is still quite enjoyable. I think it’s a bit more noticeable in these than in a loaf of bread, but wife says these are great.
She was quite happy with these for her birthday in spite of their small draw backs, and they satisfied our cravings for cinnamon rolls. Once again, I high recommend you check out the Real Bread mixes for yourself! We will definitely be buying more from them.
Real Bread Mix Cinnamon Rolls:
Ingredients:
1 Real Bread Cinnamon Roll Mix
1 cup of eggs whites
1 cup of water
2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
½ cup butter softened (I ended up using 1/3 cupish)
1/3 cup Cinnamon
1/3 Cup sweetener of choice (we used coconut sugar)
Optional: Zest of 1 orange if you want to do Orange Rolls
Instructions
Follow the instructions on the mix to make the dough
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Roll it out to a roughly 12×8 rectangle, ½ inch thick on a piece of parchment paper. You can sandwich the dough between each side of the paper to help keep your rolling pin clean.
Spread with softened butter
Sprinkle your cinnamon and sweetener evenly over the surface of your dough, leave about a half inch plain on one side of the 12 inch side of the dough. This allows a better seal when you roll it up and keeps filling from squishing out as much.
Optional: Spread your orange zest around at this point if using
Starting with the long side that has the filling all the way to the edge tightly roll the dough up. Focus on trying to keep the roll as tight as possible.
Cut your roll into 12-14 sections depending on your desired size of cinnamon roll.
Spray or butter your pan and place the cinnamon rolls in it, cut side down. The mix calls for a 9×13 pan, which I used but there was lots of space left. I think I would use an 8×8 next time.
Bake for approx. 30 minutes or until golden brown and delicious. They will rise in about the last 10 minutes of baking.
Let cool, ice with the glaze of your preference, and enjoy!
Notes and Tips:
This size results in a fairly “bready” cinnamon roll. If you prefer it thinner just roll it out into a larger rectangle. You might need to adjust your filling measurements at that point.
If you want to add additional flavor feel free to add more zest to the filling or into the dough. You can also use some orange oil (or even orange extract) if you have good quality essential oils on hand.
Orange Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
6 oz of cream cheese
¼ cup of butter
6 Tablespoons Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice
Zest of 1 orange
6-10 Drops Orange or Tangerine Essential Oil
3 Tablespoons Coconut Sugar
2 Tablespoons Maple Syrup
Cream your butter, cream cheese and coconut sugar together until smooth in either a stand mixer or with a hand mixer.
With your mixer on low, slowly add in your maple syrup and then the orange juice until fully combined.
Add your zest and citrus oil and combine.
Taste and adjust sweetener level, and citrus components to your taste.
Spread on either hot or cooled cinnamon rolls as your prefer. Or eat it with a spoon…
Notes:
This results in a fairly thin frosting, which is Katie’s preference. Somewhere between a glaze and a frosting. If you want it thicker, then reduce your liquid.
You can easily omit the citrus elements and make a more traditional cream cheese frosting.
I had no idea that my rhyming was so good, I’m sure my wife disagrees, though. Regardless, I mentioned way back in the beginning somewhere that there is one variety of wheat that I am able to eat. Einkorn is this wheat’s name. Just as a reminder for anyone, I do have a severe reaction to gluten. Whether you want to call it a sensitivity, an allergy, whatever, it’s bad, and I have to avoid it like the plague. Einkorn has been very successful for me, though!
First off, let me say I am not a doctor, and even if I was, I’m not your doctor, or naturopath, or nutritionist or anything. I’m just your friendly neighborhood baker. I highly recommend you talk about this with whoever your healthcare professional is. After that, I recommend ordered a very small amount to try, and go from there if you it works for you.
It took me 6 months to drum up the courage to try it. I very much did not want to be curled up in bed in extreme pain. I ate one small cookie and went from there. Praise God it did not affect me, and was safe for me to eat.
What is Einkorn?
Einkorn is a variety of wheat, therefore it also contains gluten. That is the last similarity between einkorn and modern wheat. Einkorn is considered to be the original wheat that was ever domesticated (somewhere between 5,000-10,000 years ago). Since then we have hybridized various varieties of wheat to create all the varieties we have today.
Along with that hybridization came higher amounts of gluten and a different genetic structure to the gluten dna itself. This was both intentional and unintentional. As we have discussed, if you are wanting to create a great loaf of bread, gluten is wonderful and helps create that beautiful structure. Wheat farmers selected varieties over the years to increase that gluten and make it stronger so bakers can create those particular loaves of bread.
But this same hybridization has ended up helping create the problems that many of us are familiar with. While Einkorn certainly has its drawbacks due to its lower yield, weaker gluten, and increased difficulty in harvest, the weaker gluten that it contains also makes it edible for a large portion of the population! Your body may very well be able to process einkorn flour just fine even if you have a severe reaction to “regular” wheat.
