Saving Money Gluten-Free

Guten-free products can be quite expensive. That's why I like to make as many items homemade as I can. But, GF flours ares still costly compared to regular flour.

I wanted to start making my own flour to save money - particularly brown rice flour (a staple of mine) and quinoa flour (I like the fact that quinoa is a complete protein). Investing in a grain mill was one option, but since I decided to buy a Vitamix (a high powered blender) to increase my families intake of fruits and vegetables, I decided to try their dry blade container instead for grinding grain. I have had success with my brown rice and quinoa flour. If you bake a lot, making your own flour definitely helps reduce costs. Research your options to make the best choice for you.

You may also find gluten-free flours cheaper at Asian markets in your area. A friend of mine found tapioca starch, potato starch and white rice flour considerable cheaper at a local Asian market.

Making your own mixes saves money, too. It's easy to do and makes baking more convenient when your time is limited. Simply mix your dry ingredients together well in a bowl and store in a sealed bag. You can put it in the refrigerator or freezer if you are not going to use it right away. I like to look at product labels to find out ingredients in my favorite purchased foods, guess their quantities and try to make the item from scratch. Challenging yet fun!

Perfect Time For Ice Cream

School is out and we have settled into summer. One thing my kids love is ice cream - a bit of a challenge without milk. Since we like the flavor of coconut milk, it works as a great alternative for cream for us. It's easy to make a simple chocolate or vanilla ice cream with coconut milk.

This recipe is a lighter version of ice cream with lots of strawberries in it. The coconut milk makes it creamy.

Dairy-Free Strawberry Ice Cream

1 1/2 lb. strawberries, frozen
1 - 14 oz. can of coconut milk
      (regular)
1/4 c. orange juice
1/2 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla

If you own a high powered blender, blend all ingredients per instructions on your machine, adding a little more liquid if needed. Mixture should hold its shape and be thick. Serve or freeze right away.

If your blender is not able to make soft serve consistency from frozen fruit, use fresh, or partially or fully thawed strawberries. You can then use an ice cream maker to freeze it or pour it into a container and put in the freezer, stirring every 1/2 to 1 hour until frozen. When using the pan method, blending the ice cream again when it's frozen but still a little soft will give it a smoother texture by breaking up the ice crystals. If the ice cream becomes too firm to blend, let it melt a little rather than add more liquid before blending it.

Notes:  If your ice cream is not as smooth as you would like, you can blend the fresh, or partially or fully thawed strawberries first and strain them to remove the seeds before adding the rest of the ingredients. This should not be necessary with a high powered blender.

More Cupcakes

A couple of weeks ago, I shared a lemon cupcake recipe. This week I want to share a recipe for cupcakes (should work for cake also) that works as a yellow/white cake mix would. And this recipe is very easy to make into a mix to have ready ahead of time. Just put all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk well. Store in a sealed bag or container. This recipe is an adaptation of two recipes from the same site I used a couple of weeks ago:  http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/. I used a combination of the vanilla cupcakes and orange creme cupcakes.

Vanilla Cupcakes

3/4 c. plus 2 T. brown rice flour
3/4 c. plus 2 T. tapioca flour
3/4 c. plus 2 T. sugar
1/2 t. sea salt
1 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1 t. xanthan gum

1/4 c. egg whites
     (room temperature)
1 c. coconut milk
     (or other non-dairy
     milk beverage)

2 T. canola oil
1/2 T. vanilla
1/2 t. lemon juice

Whisk dry ingredients in small bowl. Set aside.

Beat egg whites in large bowl until stiff peaks form. Mix the rest of the wet ingredients in slowly just until combined. Add dry ingredients and mix on low just until blended. Don't over mix.

Fill 14 - 16 greased muffin cups or muffin papers. Smooth tops with fingers. Bake at 350 degree F for 18 - 21 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. Cool on rack. Frost if desired. Store in refrigerator for 1 - 2 days or freeze.

Note:
I use a coconut milk beverage and since it's fairly thick, I have good luck with using 3/4 c. of the milk with 1/4 c. water. Don't add water to a thin milk.

The original recipes made 12 cupcakes. I like to make my cupcakes smaller. You may prefer to make them larger.

If you like chocolate, the following frosting pairs well with this recipe.


Fudge Frosting

1 c. dairy-free chocolate chips
2 T. shortening or dairy-free margarine
5 T. dairy-free milk
1 c.. powdered sugar

Put chips, shortening and milk in microwave safe bowl. Microwave at 50% power for 1 minute. Stir. If needed, continue to microwave at 30 second intervals stirring in between until chips are melted. Whisk in powdered sugar and cool. Refrigerate to decrease cooling time if desired, but remember frosting will be stiffer when cold. When mixture is cooled and thickened, beat until fluffy, adding more milk to reach desired consistency. Spread or pipe onto cupcakes with decorator bag.

Enjoy!

