The Gluten Free Path

Posts Tagged ‘gluten free desserts’

     I’ve been making gluten free zucchini bread for almost a year. It’s wonderful! Best thing ever! I couldn’t believe that I had yet to do a post about it. Well, I was mistaken, I had done a post already, over at The Modern Hippy, my other blog. Of course! I forgot! I was arguing with myself and Rick over moving that post here, because this is a gluten free specific website. Only makes sense. I just had to let go, to be okay with taking something from my first blog, what I consider to be my “baby”. A silly project I thought up one hot summer afternoon. Finally, today I feel it is okay to take away from my “baby”. I’m not taking away, I’m repurposing a post that no longer fits over there for another blog where it will fit better – hand-me-downs if you will.
     So, without further ado. Here it is with some slight alterations.

Gluten Free Zucchini Bread

     This summer my parents have a zucchini plant. It was so cute when I planted it. And now, all that “hard” work paid off! It has produces so many zucchinis I’ve lost count. Not wanting to waste them and having fond memories of zucchini bread, I decided to make gluten-free zucchini bread. Four or more tries later, it is still the best zucchini bread ever! It just gets better with each loaf! Even people whom are not gluten-free nuts say it’s good!

     After searching for a few minutes online, I found one recipe that seemed to be the easiest to modify. This is the end result.

     Gluten-Free Zucchini Bread Recipe:

     Set oven to 350 degrees (or 325 if using a glass bread pan).
o 2 eggs
o 1 cup sugar, unbleached
o .5 cup of oil, safflower
o 2 tsp. of vanilla, fair trade
o .5 tsp. of baking soda
o .5 tsp. of cinnamon (and a pinch of nutmeg – optional)
o .5 tsp of salt
o 1.5 cups of gluten-free flour (I use Red Mills Gluten-Free All-purpose Baking Flour.)
o Pinch of Xanthan Gum, optional
o 1.5 cups of shredded zucchini, organic if you can
o 1 cup of chopped walnuts

     Mix the first four ingredients, then add the baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Carefully, (slowly if you can) add the gluten-free baking flour and xanthan gum. Then mix in the zucchini and walnuts.
     Grease and flour a loaf pan. (It isn’t absolutely necessary and I forgot to do it on more than one occasion, just makes things easier.) Pour, taste if you want and bake for up to 75 minutes, or until a knife comes clean. (I’d say tooth pick but that would be promoting disposable items which I would like to avoid.)

     Notes: Xanthan gum is optional because we don’t like the way it tastes. I’ve tried it with .5 a tsp, 2 pinches, 1 pinch, and a dusting that was so small it couldn’t be considered a pinch. People will tell you that it doesn’t have a taste. However, it does have a specific texture that it adds to whatever it mixes with – slippery, almost greasy. We don’t like it. The eggs in this recipe hold the bread loaf together well enough. It only becomes slightly more crumbly without it. So in my opinion, xanthan gum is only to be used if you don’t want to use eggs.
     Other notes: I have also substituted walnuts with almonds. It’s still good, but I prefer the walnuts. Oh and please excuse the odd bulletting, I don’t know what’s wrong with my word program, it’s temperamental.

Additional Notes:
     Last year I was cooking with two Teflon-coated bread pans. I have since learned that Teflon doesn’t biodegrade, and can end up being stored in your body, which just adds to the toxic load it already has to deal with. I use glass bread pans now.
When cooking with glass you need to decrease the oven temperature about 25 degrees. So turn down your oven to 325 degrees instead. I made the mistake of forgetting that when I made a loaf a week ago, it didn’t burn, just got really dark and looked burned. Nothing wrong with that other than it looking suspicious. I’d rather my food not look burned.

Gluten Free Apple Crisp

     Apple crisp is one of my favorite desserts. I’ve made it gluten free so that Rick and I may enjoy it as often as we would like. Remember to find, or make your own gluten free flour. Because of contamination, find good gluten free oats as well. There are many out there. If your local co-op, health food store, or regular grocery store doesn’t already carry them, make a request. Or if you want to leave out the middle man, order in bulk directly for the makers. “Bob’s Red Mills” and “Gifts of Nature” are two companies that provide gluten free oats. On a side note, Gifts of Nature oats have a higher protein content than normal which can be good for those with diabetes (my mom eats them for breakfast everyday).

● 2 cups of oatmeal + 1 cup more
● 1 cup of Gluten Free Flour
● 2 sticks of butter
● 1 cup of brown Sugar
● A couple of pinches of Turbinado sugar
● ½ to 1 tsp. cinnamon + ½ to 1 more tsp.
● ½ cup of regular unbleached sugar
● 6 medium/large apples

     Peal 6 medium/large apples. Slice into half inch cubes. Add unbleached sugar and ½ teaspoon of cinnamon. Do a taste test of the apple mix, if it’s not cinnamony enough, add another ½ teaspoon!
     Take two sticks of butter, microwave, or if you have two sticks left out over night use those. Mix with 1 cup of brown sugar. Add 1 cup of gluten free flour (I use “Bob’s Red Mills”, or the bulk stuff our co-op has). Stir until smooth. Add 1 teaspoons of cinnamon. Slowly add (about a cup at a time), 2 cups of gluten free oatmeal. Combine. Take about ½ of the mix and layer it on the bottom of your baking dish, using a fork to make it smooth. It should be about a ¼ inch thick. Pour in the apple mix. Add 1 cup more of gluten free oatmeal to the topping to make the mix more lumpy/crumbly. Carefully sprinkle over the apples trying to cover the whole surface of the apple mound. Sprinkle some turbinado sugar over the topping. As much as you want!

     Place in an oven heated to 300 degrees if you are using a glass dish, if not then about 325. You want it to cook slowly over a long period of time, so that the middle gets cooked completely. Cook for an hour then check. Mine takes about an hour and fifty minutes to two hours. It is done when you can hear the apples bubbling for awhile, as long as the top isn’t too dark. To completely make sure the apples in the center are cooked use a knife or a skewer to poke into the middle.
If you have self control let cool, if not at least wait until the apples stop bubbling. Enjoy!