GFCF ice cream

I GUARANTEE you'll like this ice cream. It's very easy to make. All you need is a blender. And, there's no dairy, no soy, no rice! This recipe is found in Lisa Lewis' Special Diets for Special Kids Two. Here's how to make it:

Ingredients
---------------
1 cup plus two tablespoons Darifree powder
3/4 cup powdered sugar (if corn is an issue, buy corn-free from Miss Robens or make your own using a coffee grinder or blender)
1.5 cups very hot water
2 tablespoons Spectrum palm shortening (this is organic shortening - no soy)
1/2 tablespoon guar gum OR 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (note the difference here between tablespoon and teaspoon. If you use too much, the ice cream takes on a taffy like texture)

Put all into the blender and blend well for a couple of minutes. Stop and scrape down the sides to free any powder or clumps stuck to the side. Blend again until smooth -- ice cream smooth. Put into a freezer safe container and freeze. You could also make this using an ice cream maker.

That's it. Wait until frozen, serve and enjoy.

Shoo Fly Pie

If you've never had this Amish pie, you're missing out. And, it lends itself well to a GFCF version of the original recipe. The pie is in three parts: crust, filling and topping.

Crust
-------
1/2 cup chickpea flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup potato starch
2 tbsp sugar - Wholesome Sweeteners
3 tsp egg replacer - Ener-G
2 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 cup canola oil
1/3-1/2 cup water

Mix dry ingredients. Add oil. Beat in with blender. Add 1/3 cup water and mix. If too crumbly, add 1 tbsp at a time until less crumbly and able to be pressed without cracking.

Topping
---------
3/4 cup GFCF flour (1/4 cup sorghum, 1/4 cup chickpea, 1/4 cup tapioca)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar - Wholesome Sweeteners
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
2 tbsp Spectrum organic shortening

Mix together until crumbly.

Filling
-------
1/2 cup blackstrap molasses - Golden Barrel (unsulphured)
3/4 cup boiling water
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 egg yolk (I subbed with Ener-G (1.5 tbsp powder/1 tbsp water)

Mix together well.

Directions:
1 - Press crust dough into greased pie plate.
2 - Bake 5 mins at 450.
3 - Pour filling and topping in layers into pie crust. Leave enough topping aside for one layer.
4 - Bake 10 mins. at 450. Pull from oven.
5 - Add leftover topping.
5 - Bake 20 mins more at 350 or until firm.

Enjoy.

Hot "chocolate"

Just in time for the holidays -- hot cocoa. Except no cocoa, or dairy. Still, this is very good stuff. You could give it to all your guests and I'll bet they love it. Really!

OK -- this is easy. Ingredients:

1 mug of hot water
1/4 cup of Darifree powder
1 tbsp carob powder (I buy soy free)
1 tbsp sugar (any sweetener will do)
1/2 tbsp powdered sugar (I use corn-free and this is optional)

Mix and stir until dissolved. This really is good.

If you're cutting back on sweetener, cut out the powdered sugar and maybe try honey or agave nectar instead of sugar.

If you can tolerate cocoa, by all means, use some Hershey's cocoa.

You also could try any milk alternative you wish, from soy milk to rice milk. I think the Darifree naturally has a sweet flavor that lends itself well to this recipe.

Happy holidays!

Chocolate cake icing

This is an updated version of this icing recipe. I've found a version that works much better. I'm sure it'll continue to be a work in progress.

1 cup powdered sugar (if corn's an issue, make your own or buy corn-free)
1 tbsp carob powder (cocoa is fine)
1 tbsp organic Spectrum shortening
2 Ener-G egg subs (3 tbsp powder, 4 tbsp water)

Mix the sugar and carob well. Make the egg sub and let sit 2 minutes. Add all ingredients in bowl and blend with a mixer. Spread on cake!

And, just to be thorough, here's the old recipe version below:

This is a simple icing recipe. It's quick, easy and reliable.

And, there's no soy, dairy, gluten, tofu, shortening, margarine, etc. Just basic icing.

In the end, the icing is more of a liquid but after a few hours, turns into more of a harder icing shell -- not quite as hard as a candy shell, but just more solid.

Ingredients:
4 tbsp powdered sugar (I use Miss Robens corn starch-free)
2 tbsp carob powder
2 tbsp tapioca starch
1 tsp canola oil
water

Mix the dry ingredients well. Add the oil and stir well.

Add water 1 tbsp at a time until reaching a smooth, but not runny, consistency. If it's too runny, add tapioca starch. Too thick, add a little water. This is about enough to coat (1) 8x8 cake.

Coffee cake anyone?

This stuff ain't bad.

My kids love my chocolate cake (see recipe links on the right). But I like to mix up the selection every so often with a yellow or white cake. So, I've modified recipes to make this coffee cake. Note, this relies on egg replacer and the gfcf flour mix I use is 1/2 cup sorghum flour and 1/2 cup chickpea flour. You could use any mix you want. Replace sorghum easily with rice flour. Replace the chickpea maybe with 1/4 cup tapioca and 1/4 cup potato starch. Anything will do. But, you'll notice -- no soy, rice, gluten, casein, corn, yeast, butter or margine.

