The Baking Beauties » Breads

Healthy Gluten Free Potato Pancakes with Creamy Lemon Dill Sauce

Jeanine Friesen — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 15:50:12 +0000

Earlier this year I was approached by the Dairy Farmers of Canada, asking if I would be interested in participating in their Anyday Magic contest, aptly called “The Great Cream Challenge.” Now, I use cream on a regular basis, so I knew that creating recipes for the challenge would not be difficult for me. The thing is, when you sign up, you don’t know exactly what the challenge is that you will be facing. I watched the challenges from earlier in the year and with things like “Chocolate Desserts,” “Ultimate Soup,” and “Caramel Challenge,” I figured this would be a walk in the park. Chocolate, soup, or caramel using cream – EASY! Then I was handed my challenge – Healthy Pancakes. We all know, I’ve made plenty of pancakes in my time, pancakes is not a problem for me, and incorporating cream into them would be easy. The challenge for me was the Healthy part. When I envision the words “pancakes” and “cream,” I picture a rich, decadent pancake topped with a dollop of whipped cream and cascading with fresh berries. Delicious? YES. But, I didn’t feel it would live up to the “healthy” part of the challenge they were asking me to complete. So, I took a different direction.

I went savoury.

I made healthy little savoury pancakes that use fresh baby potatoes, in their thin, delicate skin, fresh chopped dill, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, and some chopped green onion to really bring this dish to life. I believe that if you want to eat healthy, you have to use fresh herbs to bring amazing flavour to your food. This dish did just that.

Get the Recipe and a Chance to WIN!

Head on over to Anyday Magic’s “Great Cream Challenge” for the full recipe for these wonderful little Healthy Gluten Free Potato Pancakes with a Creamy Lemon Dill Sauce, and while you’re there, VOTE for my recipe. By voting, you are also entering to WIN the ultimate blender, a Cuisinart Blend ’N Cook Soup and Beverage Maker, valued at $200. Open to Canadian residents only (excluding Quebec and Territories). For full contest rules, click HERE.

Gluten Free Classic Strawberry Shortcake

Jeanine Friesen — Fri, 24 May 2013 11:53:48 +0000

Summer’s here and that means it’s time for a trip to the berry patch. As a child, my mom would lug me, my brother and an armful of empty ice cream pails to our local U-Pick strawberry field. It was messy business crawling along the straw-packed rows of ripe berries. It was impossible to keep our clothes from getting stained and dirty so, in her motherly wisdom, mom dressed us in our oldest, rattiest, nearly-grown-out-of clothes. This way it wouldn’t matter when our knees were stained crimson red from the juice of the berries we’d accidentally crawl over, or if the front of our shirts were full of strawberry juice that had dribbled down our chin as we bit into the biggest berry we could find.

To keep herself sane, Mom always had a check list to complete before we left the house on our berry wrangling adventure.

First on that list was to always make sure to go to the bathroom before heading out on our adventure, since we knew the berry farm only had one lone outhouse along the side of the field. Enough said.

Secondly, we’d nearly bathe in mosquito repellent. If you think grocery shopping with an impatient child in your cart is hard to do, you should attempt getting 8 ice cream pails of strawberries off the plant with two whining, complaining kids that are getting eaten by mosquitoes. It’s not going to happen. You will pack up with the one-and-a-half pails you managed to get off the plant before the kids went berserk and head for home, stopping to buy some strawberry jam at the store along the way.

And lastly, we made sure to not have any breakfast before heading to the farm (OK, maybe that was on our list, not hers). We always joked about how it was a good thing that the farmer didn’t weigh us before and after picking. If my Mom had to pay for the berries my brother and I put in our bellies instead of our pails, I doubt she would have taken us picking anymore. It would have led to financial ruin.

I’m grown now, with children of my own. Although we’re not able to make it to the berry patch every year, when we can, we get out there to pick our share of fresh strawberries. The kids love homemade strawberry jam, and they know that for fresh jam, we need to get fresh berries. And while we slowly move our way along the row, picking only the reddest berries, I know that they are busy filling their bellies more than their baskets. And I smile.

My Strawberry Shortcake after a visit to the berry patch when she was 3.