Homemade Taco Seasoning

Spice mixes can not only be costly, they can contain ingredients you don't want to consume such as diary, gluten, artificial ingredients or preservatives. When the store I used to get my taco seasoning from switched the seasoning to one with maltodextrin, I decided to try to make my own. How hard could it be, I thought. And it wasn't. The kids didn''t even seem to notice the difference. This recipe replaces one packet of taco seasoning. Alter to your own taste.

Homemade Taco Seasoning

1 T. chili powder
1/2 t. garlic powder
1/2 t. onion powder
1/8 t. crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 t. dried oregano
1/2 t. paprika
1 1/2 t. ground cumin
1 t. sea salt
1/4 t. black pepper
1/3 t. cornstarch

Combine all ingredients thoroughly.


Enjoy!

The Quest for Gluten-Free Cake

    In my attempt to make a GF light cake for celebrations, I've tried to make it from scratch and I've used cake mixes (hoping for a lighter cake). The mix for my daughter's birthday was still quite heavy. I took a break from making cake for a while. Then I needed to make a cake for Easter this year, since there are a bunch of April birthdays in my extended family and everyone would be together. So, I started making cake recipes again.

I leaned a few things. Using beaten egg whites seemed to help make the batter lighter. Over beating seemed to make the cake tougher. I decided to make a cake using cupcakes since smaller portions of GF dough seem to rise better. And in the end the Easter birthday (cupcake) cake was a success and I now have a couple of cupcake recipes I really like. I didn't try them as a cake yet, but that should work.

I found some great recipes at http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/. The following cupcake recipe was adapted from her gluten-free Orange Creme Cupcake recipe. It's a cross between angel food and sponge cake and is airy and light. The original recipe is also vegan.


Lemon Cupcakes

3/4 c. brown rice flour
3/4 c. potato starch
3/4 c. plus 2 T. sugar
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/8 t. salt
1 t. zanthan gum
1/4 c. egg whites, room temperature
2 T. canola oil
1/4 c. lemon juice
3/4 c. coconut milk
     (or other non-dairy milk beverage)
3/4 c. powdered sugar
1 T. lemon juice
additional water as needed
dash of stale turmeric
lemon zest

Whisk flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and zanthan gum in a small bowl. Set aside.

Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add oil, 1/4 c. juice and non-dairy milk and mix liquids together briefly at slow speed. Gently stir in dry ingredients and beat at medium speed just until blended.

Fill 16 muffin papers with dough and smooth tops with the back of a spoon or wet fingers. Bake at 350 degrees F for 17 - 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool cupcakes on rack.

Mix 1 T. lemon juice with powdered sugar and turmeric. Add drops of water until desired consistency. Spread on cupcakes. Remember a soft frosting will continue to spread after you put it on. Add zest on top, if desired.

Note: Stale turmeric should not change the flavor of your frosting. It is a natural way to color the frosting yellow. Food coloring can be used instead. The amount of egg does seem to matter for the texture, so I measure it. One medium to large egg white is about 2 T.

The light texture and glaze-like frosting goes great together and is a favorite here. A taste of spring!

Experimenting With Natural Food Colors

It was fun using various foods to color my Easter cookies naturally this year. I chose a macaroon cookie made with egg whites. The colors were overall successful, but I think the liquid did cause the cookies to flatten some (although there were some other factors).

I tried a variety of natural colors. I tried collecting juice from frozen berries that were thawed, but since I was using small amounts that didn't always work. I did use a strainer for some, but then you get some pulp and that may not work for some things. The best way is probably to use cheese cloth, if possible, to just get the juice.

Raspberry - I expected a light pink, but ended up with a purple. I used the juice from thawed berries.

Turmeric - Mine was old but still had a smell. It didn't seem to affect the cookies right away, but I thought I detected a difference after a few days. Turmeric made a very nice bright yellow.

Blueberry - This made a bluish purple.  I ended up using a strainer for this one. I did not try blueberries and blackberries together (supposed to make raspberry purple).

Carrots - Although shredded carrots seem to have the potential to stain my counter top orange, they did not produce enough juice to attempt to color my cookies. That idea will need more work since I do not have a juicer.

Blackberries - This was my favorite color which I would describe as a violet, or a soft purple.

Strawberries - I did get my pink after cutting out the white inside of the thawed berry and using the berry after straining.

It was fun and easy to experiment with natural colors from food.

Hot Cross Buns

I tried making gluten-free hot cross buns and they raised well but didn't quite have the texture I was hoping for. They were edible, but not quite worthy of posting for Easter this year.

If you are interested in making hot cross buns, try using your favorite yeast roll recipe and add a little extra sugar and fat, some dried fruit (raisins, currents, dates) and your favorite spices (we like cinnamon and cardamom with a little nutmeg and allspice). I used muffin tins since that size works nice for us. Don't forget to brush the tops with a beaten egg before baking for that shiny appearance. And, of course, finish off with a cross of white icing (powdered sugar, water and vanilla, if desired).