Gluten Free Desserts, Sightseeing, and my Dissertation

I stayed with my cousins for the last couple weeks of dissertation writing. I can't thank them enough for putting me up and putting up with me during such a stressful time. In an attempt to thank them, I baked quite a bit for them. Below follows a stream of consciousness post including some gluten free baking and some miscellaneous non-food photos.

 

Circus Cakes

I clearly have a mental block about posting these, seeing as I made them just about 2 years ago. They were for a Diabetes UK fundraiser. Yes, I know, cake for an event about diabetes... The event was for children with Type I diabetes and their families. And what kid, diabetic or not, doesn't want cake?

The challenge was twofold. First, I had to make at least some of the cake gluten free since type I diabetics are more likely to be ceoliac than the rest of the population (also the carbs in flour aren't great for the blood sugar.) Second, the cake had to be circus themed.

Happy Bastille Day!

Yes, I know Bastille Day is in July. I completely forgot to post this...whoops.

I'm not French and, while I like France and speak a bit of French, I'm by no means a Francophile. But I really can't pass up celebrating a holiday that screams for French food (plus in London's Borough Market they have snail races and a full size guillotine slicing watermelons...how can you not get into the holiday?)

Chocolate, Blackberry, Coconut Cake

Every year, my mom asks for a chocolate birthday cake. Past that, I get to do what I want. So I decided to try an idea I'd seen on the food network: using jam to flavor buttercream. In this case I used a high quality blackberry jam. For the filling I made a coconut buttercream by adding creamed coconut to the buttercream. Two delicious, flavored buttercreams with minimal effort.

Flower Arranging

I make bouquets now. Bouquets are cool. Actually, I've been making bouquets for years. The first 'grown-up' craft I got into was flower arranging. I bought books on it. I watched florists working. I stocked up on florists wire and tape (which comes in very useful when I make sugarpaste flowers, but that's beside the point.) I even befriended a local florist (a very nice woman) who gave me left over flowers to practice with and showed me how to use chicken wire instead of florist foam as a base for non-posy arrangements.

Orange Cranberry Scones

I made these a while ago, but I figure I've been posting a ton of scones so why not slip these in. These are simple raisin scones, with dried cranberries substituted for the raisins and some orange zest and extract in the dough. I love the combination of orange and cranberry, and the dried cranberries are especially good because they don't get mushy and overly sweet like raisins when they cook.

Espresso Scones with Chocolate Chips

These are the delicious FCI cream scones with a healthy does of espresso powder and coffee extract added to the dough. I kicked them up even more with chocolate chips. Yum!

Croissant Bread Pudding

I got tickets to Richard III with Martin Freeman! The problem is, the normal tickets are expensive. So I waited on line (with a friend, thank goodness) from an absurdly early hour for reduced price advance tickets. Long wait short, we got great seats for about 1/4 of the price! I mention this because it (plus the day trip we'd taken the day before...whoops, bad planning) is the reason that I have terrible photos of my croissant bread pudding.

Fourth of July Berry Tart

This is just a simple tart. I made a nice crust (not my best work but I was busy with exams), filled it with a nice whipped cream and mascarpone mixture, and topped it with fresh berries. Delicious, easy, fresh, and (with the strawberries and blueberries) very patriotic.

French Toast with Maple Hazelnut Butter

Who doesn't like breakfast for dinner? Especially brioche french toast with sautéed pink lady apples and maple hazelnut butter. I'm not sure any more needs to be said. (Although I should note that I was lazy and used all natural jarred hazelnut butter and stirred in good quality maple syrup--rather than making the nut butter from scratch.)

Chocolate and Pear Tart

My friend, Katy, had me over for dinner ages ago and made me this delicious chocolate pear tart from Martha Stewart. Turns out I have the recipe and, since it is gluten free, I figured I'd make it for the cousins. As when Katy made it, it was a hit!

Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Bean Buttercream

I'm Mercedes and I'm a stress eater. Just about two months ago, I was writing multiple term papers and, unfortunately, was deciding if we had to put my cat to sleep (we ended up having to.) She was quite old and had been healthy until about a week prior when her kidneys started shutting down. The vet was trying a few things that would keep her quality of life up and hopefully give her a few more weeks or months.

Pumpkin Scones with Brown Butter Glaze

These are my usual pumpkin scones (via Alices's Tea Cup) but miniature and topped with a lovely brown butter glaze. The nutty brown butter complements the pumpkin nicely and who doesn't like a scone with glaze?

Christmas Cake

Whoops, as with the Christmas candy, I completely forgot to post the rest of the photos of the Christmas cake I made last year. I made the same chocolate and orange cake I'd done the year before (since it was a hit) and kept the marzipan decorations because the family loves marzipan. I wanted to do something different for the decorations. After much Pinterest searching, I decided to use quilled snowflakes as decoration.

Christmas Candy

Remember I mentioned that I made chocolates for Christmas in 2013? Probably not since it's been ages. But I finally remembered that I promised to tell you about the chocolates I made and miserably failed to uphold said promise, posting about only two of the half dozen candies I made. Sorry. To make up for it, I will finally tell you about the other four. All in this one post. From my least favorite (don't get me wrong I liked them all) to my favorite:

Mocha Scones

I love a good scone (as evidenced by my scone kick of late.) A good scone should be light and flakey, rather liked a good biscuit. It need not be terribly moist (in fact I typically prefer a dry, flakey scone.) It should not be dense. It should taste like something other than butter and flour (though that's a good start) and they should never be overly sweet. If scones have additives (like chocolate chips or dried fruit) they shouldn't mar the texture. They should have something on top (a simple egg wash will do.) I love a good scone--but I'm very particular about what makes a scone good.

In this case I made my favorite scone recipe from the FCI, with a few key alterations. I substituted a substantial amount of cocoa powder for some of the flour and tossed in a handful of mini chocolate chips. I also added some powdered espresso powder to the mix. For the topping I added an extra coffee kick by mixing some coffee extract into the heavy cream before I sprinkled a healthy amout of sugar on top. The perfect chocolate scone!

White Grapefruit, Strawberry, and Basil Scones

I've been on a scone kick of late. They are simple to make, great to freeze, and delicious. But they can be a bit boring. So I made these. They have white grapefruit juice and zest mixed with milk to create a makeshift buttermilk replacement--citrus replaces the acidity of the buttermilk in the recipe and the milk adds the necessary moisture and fat. Before I added the grapefruit, however, I steeped the milk with some basil leaves. (I love basil, mint's savory cousin, with citrus and berries.) So the grapefruit and basil milk with strawberries made otherwise dull scones something really interesting and quite delicious, if I do say so myself.

I've done a bit more scone experimentation recently, so I'll post them soon.

Brownie Bites

Have you ever had 'two bite brownies'? I love them! Admittedly they aren't the best brownies in the world (they are quite good...but they are still store-bought). But the size is perfect, as is the fudgy texture. I've been trying to recreate them with a better brownie, however I've had trouble with the texture for that size. Of course I've tried to recreate them with good but not great brownie recipes (remember the great brownie showdown? I like all these recipes, but I've found better ones since.)

Triple Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies~With Recipe

These are exactly what they sound like: oatmeal cookies with three types of chocolate. I used one of my favorite normal chocolate chip cookie recipes (I like the recipe because you don't need an electric mixer) and substituted steel cut oatmeal for some of the flour. Instead of one type of chocolate chip, I used white, milk and dark chocolate chips. And a lot of them.

They were chewy and delicious! Not too oaty, but still noticably an oatmeal cookie. Plus you can't go wrong with three types of chocolate crammed into one cookie!

And because I'm so sweet, here's the recipe:

Passover Dessert

After such a lovely dinner it's hard to know how we had room for dessert. But we did. Unlike the dinner, the desserts were all gluten-free, not just unleavened. So everyone could eat everything. And everyone did.