Anytime berry season hits, the one dessert that people typically think about is Strawberry Shortcake. There are two kinds of strawberry shortcake; the sponge cake-type, and the biscuit-type. Today I am sharing my recipe for Gluten Free Classic Strawberry Shortcake, which is the light biscuit-style shortcakes that many of us had to leave behind when going on this gluten-free journey. After several attempts, I believe I got it just right. The biscuits are airy and delicate, overflowing with luscious strawberries and lightly sweetened whipped cream.

Gluten Free Classic Strawberry Shortcake

Author: Jeanine Friesen

Recipe type: Dessert

Serves: 8

In about 25 minutes, you could be enjoying these simple Gluten Free Classic Strawberry Shortcakes, topped with sweet, juicy berries and airy whipped cream. To make things easier, the strawberries and whipped cream can be prepared hours in advance.

Ingredients

Filling

1 1/2 pounds strawberries, washed & cut up
3 tablespoons granulated sugar (less if your berries are sweet)
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Dry Ingredients

1 1/4 cups brown rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch/flour
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Chill Your Butter

1/2 cup unsalted butter, placed in the freezer for 30 minutes before use

Wet Ingredients

6 tablespoons buttermilk
2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg

For Topping

1 tablespoon heavy whipping cream
2 teaspoons coarse sugar

Whipped Topping

1 cup cold heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Filling:

Sprinkle berries with sugar and lemon juice. Toss to coat. Allow to sit for at least 20-30 minutes before serving.

Biscuits:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking pan with parchment paper.
In a mixing bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients until evenly combined.
Using a coarse grater, grate the slightly frozen butter into the dry ingredients. Stir to coat the butter with the dry ingredients.
Whisk the wet ingredients together in a small bowl. Pour over the dry ingredients and stir until the dough begins to come together.
Place a sheet of plastic wrap on a slightly damp counter. Sprinkle the plastic wrap with sweet rice flour or potato starch. Turn the dough out onto the plastic wrap, and without handling the dough too much, knead it until it comes together in one ball. Lay a sheet of plastic wrap over the dough and roll to about 3/4″ thick. Cut into circles using a 3″ biscuit cutter, and place biscuits on prepared baking sheet. Repeat until the dough has all been formed into biscuits, trying to handle it the least amount possible.
Brush the tops of the biscuits with heavy whipping cream, and sprinkle with coarse sugar.
Bake biscuits in preheated oven for 12-14 minutes, or until a nice golden brown on top. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Whipped Topping:

Place cold whipping cream, sugar, and vanilla in a deep, chilled bowl. Using an electric mixer, whip the cream until soft peaks form. This can be done hours in advance, and stored covered in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

To Serve:

Slice biscuit in half. Top with about 1/3 cup cut up strawberries and a dollop of whipped cream before placing the top of the biscuit back on top. Garnish with more strawberries if desired.

Notes

Alternately, you can prepare the biscuit dough by using a food processor. Add the dry ingredients first, pulsing to blend. Add the butter, cut into cubes, and pulse until the butter is about the size of a pea. Pour in all the wet ingredients at once, and pulse until the dough comes together. I just found I got better results using the above method.

Other Berry-licious Gluten-Free Recipes You Might Enjoy:

Gluten-Free Dutch Oven Cheddar and Beer Bread

Jeanine Friesen — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:00:11 +0000

When it comes to developing new gluten-free recipes in my kitchen, I must admit, I enjoy playing with bread recipes. Although I’ve had a fair amount of success with cakes, like the Devil’s Food Cake, I do find it more difficult to get the right texture when it comes to cake. I am still trying to develope a gluten-free white cake recipe that has just the right texture & crumb, I was close last time, but not quite there. But, when it comes to breads, I have an easier time figuring out what I need to do to make the the dough look and feel the way that it should, and quite often have success on the first try. This recipe for Gluten-Free Cheddar and Beer Bread is one of those success stories.

I have heard quite a bit about no-knead breads in the past. Books, like Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day (which also includes a chapter on gluten-free breads), have helped people to realize that baking fresh bread does not need to be a difficult, time-consuming task. Instead, you simply mix your ingredients together, let the dough sit on the counter for a few hours, form into loaves, let it rest again, and then bake it. Those are the same steps that I used to accomplish this savoury loaf that I am sharing today.