Ingredients:
- 1 egg substitute (I use Ener-G egg replacer: 1 tbsp powder with 2 tbsp water)
- 1/2 cup water (during mixing, I end up adding up to another 1/2 cup to reach right consistency)
- 1 cup gfcf flour (I use 1/2 cup sorghum, 1/2 cup chickpea)
- 1 tsp xanthan gum
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- 2 tsp baking powder (Miss Robens sells some without corn starch)

Topping ingredients:
- 1/4 cup brown sugar (I prefer Wholesome Sweeteners to avoid allergens)
- 1/2 tbsp tapioca starch
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tbsp Spectrum shortening (or just use canola oil)

Directions:
Mix the egg sub in a bowl. Let sit 1 minute. Add all ingredients EXCEPT the last four -- brown sugar, tapioca, cinnamon and shortening. Blend well with mixer.

Mix last four ingredients in small bowl. Stir together until crumbly (this is the topping).

Heat oven to 350. Grease 8x8 baking pan with Spectrum shortening. Pour batter in the pan.

Sprinkle topping over batter until well covered.

Bake about 20-25 minutes. Mine is usually done in 20.

You'll notice this is a "shallow" coffee cake. I prefer it that way. You could also bake this in a round cake pan for a circular cake.

Or, double the batter recipe to make a thicker coffee cake and bake 5-10 minutes longer.

Yum.

Awesome "chocolate cake"

This is chocolate cake for even the most particular diet. To start, it has no chocolate, although you could use cocoa powder just as easily. Needs no rice flour. No butter, milk, yeast or soy. Amazing! This is a staple in our house -- the kids call it "ice cream cake," because it has a shine to the top that resembles ice cream.

This really is a carob cake and if baked properly, comes out full and moist.

Ingredients
------------
1 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour/starch
1/4 cup potato starch (others will do too, but potato adds moistness)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup carob powder (make sure it's free of soy and is gluten-free)
1 tsp baking soda
1 heaping tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup canola oil
1 1/2 cups water
Spectrum Organic Shortening

Heat oven to 350.

Mix dry ingredients and stir until well combined.

Add oil and water.

Beat with electric mixer.

Grease an 8x8 baking pan with the organic shortening and do the sides.

Pour batter into pan.

Give kids the beaters.

Bake on 350 for 25 minutes. When done, it will not be completely baked through the middle, but this is a key part of making this because it will continue to self-bake out of the oven. In the end, it will be completely baked through, yet remain moist. (If you do this and it still seems unbaked in the middle, next time, add 5 minutes to the baking cycle.)

I store this in the summer in the fridge with plastic wrap. In the winter, it's OK out.

You can make two at a time by doubling the recipe and freezing one.

You can also make this into a birthday cake. I've split the recipe between two round cake pans. You can easily make icing -- I just make a simple one out of powdered sugar and water with a little oil or the shortening -- not too much.

Easter Candy III

So, I now think I've got it. And, I plan to try it this weekend. I think the trick may be powdered sugar. So, I've found corn starch-free powdered sugar at Miss Robens and I've learned that shortening likely won't do. Cocoa butter should be used, but my kids can't have it. So, there's a similar butter called Mango Butter. I'm shopping for it now. So, I'll use mango butter, powdered sugar and carob. I'll let you know.

Easter Candy II

OK -- I'm about halfway there. I tried a second round of chocolate easter candy and it's OK, but not great. I'm using carob powder, sugar and organic palm shortening. I also tried using Ghee. But, the main problem is the cane sugar does not dissolve. I'm heating it and pouring into candy molds. That part works. It cools and pops out of the forms. But, the candy is grainy because of the sugar. So, I'm going to try another round using powdered sugar (corn free). The other problem, but not as crucial to me, is the candy melts easily. So, it needs to be stored in the fridge. I don't think the kids care about that. It'd be nice to get it to hold its form out of the fridge also. Maybe another base -- like palm or coconut oil? We'll see.

Cactus cookies

You read the headline correctly -- cactus cookies. Actually, I made cookies over the weekend that use cactus nectar as a liquid sweetener. They're awesome and the kids loved them. See my previous post on replacing corn syrup. This stuff really works.

Easter Candy

I must confess that I don't know what to do about Easter, which is coming soon. My kids cannot eat chocolate. So, I use carob powder instead. But, now I'm faced with the king of all chocolate holidays -- Easter. I have promised myself that I will learn how to make one chocolate candy for them by Easter using the carob powder. I'm reading recipes online and in cookbooks and trying to figure out how to convert. Remember, we also can't use milk, butter or corn syrup. Looks impossible, right? I don't think so. We can use palm shorterning and agave nectar -- see the previous post. In fact, a trial run of a taffy-like candy over the weekend didn't turn out too bad. The kids love it. It's a cross between taffy, tootsie roll and hard candy. I want to make mold candies, like an Easter bunny. That's my goal.

Safe Easter candy

Just a tip on one candy that you might consider when searching for safe stuff to fill Easter baskets ... cane sugar candy. It's very simple -- cane sugar and water. No candy is really healthy. I found bags of this at the Asian grocery for 79 cents a pound. No preservatives, corn, soy, grains, etc. Just cane sugar and water. They're similar to hard candy. They will either melt in the mouth or crumble if bitten. Very good.