Einkorn only has 2 sets of chromosomes as opposed to modern wheat which can be up in the 40s. Emmer, Kamut and Spelt are all in-between. Einkorn also does have quite a bit higher level of nutrients and protein compared to modern wheat. If you would like to learn more, here is a website all about einkorn.
Does all of this matter?
Does all of this matter for those of us who are gluten intolerant, though? Well, as I mentioned above, it all just depends. I think as a baseline rule, it does. It starts as a much healthier product to begin with compared to modern varieties. Almost all einkorn is produced organically so that can also aid in digestibility. As with all things, you need to try a little bit and see if your own body can handle it. We do know many gluten-free people who are able to eat einkorn, though! It functions basically the same as regular white flour, and it can be fermented into sourdough, so it is a wonderful thing to be able to add into your diet on occasion! Einkorn has made it much easier for our family to live with all our food allergies.
Let us know if you try einkorn and how it works out for you! Jovial Foods is where we purchase ours.
As in most households, birthdays are special times around here, and we have a two of them in October! The one thing that might be different for us is that instead of going out to eat, we typically make the preferred meal at home. This year my wife requested tiramisu for her birthday after seeing some yummy-looking but expensive and sugar/synthetics laden tiramisu cups at the store.
This is not technically TRUE tiramisu because it does not have lady fingers in it, and it’s the easy version. Is that a bad thing? Nope! It is super delicious and is not at all lacking for missing those elements. Check out below for links if you do want lady fingers, as they can be difficult to find at your average store. True tiramisu is also a custard based dessert, which means you need to incorporate eggs, but this dessert doesn’t miss a beat despite being made without any eggs. This is quite delicious as just a layered mousse with cocoa powder in between.
The basic recipe I found on Crazy For Crust. It is a fairly basic recipe, and I was able to directly sub the maple syrup across for powdered sugar which they used.
Easy Tiramisu
Ingredients:
1 Cup of Heavy Whipping Cream (Look for Kolona if you want an additive free version)
Note: I used some small stemless white wine glasses for this. You can use any container you want. Clear is great to show off the layers.
Steps:
Dissolve the instant coffee in the hot water and set aside to cool.
Optional: Put your lady fingers into soak in either more instant coffee or strong brewed coffee. Espresso is traditionally used.
Whip the heavy cream to a stiff peak. Set that in the fridge until needed.
Put the mascarpone, the maple syrup, the vanilla, and 1 Tablespoon of the coffee in a bowl. Whip that together until well combined and creamy and delicious. At this point, add more coffee or maple syrup as your taste prefers. We will be mixing it with the whipped cream, so make it a bit stronger than if you were eating it alone.
Fold in the whipped cream gently. You want to cut and fold here. See below for the technique.
Optional: If using lady fingers put a layer in the bottom of your glasses or serving dish.
Put in a layer of your marscarpone filling. A piping bag would make this SUPER easy, I didn’t because I didn’t want to clean it, lol. I used a spoon and carefully spread it around though it was far from perfect.
Dust in a little cocoa powder; cover the entire layer of filling if possible.
Continue layering in each layer until your desired fullness. I did about 3 inches of filling total and that gave us 4 servings. Obviously it would do more if using lady fingers.
Eat now or put in the fridge to chill
Here is the original recipe if you want to see it.
Notes and Tips:
If you do want to get lady fingers, I have a few resources for you. Full disclosure – I have tried none of these products or recipes. Please let me know how they are if you try them! Schar makes a gluten free one you can get here. If you want to make lady fingers here is a gluten free version and here is a grain free version depending on which path you want to go.
If you wanted to do a variation on this you could totally take our Original Brownie and treat it just like a lady finger and soak it in the coffee and layer it in with the mascarpone mixture. That would be so good… Our blondies would also be super delicious as well… I might have to try this soon…
Tiramisu is a classic Italian dessert that is for once actually Italian! Unlike spaghetti and ceasar salad, which both have rather dubious roots, Tiramisu can actually be traced back to Italy. It would appear to still be a more recent creation dating back to the 60’s. Some argue it goes back further than that, but who knows. Regardless, it is very tasty 🙂
Traditionally you take lady fingers, and soak them in cognac and espresso. They get layered with mascarpone custard and then typically finished with a dusting of cocoa on top.
The most readily available brand of mascarpone is BelGioioso. Most larger grocery stores carry it. Look in the specialty cheese section.
How to Cut and Fold
For anyone who has ever worked in whipped cream, whipped egg whites, or any other air filled ingredient, you know how hard it can be. You want to incorporate it fully, but you don’t want to lose all that air you worked so hard to create. Here is where the cut and fold technique comes in.
Steps:
Add in the whipped cream or egg whites to the rest of your ingredients
With the bowl in front of you, place your spatula in at the far side of the bowl. “Cut” down towards yourself.
“Fold” with the spatula around the outside of the bowl back to the top gently incorporating some of the whipped cream.
Turn the bowl a ¼ turn and repeat until everything is 95% incorporated. I say 95% because you may never feel likes it totally done and that’s ok.
