Category Archives: Gluten-free Adaptations

Adaptations of Original Recipes for Gluten-free living

Butter Tarts and Blossoms

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GF PastryButter Tarts GF

Once a year I make tarts for the Horticultural Society Soup and Sandwich lunch and make enough extra for Cliff’s Plumbing and home. This year it worked out particularly well because I thought I need to update the butter tart photo on my blog to a gluten-free version and this gave me the opportunity. I recall counting butter tarts as one of the blessings that was naturally gluten-free when I first began my diet. I do not indulge often but it is good to know I can still add them to a special picnic or camping trip when I want to and they are just as decadently delicious as always!

At first I made the “gluten-free” pastry but now I just make my regular pastry with gluten-free all purpose flour and by using plastic wrap to roll it I am able to manage quite nicely. Thanks to Jenn Croft in Owen Sound for the idea to do that! If you do not have your own favourite pastry recipe you may try this one. GF Pastry – Click for pdf copy of recipe

Butter Tarts – Click here for pdf version of recipe

GF Pastry for 30 tart shells
2 cups brown sugar, packed
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup melted butter*
1/2 cup corn syrup
3 – 4 eggs, depending on their size, I usually use 4
raisins, walnuts or coconut to taste

  • Mix brown sugar, salt, melted butter and corn syrup.
  • Whisk eggs then stir into brown sugar mixture being careful not to beat. If you get too much air in the mixture some of the tarts may seem hollow when baked. 
  • Place raisins, nuts, coconut or a mixture of these in the tart shells then cover with butter tart filling to 3/4 full with a 7/8 oz scoop if you have one.
  • Bake at 400°F for the first 10 minutes then reduce heat to 350°F and continue baking 
  • for another 15 – 20 minutes or until filling is set. 
  • If you like your tarts runny you may take them out a little early or reduce the number of eggs to 3.
  • Makes 27 – 30 large tarts

*I would not substitute margarine here.
Anne’s Favourites

Rhubarb Coffee Cake – Spring’s Gift

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Rhubarb Coffee Cake

Rhubarb Coffee Cake – photo by Nicholas Mann

Rhubarb – Spring’s Gift to Us

If you live in Southwestern Ontario look in your garden and you will see another of spring’s gifts – rhubarb. It is ready to cut….. and….. my favourite Rhubarb Coffee Cake works equally well with gluten-free all purpose flour! Thank you, again, Jayne for sharing this recipe with me. I am still looking and working on a muffin to take the place of my old reliable wheat version so if you have one that works I would love to try it out myself. The photo above is the version made with wheat flour and if you are able to use this just substitute 1 cup of whole wheat and 1 cup of all purpose flour for the GF flour and omit the xanthan gum. I used this photo because I could not do as nice a job as Nick did when he did the pictures for the cookbook and the cake does not look significantly different made with GF flour.

Already my husband, Cliff, is asking for rhubarb pie and luckily we can do that without wheat too. I just have to decide which one to make, strawberry rhubarb or rhubarb custard? If the weather turns us back indoors I will post a photo and recipe next week! Let me know if you have a preference for one of the pies.

Rhubarb Coffee Cake GF – Click here for pdf of recipe

Rhubarb Coffee Cake

Cake:

1/2 cup margarine

1 1/4 cups white sugar

2 eggs

1/3 cup applesauce, 113 g apple snack pack works

2/3 cup yogurt

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups GF all purpose flour

1 tsp xanthan gum

1 tsp baking soda

2 cups rhubarb, chopped

Topping:

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1 Tbsp rice or GF all purpose flour

1 1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 Tbsp margarine

1/4 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped (optional)

Beat margarine and sugar until light then add eggs one at a time.

Stir in applesauce, yogurt and vanilla until smooth.

Sift together flour, xanthan gum and baking soda and stir into batter until combined.

Add rhubarb and beat a minute or two.

Pour into a greased 9 x 13 inch pan.

Combine brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and margarine with a pastry blender or your

clean hands.

Add nuts if desired and sprinkle over unbaked cake batter.

Bake at 350°F for 50 minutes until cake springs back when lightly touched, a tester comes

out clean and cake is pulling away from the sides of the pan.

Anne’s Favourites

 

Anne’s Favourites

Mincemeat Delights!

