Real Food Made Easy » dessert

Cinnamon Buns with Timtana flour

janice — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:05:49 +0000

Ive been doing a few trials with this new Timtana flour (for more on the flour, see my post from a couple of days ago), and while I don’t think its suited for more delicate baking, it works well in many of the yeast-raised breads and the more hearty quickbreads.

I tried some out a couple of days ago in the whole “grain”, gluten-free cinnamon buns that I make with sorghum. These are much heartier than your typical fluffy white cinnamon buns, but they still feel like you are eating something treat-like.

I decided to try the Timtana flour in these instead of garfava, and also decided to switch to light buckwheat flour for the usual sorghum flour. From the trials I have done, it appears that the optimal balance of starch:flour in order to have a somewhat open texture while boosting the nutritional value is equal parts of starch: flour.

These cinnamon buns are gluten-free, but also dairy-free and egg-free. These are NOT a super fluffy cinnamon bun, but they do have an open texture, and are quite moist. The addition of the Timtana flour appears to help create a nice moist dough that keeps fairly well over a day or two. These remained as moist a day later, and didn’t develop the typical crumbliness of many gluten-free doughs.

Timtana and Buckwheat Cinnamon Buns

1 1/4 cups light buckwheat flour (150 grams)

1 cup Timtana flour (120 grams)

2/3 cup tapioca starch (80 grams)

1/2 cup cornstarch (64 grams)

1/4 cup almond meal

1 Tablespoon xantham gum

4 teaspoons granulated yeast

1 teaspoon salt

Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl and mix well with a whisk

1 Tablespoon Ener-g egg replacer

4 Tablespoons cold water (60 ml)

2 Tablespoons coconut oil, melted and cooled

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon cider vinegar

1 cup vanilla soymilk at room temperature

Combine egg replacer with water and whisk or mix with a hand-mixer until very frothy, like egg whites. Add the remaining wet ingredients and then fold in the dry ingredients. Mix with the hand mixer for at least 1 minute, until the dough is smooth.

Place the dough on a cornstarch dusted silpat mat, and place a piece of plastic film overtop. Roll out to a rectangle approx. 18 inches by 12 inches.

1/3 cup Earth Balance buttery flavoured shortening or other vegan shortening

1/3 cup packed light brown sugar

1 Tablespoon cinnamon

1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread the softened butter over the dough, leaving a 2″ border on one side. Spread the sugar, cinnamon and raisins over the dough. Roll up like a jelly-roll from the long-side. Cut into 6-8 slices and place in a greased 9″ cake pan. Cover loosely and let rise for 60 minutes, or until doubled in size. Bake for 50-60 minutes, tenting with foil if they appear to be browning on top too quickly. Glaze them if you like yours glazed.

Oops, almost forgot to link up to Yeastspotting — a weekly roundup of all things yeasty!

Gluten-free Vegan Brownies

janice — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 04:48:23 +0000

It all began with a tweet from Karina over at the Karina’s Kitchen, who was getting frustrated trying to come up with a tasty brownie that didn’t rely on eggs. As she mentioned, who knew the brownie was so reliant on the egg!

A quick whirl around the interwebz will reveal lots of brownie recipes, but nary a gluten-free vegan recipe! things just get too complicated where chocolate or cocoa solids are involved to be mucking around without eggs!!!

There was a bit of an exchange about using extra baking powder, and other options, and I went away thinking (so did Karina as it turned out!). A couple of days later, here’s my solution to the gluten-free vegan brownie success! As I was thinking, I convinced myself that some extra structure with oomph was in order to prevent brownie fail. Most of my previous efforts were soggy in the middle, or cooked in the centre, but totally overcooked on the edges. I had successfully made chocolate cake, but the trick with the brownies is to have something slightly denser, without being gummy. I was aiming to add extra structure through the protein in teff flour, and the setting properties of potato starch and agar powder at around 180 to 190 degrees.

Karina’s solution was pretty ingenious, but also tackled the structure issue head-on with the use of quinoa flakes and extra protein in quinoa flour. You can see her recipe here.

