Muffins

Decided to try adding more eggs to my muffin recipe.  It worked pretty well.  I waited to see if they were still good to eat the next day, and they're not bad so here is the recipe:

Eggy Muffins

1 3/4 cups flour  (my current mix is 3/4 cup tapioca and 1/2 cup each potato starch and sorghum)
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 stick butter, melted and slightly cooled

Stir together flours, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Beat eggs and milk, stir into dry mixture.  Whisk til smooth, stir in butter a bit at a time.  Pour into paper lined muffin cups and bake at 450 for 20-25 minutes.  Makes 12.

The extra eggs cause a cute little peak at the top.

Let me know how you like them.  Of course if you can eat rice I would use it along with a little of the other flours.  It's hard to get a good product without being able to use the rice-I have a lot of throwaways!  I eat a lot of mediocre stuff, too!

Pizza Crust Victory!!

Sorry for not posting on this blog for a while-I'm finding out that just maybe two blogs is one too many.  My attention span is too short.  But for now I'll keep this one, even posting sporadically.

The one thing I've missed really badly has been pizza.  Not the sauce so much-I've never been a tomato person-but the chewy crust and all those spicy meats and melty cheeses......

A few weeks back I was perusing on Pinterest (yes, I got suckered in too!) and I ran across TWO recipes for pizza crust made out of cauliflower.  I know!!!

One called for raw and the other called for cooked.  I made both at different times and thought both were delicious.  But I liked different things on each one, so decided to combine recipes today-I think I have a winner.  So here it is, in its delicious simplicity:

Marty's Cauliflower Pizza Crust

1 small pkg frozen cauliflower
2 eggs
pinch salt
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp oregano
1 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Microwave the cauliflower in a glass dish for 3-5 minutes, enough to cook the "raw" out of it but not enough to make it mushy.  Drain and let cool to lukewarm.  Pulse in a food processor until it's the consistency of rice.  Beat the eggs a bit, then add the rest of the ingredients and stir til well blended.  This won't be firm like regular pizza dough-it will be pretty squishy.

Line two cookie sheets with parchment and spread half the dough on each pan.  Pat it out with the back of a spoon until it's a thin, nice round.  Bake at 450 for 12-15 minutes, until it's brown on the edges and has little flecks of brown across the top.

Now top it with anything you want-I made a white sauce with 4T mayonnaise and a sprinkle of garlic.  Then I topped it with pepperoni and browned, drained Italian sausage.  I sprinkled some shredded Parmesan over, then a generous amount of mozzarella cheese.  Put it back in the oven (same temp) until it starts to bubble a bit and the cheese is melting deliciously over the pizza.  Cut and enjoy.  You'll be able to eat this with your hands if you like.

Makes me hungry all over again just looking at it!

A Quick Hint

I have found, in all my baking experiments, that it's extremely difficult to get a light texture in your wheat-free baked goods.  Especially, as in my case, when you can't use rice flour.  A few weeks ago it hit me-what about club soda?  So first I used it in place of milk for some cupcakes, which were pretty successful, and last night I used it in biscuits.  They were very good!  The thing you have to do with non-gluten flours is cut back a bit on the liquid, since there's no gluten to hold the dough together.  The recipe called for 2/3 cups of milk and I put in 1/2 cup of club soda instead.  It worked perfectly and the biscuits even held together better than they have in my other experiments!  And don't worry if the club soda isn't the freshest-I used some that barely has any fizz and it worked fine.  Next on my agenda is scones-if it works for biscuits it should work for them!

Pancakes

Up until now my wheatless pancakes have been a bit heavy and dry, but when I added sorghum to the equation and took out the Bob's all-purpose flour, they improved immensely. They're very tender, light and fluffy. Lovely Saturday breakfast:

Wheat-free Hotcakes

3/4 Cup sorghum flour
1/4 Cup potato starch
1/4 Cup tapioca flour
3 teaspoons baking powder (I use Hain, it doesn't have cornstarch in it)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg (1 tablespoon ground flax mixed with 3 tablespoons water can be substituted)
1 Cup milk (soy milk would be fine)
2 tablespoons cooking oil (whatever is safe for you)

Stir dry ingredients together. Beat egg, milk and oil, stir into flour mixture. Cook on a hot lightly greased griddle. When the bubbles on top break, flip pancakes and finish cooking.

I love mine with real maple syrup!

Look What I Found Today!

Because of the corn allergy, I am severely limited in what brands of dairy products I can use. For instance, most, if not all major brands of yogurt have either cornstarch, corn syrup, or both. I can find the organic brands that don't contain corn products pretty reasonably at our local warehouse-type store. They also carry the Western Family Naturals brand of sour cream-most sour creams have cornstarch, but this particular one doesn't. I just have to be sure to read the label and get the natural one. I was across town today and wasn't planning to go to the warehouse store, but here's what I found in Walmart:

No corn starch-just milk products! (I'm lucky enough not to be allergic to milk)

Another shopping problem I had was powdered sugar. They add just a bit of cornstarch just to keep the sugar from caking. Consequently I haven't had frosting since May. This is what I found in the local Food Co-op:

Instead of cornstarch, they use tapioca starch. Frosting here I come-provided I can put together a decent cake with my special flours.