Christmas == Date Cake

Thanks Bro for the recipe.
It has been modified.

Date Cake - gluten free, dairy free, eggless, soy free, corn free, nut free 

200 g margarine
1 brick of dates (250 g)
3 dl water
1,5 dl sugar
1 dl applesauce
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
0,5 tsp salt
2 dl rice flour
1 dl potato starch
0,5 dl tapioca starch 

Boil the dates with water until soft, then blitz in the blender or with an immersion blender. Add the margarine (I used 75g margarine and the rest was coconut oil, because I ran out of the former. It was tasty!) to let it melt while the date sauce cools down. Mix the applesauce with the baking powder, this is your replacement for egg, it will be nice and fluffy. Mix dry ingredients together. Mix everything together.
Pour in a pan and bake at 175C for about 50 minutes. 

Naan bread

In my previous post I claimed that the pita bread dough could be used to make naan bread. I lied. This one is much better. It has the slight sour taste that real naan has, and is nice and soft, too. The most important step is the cooking process - a dry cast iron pan is essential for getting the nice, charred bubbles.

Naan bread fresh from the pan

Naan bread - gluten free, soy free, eggless, corn free etc

250 g water
30 g coconut milk
1 tsp vinegar
2 tsp yeast
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp psyllium husk

100 g starch (eg. half potato and half tapioca)
100 g white rice flour
100 g brown rice flour

Flattening the dough 

Mix together the coconut milk, water and vinegar. Let sour for a moment. Add the rest of the ingredients, then let rise for about an hour. Separate into 5-6 parts. Flatten into a nice shape and then cook on a hot and dry cast iron pan until it bubbles slightly, then flip. Brush with your equivalent of butter for a more authentic taste. 

First taste by the hubby, he approved

Pillowy Perfect Pita Bread

This is a recipe that works great. It tastes great with salty stuff and sweet, and is great also as a substitute naan bread for dipping in curry sauce!

Pita pocket featuring mince, veggies and wilmersbuger "cheese"

Pita bread - gluten free, eggless, dairy free, corn free, soy free 

500 g water
1 tbsp instant yeast
10 g syrup/honey
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp psyllium husk 

180 g white rice flour
150 g brown rice flour
100 g potato starch
80 g tapioca starch
1 tsp salt

(2-3 tsp xanthan gum) 

Happily baking in the oven

Mix wet together, let stand for a while. Mix dry together. Mix everything together, let rise in a warm place for about an hour. Pre-heat oven to 225 C. Divide dough into ten pieces. Flatten into a disk, not too thin, and place on baking sheet. Bake for 5-7 minutes, until puffed up. Then flip them over and bake for another 3 minutes.

Chipmunk filling her pita bread with daddy's help

Cut them in half and fill them up with whatever you like. The pocket will be there already, so no need to fiddle with knives. We've had these with falafels, taco spiced mince, raspberry jam, you name it!

Turkey & veggie burgers

Just for a change, decided to make turkey burgers out of minced turkey instead of whole meat. Also, this way I can use less meat, because there's a lot of green that can be added to the patties themselves.  I made buns with the mad-scientist-method (throw a bunch of stuff together, hope it holds together in the oven and is edible). Unfortunately, I forgot to write down exactly what I put in the buns, but they were really good!

Mad scientist buns: 

500 g water
300-350 g random flour (coarse rice, brown rice, toasted quinoa, random starch in mystery bag, something or other)
2 tbsp psyllium husk
2 tsp instant yeast 

Mix, let rise for about 40 minutes, scoop onto pan, bake for 30 minutes at 225 C. 

Turkey and zucchini patty recipe:

400 g minced turkey
1 big or 2 small zucchini finely grated
3 tbsp potato starch
100 g mushrooms
1 small shallot onion

Dice onions and slice mushrooms, and cook for a while. Season with salt, and herbs of choice. Grate zucchini. Add everything to the minced turkey and mash together, preferably with hands. Cook on cast iron pan. 

Assemble the burgers! Serve with sweet potato chips! Eat!