But first, I would like to introduce the star of this delicious bread recipe – my new 3-quart enameled cast aluminum Dutch Oven from Nordic Ware. I received this pot, along with a braising pan and a chicken leg griller, as a gift from Nordic Ware, who is one of the sponsors of the upcoming Food Bloggers of Canada Conference that I am attending. When I looked at the Dutch Oven, I thought – I could make a great stew in that. But, then my mind turned to bread instead. I’ve heard of breads being baked in pots with heavy, fitted lids, but had never tried it. Baking the bread in a Dutch Oven traps the moisture in the pot while the bread bakes, giving you a beautiful, crispy crust on the outside of the bread, but a nice, chewy inside. Similar to steam injection that the professionals use for crispy baguettes and brioche. After experimenting with it, I can tell you first hand, it works beautifully, even with gluten-free breads.

This Nordic Ware Dutch Oven worked beautifully to bake this bread in. The Dutch Oven is enamel coated, so no sticking, even if the dough had touched the sides. However, my favorite thing about this Dutch Oven is it’s weight. It works as well as a cast iron pot, but it is not nearly as heavy as cast iron. It is still easy to lift & carry, even if would be full of a delicious stew.

No special equipment is required to make this gluten-free crusty savoury bread. If you have a wooden spoon, you’re set! If you don’t have a Dutch oven, don’t fret – any heavy pot with a tight fitting lid will work well. Just be sure that the knob on the lid is safe to 425°F.

Yields 2 one pound loaves

Ingredients:

1 cup (120 grams) brown rice flour
1 cup (130 grams) sorghum flour
1/4 cup (50 grams) potato starch
1 cup (110 grams) tapioca starch
1 Tablespoon (10 grams) xanthan gum
1 Tablespoon (12 grams) rapid rise yeast
2 teaspoons (10 grams) salt
1 1/2 cups (115 grams) shredded cheddar cheese
4 onion greens, chopped (about 1/4 cup)
1 teaspoon (7 grams) liquid honey
1 1/3 cup gluten-free beer, room temperature (I used Redbridge Beer, you can use water, it just won’t have quite the same flavour)
2 large room temperature eggs, slightly beaten
3 Tablespoons (14 grams) olive oil

Instructions:

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the brown rice flour, sorghum flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, xanthan gum, rapid rise yeast, salt, cheese, and onion greens.
In a smaller mixing bowl, whisk together the honey, gluten-free beer, eggs, and olive oil.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and stir just until everything is evenly mixed.
Loosely cover the bowl with a lid or plastic wrap, and let it sit on the counter for 2 hours.
After the two hours, divide the dough into two*. You want to work gently, so that you do not break all the air bubbles that have just formed in the dough. Carefully place each ball of dough onto its own piece of parchment paper (about 14″x14″). Wet your hands with water, and smooth each ball of dough into a ball shape. Cover loosely with plastic wrap, and let rest on the counter for another 90 minutes.
30 minutes before you are ready to bake your bread, preheat your oven to 425°F. Place two Dutch Ovens (or other heavy pot) into the hot oven, and let it heat for at least 15-20 minutes.
Using a serrated knife dipped in water, cut 3 or 4 slashes across the top of the loaf (optional, but gives it a nice look)
Remove the preheated Dutch Ovens from the oven, and carefully place the bread dough, on the parchment paper, into the Dutch Oven (one loaf per Dutch Oven). Be careful, the Dutch Ovens are very hot at this point.
Place the lids on the pots, and place the pots into the oven. Bake at 425°F for 20 minutes. Remove the lids, and continue baking for another10-15 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the bread, using an instant read thermometer, is 205°F.
Remove bread from the Dutch Oven, and place on a cooling rack. Allow bread to cool for at least 10 minutes before slicing. Store cooled bread in an airtight resealable bag.

*NOTE: If you only wish to bake one 1-pound loaf, leave half of the bread dough in the bowl, cover, and refrigerate. The dough can be refrigerated for up to 7 days. When you want to bake the second loaf, remove dough from fridge, gently place on a sheet of parchment paper, shaping and smoothing it with hands that have been wet with water. Loosely cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rest on the counter for 2 hours before baking. To bake the bread, follow the same instructions as if you were baking immediately.