For my brownies there were a few criteria:

the brownies had to have that characteristic shiny cracking top
The brownies had to bake in a “standard” pan — no cheating by baking them in small muffin pans, or the infamous “Edge” pan. i was aiming for a recipe people could make with standard kitchen wares.
i like my brownies on the cakier side, so they had to be rich and chocolatey, but not gummy.
there had to be enough structural integreity in these puppies that they would carry some chocolate chips if I felt like folding them in for xtra chocolate shock-value
they had to be completely vegan and soy-free, for those avoiding eggs and dairy, and unable to eat soy. This ruled out options like tofu and Earth Balance shortening.

These are pretty tasty little morsels. There is enough leeway in the recipe that if you want them a little bit richer, you can increase the coconut oil by 2 tablespoons while reducing the water mixed with the Ener-g by the same amount. The recipe will also accommodate up to 1 cup of vegan chocolate chips folded in at the end, or nuts if you’re into that kind of thing.

finally, a quick word about chocolate: many chocolates, while gluten-free, contain milk solids and therefore aren’t vegan. I use a couple of chocolates regularly that contain none, including Scharffenberger (both the 62% and 70%) and Ghiradelli semi-sweet. If you aren’t worried about the milk solids, Nestle is now labelling its chocolate as gluten-free.

Glutenfree, Vegan Brownies

Makes one 8-inch square pan of brownies, which will make 16 individual brownies.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and mix with whisk until well combined

70 grams teff flour
70 grams potato starch
1 teaspoon xantham gum
1 teaspoon agar powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Melt together and set aside:

6 ounces semisweet chocolate
4 tablespoons coconut oil

Mix together and set aside:

4 tablespoons Dutch processed cocoa powder
1 teaspoon instant coffee powder
2 Tablespoons hot water
1 1/2 Tablespoons vanilla extract

Whisk vigorously or with a hand mixer:

2 tablespoons Ener-g egg replacer
8 Tablespoons cold water
1 cup light brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan with coconut oil and dust with cocoa powder.

Add the chocolate and the cocoa powder mixtures to the egg replacer/sugar and mix well. Then add the dry ingredients, mixing until everything is well incorporated. If you are adding nuts or chocolate chips, fold them in now. then add the dry.

Pour into an 8-inch square greased pan, bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Adapted from a Cooks Illustrated brownie recipe

The Roddy Alexander (cocktails all a twitter!)

janice — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:39:02 +0000

It all started with a tweet this afternoon, prompted by discussion about spiced rum, of all things…

There we have it. I responded that my take these days wld probably involve Calvados and Angostura, which I’m enjoying in many permutations and combinations lately, AND some cinnamon syrup. After this exchange, I was invited to “share with the class”, and so here you see me blogging about a reinvented cocktail on a blustery Friday night! I’ve named this the Roddy Alexander, after the instigator, Rod Phillips (over at Liquor Plus).

For the more adventurous, I prefer a flip to a cream-based drink, so I would also be inclined to take the same ingredients sans cream, and shake very well with a whole egg, and strain into a glass. Try it and see which one you prefer!

I prefer my drinks a little less sweet than a traditional Brandy Alexander, so while this is a sweet drink (best for dessert), it does have a bit of depth to it. A bonus! I’ve found another drink that pairs quite nicely with a buttertart!

The “Roddy” Alexander

1 oz. Brandy
1 oz. Calvados
0.25 oz. cinnamon syrup*
1 oz. heavy cream
3 dashes Angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice, and shake. Double strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.

*cinnamon syrup: 2 cups sugar, 1 cup water, 2 medium sticks cinnamon, broken into pieces. Boil gently for at least 2 minutes, let sit for at least 10 minutes longer. Strain out the cinnamon sticks. This keeps well at room temperature, although the cinnamon flavour will diminish after 1 week.

Slightly healthy buttertarts

janice — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:27:08 +0000

I’m not sure if its the weather, or what, but I’ve been craving buttertarts for the past few days. After a couple of days of trying to ignore it, I figured I would go ahead and make them — justifying it by making the crust with whole grain flour.

I may have blogged before about the SaltSpring Mills flour, but here I go again — they have a small mill on SaltSpring Island, and mill up red-fife flour, and a “white” red-fife flour which I have found works great for pastry and as a substitute for while flour. Its actually a soft wheat, light in colour, and low in gluten, so it has great mild, whole-grain flavour, but doesn’t get overly tough. Since finding this, I use unbleached white flour a lot less than I used to, and I find this, and the red-fife bread flour are the freshest I have found short of milling my own flour!