Mocha Bites - mokkapalat

In Finland, these are probably the second most common thing to find on a coffee table, besides pulla. Little cake squares, covered in a chocolatey frosting flavoured with a splash of coffee. All bake sales in the history of bake sales in Finland probably feature this cake. 

Mmm, tasty.

It's good.

There are about a zillion recipes, most featuring stuff Chipmunk cannot eat: wheat, eggs, cocoa, dairy and often also nuts. My recipe is gluten free, eggless, dairy free and has no cocoa. Hooray!

Without further ado:

Mocha Bites - gluten free, eggless, dairy free, cocoa free, nightshade free, soy free 

dry ingredients:
65 g rice flour
55 g tapioca starch
40 g corn flour
50 g sweet(/glutinous/sticky) rice flour
130 g brown rice flour
-------- 

or 340 g gluten free flour of choice 

-------
1 tsp psyllium husk
0.5 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp salt
2 tsp soda
6 tbsp carob
2 tsp vanilla sugar
250 g sugar 

wet ingredients:
100 g applesauce
200 g coconut milk/cream
200 g water
150 g melted margarine
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar 

Mix dry together. Mix wet together. Mix all together. Pour onto a parchment lined baking tray and bake at 200 C for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  

Let it cool down, then make frosting and frost. 

Frosting:
150 g margarine
2 tbsp espresso ---- or 1 tsp instant coffee and 2 tbsp water
splash of coconut milk
enough powdered sugar to get the right consistency (about 300-400 g)
Melt margarine in a pan, mix in all the other stuff and stir until smooth. Then pour onto the cooled cake before the frosting has time to set. Sprinkle something on top, to decorate. 

Makes a good snack, too.

Coconut-date-seed balls aka DIY 9-bar

I felt like something sweet, but I didn't feel like baking...
Have also been eating way too much sugar lately, so I wanted something slightly healthier than the equivalent of eating sugar with a spoon.

Energy blobs - nut free, gluten free, cocoa free, refined sugar free  

300 g pitted dates
200 g shredded coconut
200 g seeds
2 tbsp melted coconut oil

I used a mixture of sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds and chia seeds, with an estiamted ratio of 3:2:3:1. Process in food processor with metal blade until a sticky blob. Roll into balls or bars, freeze for a little bit (or refrigerate for slightly longer) and then eat. Best cold, in my opinion. 

Korvapuusti, pulla, vanilla buns redux

The quick and dirty pulla is nice and all, but it's just not the same as a good ol' cinnamon roll. Unfortunately, chipmunk can't have cinnamon, so these are just regular vanilla buns. Taste good, though! I'm really happy with this dough, it came out soft, buttery and not too sweet. Easy to roll out, too.

Here's the recipe:

Vanilla buns - gluten free, egg free, soy free, corn free, nut free, dairy free 

5 dl liquid (coconut milk with water works great)
2 tbsp psyllium husk powder
1 tbsp yeast
1,5 dl sugar
7 dl all purpose gluten free flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cardamom
100 g margarine melted

Mix liquid with psyllium husk powder and yeast. Allow to stand for 5-15 minutes until the psyllium gels. Mix in the rest of the ingredients and let the dough rest for 10 minutes. Roll out dough with flour, spread with margarine mixed with vanilla and some sugar. Roll it up, cut into triangles, pinch the top down and let rise for about 30 minutes. 

Brush risen buns with cold coffee, sprinkle with sugar pearls and then bake at 225C for 15-20 minutes, until golden. Cool, then eat. Or eat them warm. They're good either way.

Pie!

Everyone likes pie, am I right?

Here's a pie recipe. The crust works great with both salty and sweet. This is for a double-crusted pie.

Pie crust - savory and sweet - gluten free, soy free, nut free, egg free, dairy free

75 g brown rice flour
75 g corn flour
60 g tapioca starch
60 g white rice flour
1,5 tsp xanthan gum
0,75 tsp salt
200 g margarine
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
4-5 tbsp water

I tend to make this in the food processor. Pulse dry ingredients to mix. Add margarine, pulse a few times to get it grainy - don't overmix! It shouldn't be smooth! Add vinegar and enough water for it to sort of hold together. The amount of water is very small. It should hold together when you squeeze it into a ball, but not be sticky. 