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Mincemeat Muffins – Winter Comfort

I love Mincemeat Pie, Tarts and Crisp (both Anne’s Favourites pg 243), and Mincemeat Muffins (pg 137).  I love the extra fruitiness of the filling Doreen and Kerri helped to develop while we worked together at Armstrong’s Bakery and I usually make a batch at Christmas and freeze what is left for muffins on those stormy winter days! We had a few of those in the last few weeks.

I have included the muffin recipe with the gluten-free flour but you can substitute a mixture of whole wheat and all purpose wheat flour and leave out the xanthan gum to make the regular version of these muffins.

Mincemeat Muffins  – click here for pdf copy of recipeMincemeat Muffins 057

Mincemeat Filling, Pie and Crisp – click here for pdf copy of recipe

Mincemeat Apple Pie

For a pot luck I made mincemeat apple crisp in a gluten-free pie shell and it was delicious! With the rich pecan topping and fruity mincemeat filling you forget it is gluten-free.

Tomato Dill Soup

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Tomato Dill Soup – A taste of summer to warm up your winter!

I had a difficult time making up my mind which food to post this week. It has been so busy since mid December that I have a number of photos ready but when I tasted this soup at lunch today it went right to the top of the list!

This is definitely my “go to” soup. I especially look forward to making it if I still have a mixture of tomatoes and dill leaves frozen from summer’s bounty. With the tomatoes already peeled this soup is just a matter of chopping some onions and garlic and putting things together. It only needs to simmer for a half an hour so you can make it right before you eat it.

Tomato Dill Soup – click here for recipe pdf

Tomato Dill Soup – Anne’s Favourites pg 52

1               Tbsp butter

1               Tbsp olive oil

1               onion, chopped

2               cloves garlic, crushed

2               Tbsp GF all purpose flour or potato starch

4               cups chicken stock, homemade or low sodium

12            medium tomatoes, peeled and chopped, 7 – 8 cups
OR 2 cans (28 oz) crushed tomatoes

2               Tbsp fresh dill or 2 tsp dry

1               Tbsp white sugar (omit sugar if using canned tomatoes)

1/4          tsp baking soda (omit if using canned tomatoes)

1               tsp salt, or to taste

1/4          tsp pepper

Cook onion and garlic in butter/olive oil mixture until soft.

  • Add flour and stir until smooth.
  • Slowly stir in broth and bring to a boil.
  • Scald and peel tomatoes and cut into small pieces then add to broth mixture.
  • Add dill, sugar, salt, pepper and baking soda.
  • Simmer for 25 to 30 minutes.
  • Taste and adjust seasonings.

Serve 6

Chocolate Chunk Shortbread

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Chocolate Chunk on trayChocolate Chunk Shortbread GF

Chocolate Chunk Shortbread is always the first cookie eaten from the tray at our annual shop party. Once people taste this decadent shortbread, created by Phipps Desserts in Toronto and shared with readers in the original Canadian Living Holiday Baking Issue in 1995, they always come back to it because they know it will satisfy their craving for something sweet…. And why not with chocolate and butter in such a perfect combination?

I have used a few pounds of butter experimenting with alternative flour combinations in my attempt to achieve the same buttery delight of my favourite Christmas shortbreads this year.  When I went back for a second and Cliff didn’t care if he was eating my gluten-free version even when there was a container of the original ones in the freezer I thought I was ready to share this recipe with you. I am considering mixing this combination of flours together to use in all my shortbread type recipes but have run short of time to continue with the experiments right now.

I have included the original adaptation of Chocolate Chunk Shortbread using wheat flour and the gluten-free version. Notice I saved the time toasting the flour in the GF recipe. I think the subtle flavour and texture qualitites this achieved are already there because of the diversity of the flours and starches combined to replace the wheat. I will probably try toasting just the flour (not starch) portion of the gluten-free mix at some time in the future to see if it provides a worthwhile improvement to the cookie. Be sure to check in next year to see if I have tweaked it a little more.