For any of you reading from the US, buttertarts are a uniquely Canadian invention (who says ingenuity can’t come from a long, cold, dark, winter!!!). There are a few “musts” in my books for the perfect buttertart:

Lots of flaky, unsweetened pastry to counter the super sweet filling:
Pastry HAS to be homemade (sorry to those of you who use pre-made tart shells). There is a certain shape to a buttertart, that only comes from making your own tart shells in a muffin tin: Cylindrical, solid and dependable looking! And the pastry is much flakier when you make your own.
Real butter in the filling.
Raisins (yes, I know folks have come to blows over the raisins vs. currants debate, but I’m a raisin kind of guy!) and NOT nuts!!!
A filling that is gooey and only very slightly runny (again, many mild-mannered Canadian folks have come to blows over this, but I like ‘em a little on the gooier side)
A little crust formed on the top of the filling from the crystallization of the sugars in the filling
Not too big — these puppies are sweet, after all!

Finally, the other other ritual buttertart moment is the removing of the buttertarts from the pan — will they stick?!? will they come out in one piece? Its hard to wait (which you have to do!) until they are cooled off enough, and even then, if you’ve made the pastry right, it will *just* hold together enough to encapsulate the filling. You have to do this gently, coaxing these little morsels out of the tin. Be patient, and all will be well!

All of this makes for a buttertart that you can eat in 3-4 bites, but for which you have to adopt the “buttertart stance” — legs apart, head slightly forward, elbow up, aaand, enjoy!

This recipe was courtesy of Anna Olsen’s show Sugar, and is one I’ve used quite a bit over the past couple of years. I like the flavour of the added maple syrup, and find it also keeps the texture of the filling nice and soft and gooey. The original recipe also had caramel sauce on top, but I think that’s a little like gilding the lily!

Maple Buttertarts:

Crust

2 1/4 cups pastry flour (I used Salt Spring Mills “white” red-fife flour)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup lard or vegetable shortening
1 tsp lemon juice
1 egg
3 to 4 tbsp cold water (as needed)

Filling

1 cup dried currants (I used raisins)
1/2 cup hot water
1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp white vinegar
dash cinnamon (I subbed out ground coriander, just because I like it better!)
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup maple syrup

Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.

I see Macarons, you see Macarons, we all want Macarons!

janice — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:43:28 +0000

So another month has gone by, which can mean only one thing… another Daring Bakers Challenge!

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Macarons are one of those things that look so perfect that you want to collect one in every conceivable colour and flavour combination. Essentially just meringue, with some ground almonds, they are deceptively simple, yet require attention to detail in order to have them turn out exactly right. Macaron shells should be nice and soft on the inside, but have enough structure that they don’t fall apart or shatter. They should also have the characteristic “feet” at the bottom of each shell.

First, the egg whites need to be brought to room temperature, and whipped to soft peaks before adding sugar and finishing whipping to stiff peaks.

I ended up doing 3 rounds of macaron “trials”. Each time, I used the idea of grinding flavoured teas into powder to add flavour. For the first trial, I made the receipe exactly as written… not great, not enough mixing, and no feet!

… so round 2, I ended up using the same recipe and assembly method, except I added a couple of extra strokes during the mixing…

… better, but still not the amazing feet that other Daring Bakers were seeing. I filled these anyway — some with strawberry jam and some with chocolate frosting. Despite the lack of dramatic feet, they were pretty darn tasty, and the whole plate disappeared in short order.
So for round 3, I used the same mixing method, but changed the baking method to Tartlette’s. I let them dry on the counter for about 1 hour, and then baked at 280. Baking at a lower temperature seemed to help them keep their shape while cooling. These were flavoured with chai tea, and filled with chocolate ganache. Think this is it!

These are pretty addictive, and once you get the bug, you may find yourself thinking up all kinds of flavour combinations.

Here’s the basic recipe:

Ingredients
Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

And some tips on making macarons:

David Lebovitz breaks it down: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2008/09/making_french_macarons.htm…
More macaroon 411: http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/10/introduction-to-french-macarons.html
Get inspired by our own Tartlette!: http://www.mytartelette.com/search/label/macarons
Go behind the scenes of Paulette: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXIvX0-CEu0
Watch a pro pipe macaroons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_RfiFoWZKQ&feature=related