Disclosure: I received the Nordic Ware products as a gift, however, the opinions expressed are my own. This blog post contains Amazon affiliate links.

Gluten-free Lemon Pound Cake Recipe

Jeanine Friesen — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:32:49 +0000

I have been trying to find ‘the’ pound cake recipe for a while. I’ve had as many errors as trials, and just felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere with it. Last week, when I just wanted to play in the kitchen for a while, and not have to experiment with figuring out the flours, starches, and liquids, I just simply adapted a recipe from Simply…Gluten-Free. Carol is a genius in the gluten-free kitchen. I’ve admired her work for years already, and have had success with all the recipes of hers that I’ve tried. That said – I had high hopes for this pound cake.

And let me tell you, it did not disappoint! This was seriously the best lemon-anything I’ve had in a while (well, since the doughnuts at least), but it was so good, and seriously got better each day after baking it. The first day it was good, but letting it sit on the counter, the second, third, and fourth day, it was even better. So moist, and lemony, purely delightful. I’m sure that this recipe could be adapted as well, to create more delicious pound cake recipes.

Yields one 8 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ loaf

Adapted from Simply…Gluten-Free

Ingredients:

3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons superfine white rice flour
4 Tablespoons sweet rice (glutinous) flour
5 Tablespoons potato starch
3 Tablespoons tapioca starch
1/4 cup dry instant lemon pudding mix (OR an additional tablespoon of each sweet rice flour and potato starch)
3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 teaspoons lemon zest (zest of one large lemon)
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line loaf pan with parchment paper, so that the paper comes up both sides (making it easier to remove the loaf after baking).
In a large bowl, whisk together the rice flour, sweet rice flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, dry pudding mix, xanthan gum, baking powder, and salt.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, beat together the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy. The colour should be a very pale yellow. This takes about 5 minutes.
With the mixer running on low, add the eggs, one at a time, being sure the egg is completely blended with the sugar before adding the next. Scrape down the bowl between additions to make sure everything is getting fully incorporated. Add the vanilla and mix to combine.
With the mixer on low, add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Once that is incorporated, add the milk, lemon juice, and zest to the batter. Finish by adding the remaining flour mixture. Mix just until all ingredients are fully combined.
Spoon batter into prepared loaf pan, smoothing the top with the back of a spoon.
Bake in preheated oven for 65-70 minute, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. If the loaf seems to be browning too quickly, lightly cover with a sheet of foil. Allow loaf to sit in baking pan for 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack. Cool completely before pouring a glaze over the top.
Keep loaf wrapped in plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out.

Glaze:

1 cup confectioners’ (icing) sugar
1-2 Tablespoons lemon juice
lemon zest to garnish

Mix ingredients together and drizzle over cooled pound cake.

Gluten-free Chocolate Mint Doughnuts

Jeanine Friesen — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 21:41:19 +0000

I’m not really one to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day. I have no Irish background. We never celebrated as kids. The extent of our ‘celebration’ is wearing green, and eating something green. Pretty simple. So, this past week when I looked at the calendar and saw that it was St. Patrick’s Day this weekend, I knew I had to make something green to go with the occasion. I decided to make some baked chocolate doughnuts, and simply top them with a mint frosting and mini chocolate chips. My kids loved them, and apparently the kids in their class were quite envious come lunch time. Nearly started a brawl – so I guess they are kind of Irish, huh?

Yields 6 large doughnuts

Chocolate Doughnuts:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup sorghum flour
2 Tbsp potato starch
1 Tbsp tapioca starch
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
2 Tbsp dry instant chocolate pudding mix (or dry milk powder)
3 Tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a Doughnut Pan.
In a large bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients.
In a smaller bowl, whisk together all of the wet ingredients.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until fully combined.
Spoon mixture into prepared doughnut pan. Bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the thickest part of the doughnut comes out clean.
Let doughnuts sit for 5 minutes before turning them out onto a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Mint Frosting:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups confectioners’ (icing) sugar
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 Tablespoons milk
1/4 teaspoon mint extract
4 drops green food colouring
2 Tablespoons mini chocolate chips

Instructions:

In a small mixing bowl, beat together all ingredients (except the mini chocolate chips).
Frost cooled doughnuts, and sprinkle with the mini chocolate chips.