Chocolate Chunk Shortbread – Gluten-free

1               cup butter, softened

2/3          cup fruit sugar

1               tsp vanilla or almond extract

1/4          cup almond flour*

2/3          cup white rice flour

1/3          cup brown rice flour

1/2          cup sorghum flour

1/4          cup arrowroot starch

1/4          cup tapioca starch

1               Tbsp potato flour

1               tsp xanthan gum

pinch of salt

4               ounces good quality GF milk chocolate, chopped*

  • Beat butter with sugar until smooth, then add vanilla.
  • Stir in almond flour.
  • Sift both rice flours, sorghum flour arrowroot and tapioca starches, potato flour, xanthan gum and salt into butter mixture.
  • Mix until smooth, then add chopped chocolate and continue beating until evenly distributed.
  • Roll into 1 inch balls and place on baking sheet. I use my favourite 7/8 oz scoop, overfill it and divide that portion in half, rolling each half into a ball. This seems to keep me from making the balls too large. This is a very rich cookie and you can’t eat too much if you want to try anything else on the tray!
  • You may press down lightly with your clean palm or floured glass bottom until about 3/8 inch thick..
  • Bake at 300°F for 25 minutes.

Makes 3 dozen cookies

* If you do not keep almond flour use ground almonds mixed with rice flour in approximately equal proportions.

* I found a Hersheys Christmas milk chocolate bar that was delicious!

My Royal Birthday Cake

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Queen Elizabeth Cake

Queen Elizabeth Cake – page 205, Anne’s Favourites

The year I published the cookbook my husband made the “Queen Elizabeth Cake” as another test on the final copy and because I requested it for my birthday. It was perfect and I loved it and looked forward to many more. I thought now that he had the idea and the an easy to follow recipe it could become an annual event. Sadly, the Celiac situation gave him the excuse he needed to leave cake making behind. I did not give up so easily and decided I would still have a Queen Elizabeth Cake for my birthday. It was a few days late and I had to make it myself but it was absolutely delicious!

Queen Elizabeth Cake Gluten-free – Click here for printable copy.                       See recipe below

Queen Elizabeth Cake – gluten-free adaptation from Anne’s Favourites Pg 205

  • 1 cup dates, chopped
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 cup boiling water
  • 1/4 cup butter or margarine
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cup all purpose gluten-free flour
  • 1 tsp xanthan gum
  • 1 tsp GF baking powder
  • 1/2 cup coconut, desiccated
  • Topping:
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
  • 1/3 cup butter
  • 2 Tbsp milk
  • 2/3 cup coconut, shredded or flaked
  • 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
    For the cake pour boiling water over dates and baking soda then let cool.
    Beat butter with sugar until smooth then add egg and vanilla mixing until combined.
    Sift GF flour, xanthan gum and GF baking powder together.
    Stir in flour mixture and coconut until blended.
    Add cooled date mixture stirring until smooth.
    Pour into a greased 9 x 9 inch pan.
    Bake at 350°F for 35 – 40 minutes until springs back when touched lightly and internal temperature has reached 200 degrees F.
    Meanwhile for the topping  mix brown sugar, butter, milk, coconut and walnuts in
    a saucepan.
    When cake comes out of oven bring topping ingredients to a boil and let simmer for
    3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
    Spoon hot topping mix as evenly as possible on warm cake (see pg 192), spreading with two forks, and return to oven with broiler on.
    Broil until icing bubbles and turns golden brown. This only takes a few minutes so
    watch it carefully!

Holiday Favourites that are already gluten-free

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Holiday Date Balls

This is my first gluten-free Christmas and I was looking through my cookbook to see which recipes for holiday baking were the easiest to adapt to my new diet. I was pleased to see I only needed to ensure my crisp rice cereal was gluten-free to adapt the Holiday Date Balls to be suitable for Celiacs.                        

Take care not to overcook them or they will be hard on your teeth!

Holiday Date Balls – click here for printable recipe

Holiday Fruit Balls

  • 1/2       cup butter melted
  • 2          cups white sugar
  • 2          eggs
  • 3          cups chopped dates
  • 1/4       cup candied red cherries
  • 1/4       cup candied green cherries
  • 3          cups gluten-free crisp rice cereal
  • coconut for coating

Melt butter in saucepan and add sugar and eggs, stirring quickly so eggs do not cook.

Add dates and cook for 7 minutes or until dates are cooked, stirring often.

Add cherries in last minutes of cooking.

Add rice cereal and stir to combine.

Cool until able to handle then form into balls

Roll in shredded coconut or coating of choice and store in an airtight container.

  • Other Coating Suggestions:
  • ground nuts
  • icing sugar