Finished dough in food processor

Leave in the fridge to rest for about half an hour or longer.

Roll out with liberal use of flour, transfer to pie dish with rolling pin. Fill. Bake!

Rolls out easily

This pie was made with minced meat, mushrooms and leek. In addition, there's some beef stock and buckwheat flour to thicken the filling. It came out extremely tasty, especially the next day when reheating.

Before putting on the top layer

Miracle Bread - aka the forgotten bread

Sandwich bread! Hooray! It's gone through a series of unfortunate events, but it was very tasty. Here's the scoop...

Misfortune n.1: I was making this bread according to a recipe, but ran out of most of the ingredients. Luckily, improvisation worked well this time 'round. The only thing in common with the original recipe is the amount of water and yeast.

Misfortune n.2: Falling asleep when dough is rising in the oven is not always the best idea. Ended up scooping about 1/3 of the overly risen dough out from the bottom of the oven and from the side of the pan, and the grid.

Misfortune n.3: Forgot to set a timer and forgot to check what time it was put in the oven, so I have no idea how long it was in there!

All in all, it's a miracle it came out edible.

Sandwich bread - gluten free, eggless, soy free, corn free 

550 g water
90 g buckwheat flour
175 g rice flour
60 g tapioca starch
70 g coarse rice flour
40 g buckwheat flakes
20 g brown rice syrup
2 tsp dry yeast
3/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp psyllium husk 

Mix all ingredients together, let dough rest for a bit. Add more flour if too liquid - will remain rather porridge-y and gloopy. Let rise in oven for a few hours (or slightly less), preferably without it spreading all over the bottom of said oven due to being forgotten.

Bake at 200 C for about 45 minutes, or until it's golden on top and cooked through.

Kitchen helper

Quick and Dirty Pulla and further restrictions

Pulla is a finnish traditional sweet bread. Kind of like brioche, but less fatty.

Pulla made in cake tin

 It's tasty, but commonly made with wheat, eggs, milk, butter and sometimes also raisins and/or almonds. All of which are Not Good for little Chipmunk. Took many trials and failures to get this recipe sort of right. When I finally completed a good one, using soy, it turns out we have to drop soy from Chipmunk's diet yet again. Luckily, the recipe works fine without, so here is the updated formula.

Chipmunk approved.

My pulla is made in a cake tin, partially because I'm lazy, and partially because the dough is so sticky that it's difficult to work with otherwise. If I make it drier, the end products don't retain the soft, pillowy goodness that pulla is supposed to have. Hence, quick and dirty pulla!

This is usually all that's left a few hours later

100 g melted margarine
200 g non-dairy milk of choice (I use home-made coconut milk)
50 g sugar
280 g all-purpose GF flour (my blend is in this post)
2 tsp dry yeast
1-2 tsp ground cardamom
0.5 tsp salt
(1 tsp baking powder if impatient) 

Mix all together, spoon into pan, let rise for about half an hour (or add the baking powder to dough and bake immediately). Bake at 200C for about 20-25 minutes, depending on how thin you spread it. Cool somewhat and enjoy!

Mmm, tasty

The restrictions part of this post come from our recent visit to the doctor.

Fatty Focaccia - aka the great goat cheese test

This week we are experimenting with goat cheese. So far, so good. Let's see if tonight will be full of reflux, pain and misery, or if this ingredient can be declared a success.

The Husband got pizza today. Pizza with buffalo mozzarella and good tomato sauce. It smelled divine. Didn't feel like a pale imitation of a good pizza today, so I went on a slight tangent: focaccia with goat cheese and sundried tomatoes. 

Here's my recipe:

Focaccia - gluten free, eggless, dairy free etc

250 g water
125 g soy milk
50 g extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp agave syrup
1 tsp rice vinegar 

2,5 tsp dry yeast
130 g white rice flour
75 g brown rice flour
85 g tapioca flour
4 tsp psyllium husk powder

Mix all ingredients together until smooth (gotta love gluten free baking, no kneading or other annoying steps!). Let rest in mixing bowl for about 15 minutes before pouring into a cake/pie tin. Let rise until doubled. 

