Holiday Baking

Thanks to the holidays, I have been baking a lot more than I usually do (which is pretty much not-at-all). My experiences with gluten-free baking in the past have not been all that great. To be honest, there's a bit of a love-hate relationship between me and gluten-free baked goods. "Love" when someone else makes it and "hate" when I do. Also,  I have to contend with not only being gluten-free, but also being yeast-free as well --double whammy!

Anyway, this holiday season, I decided I would plan ahead and make my own gluten-free treats to take to holiday parties so that I wouldn't just go and have to watch everyone eat all the delicious food. I'll be trying to post more recipes as I go, but here's a synopsis of my current holiday favorites (which actually isn't all baking, but oh well!):

1) Chocolate Coconut Pie - Found this recipe on Pinterest and was surprised to see that it was a) relatively easy and b) completely gluten-free without any modifications whatsoever. I made two of these for Thanksgiving and I was pretty happy with the results. I will say that I'd like to try my hand at making this recipe a little lighter since it was so incredibly rich. Also, the crust was a little difficult to cut if you weren't careful.

2) Bob's Red Mill Shortbread Cookie Mix - I actually tossed these together last night after I got home from work. They were really quite simple and delicious, but (as with most gluten-free items) a bit on the dry and crumbly side. It may be heresy to do this to shortbread, but I'm thinking about adding a thin frosting (maybe a lemon glaze?) on top to add a little zing. Also, I found out last night that I don't own a rolling pin. I might need to remedy that. Last night I was rolling out cookies with the salt container...

3) Lastly, pumpkin pancakes! Yes, I know. It's not baking. BUT it was a fantastic holiday morning treat (especially after completing my first ever Turkey Trot). I modified Katie's recipe to toss out some delicious pumpkin pancakes that were just about perfect. They were a little too cakey for my taste, but future modifications can remedy that.

Happy Holiday and good luck on your gluten-free holiday baking adventures!

The Wonders of Chickpea Flour

Okay, so it isn't so much "wonders" as it is just good. I picked up some chickpea (a.k.a. ceci, gram, or garbanzo) flour at my local Italian imports store this weekend to see what I could do with it. I'd used regular canned chickpeas before in cookies (yes, cookies!), but never tried the actual flour. It was time to remedy that situation.

The chickpea flour was incredibly cheap. $2.50/pound is nothing to sneeze at, especially when you're used to seeing alternative flours for up to $11/pound (almond flour, anyone?)!

I brought it home and immediately started searching for recipes. The first one I found was for a chickpea pancake. On further investigation, it was a thin crepe-style pancake made of just chickpea flour, water, and a pinch of salt. Sounded easy enough. So, I went to work.

I decided to use my 'pancake' as more of a tortilla and set about thinking of fillings. As I live alone, keeping fresh produce from going bad is quite a chore in my house. Because of this, I tend to rely on a lot of frozen veggies. I sauteed some frozen broccoli with garlic for the filling, but was then hit with inspiration.

I had been craving fried chicken for months now. What better to try with my new flour? I ended up mixing equal parts of chickpea flour and Parmesan cheese in with some herbs and a little salt and pepper and then pan-frying the chicken. And it worked! It actually tasted good. Color me surprised.

So, my 'tortilla' was filled with garlic broccoli and fried chicken. It was delicious. But way too filling. One pancake was huge and so dense, it probably could've served for two meals.

Yay, fried chicken!

It tasted a lot better than it looks, trust me!