Splash with some oil, poke holes in it gently to make characteristic dimples. Top with topping of choice. Mine was half a log of goat cheese and a handful of sundried tomatoes, sprinkled with some herbs.  

Bake at 225 C for 20-25 minutes, until golden on top. 

Bread for a Friend

Will be having lunch with some friends tomorrow. Not entirely unsurprising, but some of them have food allergies, so I wanted to make a bread that fits all of our requirements. That meant coming up with a bread that has no eggs, dairy, wheat, rye, oats, barley, rice, buckwheat, nuts and soy. In my cupboard I had a packet of half-used quinoa flour, which just had such a strong taste, it felt like stinging in my mouth when baked. After some googling, I found out how to fix that - toasting!

I toasted my leftover flour in a cast-iron pan on medium heat on the stove until it stopped smelling weird and turned a lovely deep golden colour. Then I searched my pantry for suitable flour and thus, the quinoa-chickpea-chia seed bread was born. I don't quite care for the gummy feel that psyllium husk seeds give breads, so I threw in the rest of our baked sweet potato. It worked.

Heavy Bread  

100 g toasted quinoa flour
100 g chickpea flour
80 g chia seed flour
150 g potato starch
150 g sweet potato purée
1 tbsp yeast
1 tsp salt
50 g oil
375 g water 

Mix all together, put in 1,5 litre baking pan. Allow to rise until doubled (about 40-60 minutes) and then bake at 200 C for approximately 40-50 minutes, or until ready.
Let cool, eat! Also good when warm, not gummy at all (hooray). 

Bagels Dozen.

I blame the pregnancy hormones for this one.

Before going gluten-free and a bit of everything free, I made bagels quite often. It's impossible to find good bagels in this country unless you make them yourself. So, time to renew that tradition, bagels rock.

Here's my recipe for it.

Bagels - gluten free, eggless 

125 g potato starch
70 g buckwheat flour
50 g cornflour
100 g coarse rice flour
50 g brown rice flour
10 g potato fiber (optional)
10 g psyllium husk powder (1 tbsp)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder

0.5 tsp baking soda
1.5-2 cups water
1 tbsp dry yeast
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp apple cider vinegar

Mix wet together with yeast, let stand for a few minutes while mixing the dry ingredients together. Add dry to wet, knead until smooth. It will make a stiff, yet manageable dough, shouldn't be too sticky to handle, nor should it be too dry and crumbly.  Immediately form into 8-12 bagels, depending on how small you want them to be. Allow to rise for 45 minutes.

Hot bath!

Bring to boil a litre of water with 1 tbsp brown sugar and 1 tsp of baking soda. Boil bagels for 30 seconds on each side, then coat with whatever floats your boat immediately after taking out of the bath.

Bake at 200 C for about 20-25 minutes, until golden brown on top.

Cool down and fill!

Chipmunk had hers with marinated eggplant, buffalo mozzarella, soy cream cheese and sundried tomatoes. Nb, mozzarella got eaten before anything else.

Om nom nom.
I strained some yogurt overnight to make dairy free philadelphia style cream cheese, added some spices too. Was very good!

How to Test Allergens in a Fun Way

It's a while since we've tested grapes. I thought, the more processed, the better. So, we're testing with wine! Now, before you all go call child protection services, hear me out. This is a very typical recipe from Italy, the alcohol burns out while cooking, so no biggie.

Aren't they pretty?

Cookies are a pretty nifty way to test for food allergens. It gets cooked, so any reaction is somewhat lessened compared to sampling a raw product. Also, the amount of potential allergen per cookie is rather small. So, if you manage to limit the amount of cookies consumed (ha ha) it should be a rather safe way to test.

At least, the theory is, that it gets cooked before sampling... Chipmunk disagrees with this point. 

The dough for these cookies is a pretty purple colour, and the consistency is firm enough for a toddler to handle without too much difficulty. It rolls out wonderfully, could probably make brilliant cut form cookies as well. I elected to make the traditional donut shape for two reasons. Firstly, it's easier for Chipmunk to do. Secondly, it's a lot faster to roll out little donuts than cut out cookies.

Without further ado, here's the recipe to traditional Italian wine cookies!

Ciambelline al vino (rosso) 

2/3 cup wine
2/3 cup neutral tasting oil, e.g. sunflower
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
AP GF flour* approximately 3-4 cups 

Note: I will update this to weight measurements eventually! 

Mix the wine, sugar, baking powder and oil together. Add enough all purpose flour until it forms a ball, but isn't too sticky to handle. Better too sticky than too dry.  

Roll out as you wish, decorate with granulated sugar and bake in the oven at 180C for about 15-30 minutes depending on the size of your cookies. They should get a pretty golden colour on top, the sides will probably stay pinkish. 

* All Purpose Gluten Free flour blend. I use this blend for most of my baking when I'm too lazy to mix and match a custom blend. It's neutral in taste and goes great as a substitute 1:1 for regular wheat flour.

650 g rice flour (mostly brown, with some white)
250 potato starch
100 g tapioca starch
1 tbsp xanthan gum

Blasphemous Fresh Pasta for the Eggless and Glutinously Challenged

It works. Hooray! 

Uncooked, dried tagliatelle 

I have successfully made lasagna and tagliatelle from this pasta. It doesn't get gooey, it doesn't smell bad, it has a decent flavour, doesn't feel mushy. It stays firm and separated, if cooked like eggy wheat (aka poisonous) fresh pasta. Even my Italian husband agreed that it's good enough to forego the buying of store-made lasagna sheets. A resounding success, I would say.

Fresh pasta - gluten free and eggless 

1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup tapioca starch
1 tsp psyllium husk powder
pinch of salt
pinch of grated nutmeg
water 

Mix dry ingredients, add enough water until it resembles play-dough. It should form a ball without being sticky or crumbly. You can let it rest for about 15 minutes, or start rolling it out right away. Some rice flour may be necessary for the rolling process. 

If you aren't using the pasta right away, I suggest you coat it with some flour, then wiggle off the excess. This way it won't stick to itself while it dries. 

It's great in lasagna too!  

Discontent is the first necessity of progress.

Food is good when food is good.

Unfortunately, food can hurt. My poor little baby (2 years now) has multiple food allergies, which make life a bit of a living hell on earth some days. Other days, it's not so bad. One has to have a lot of motivation to not regress to the terrible twos when the only items allowed on the menu for two weeks are turkey, quinoa, zucchini, coconut oil and sweet potato.

This is two weeks after I realised that Chipmunk here isn't just crying all the time because babies cry, and I cut out dairy, eggs, soy and got a happy baby. For a few days. Unfortunately, that wasn't quite enough.  Had to further eliminate wheat, barley, rye, oats, kamut, spelt, millet, black tea, sage, tree nuts, peanuts, legumes, potato, eggplant, paprikas, chill, cocoa (sniff), carrot, celery, green beans, endives, avocado, banana, citrus fruits, plums, melons, grapes, blueberries (wtf), pear, rose hip, pineapple, potassium sorbate... and a few more that I've since forgotten. Nobody likes having a baby that cries all day because it's stomach is hurting, regurgitating with nasty acid reflux, and having pus leaking out of it's severe eczema. Diet keeps symptoms in check, so it's all good. 

Be advised, my elimination diet was carried out in collaboration with a doctor.

Chipmunk is now two, happily munching on more than just allergen-free-boobmilk. We've re-introduced soy and a few other things, but we've still got about 40-50 items on our NO-list. We can even bake together now! Yay! 

Edit (December '14): The NO-list is now back up to 62 items and rising after our spectacular failure with testing egg, which resulted in a complete loss of any equilibrium we used to have in her diet. Slowly but surely, we're figuring things out again. It's much easier now that we know what symptoms to look for before it gets too bad, and because she's now old enough to tell us when she's getting reflux or a stomach ache or is itching in her mouth.

The hubs takes rubbish pics.

So, because I'm incapable of keeping things short, the point was that I'm trying to save some good recipes that I've found or tweaked so they're good for our weirdo diet.