Brazilian Cheese Bread (gluten free and grain free)

When we first started forgoing the gluten, I discovered Chebe bread mixes at a local natural foods store. There are a few different varieties, but the original mix is for Brazilian cheese bread, or pao de queijo. The bread's only flour is tapioca starch, so it's naturally gluten free (and grain free. Tapioca starch comes frmo the cassava plant, which is a tuber). And then, when I read the ingredients, I realized that they were mostly just tapioca starch and assorted herbs and spices. You still had to add in your oil, cheese, and eggs. And tapioca starch was for sale on the very same shelf as the Chebe mixes, so buying that instead and finding my own recipe seemed like the most effective way to go.

This is the only recipe I've ever tried. It worked so well and was so easy that I never went looking for another (there are plenty online, with quite bit of variation in ingredients and technique). The only ingredients in this one are egg, oil, milk, tapioca starch, salt, and cheese. I use shredded sharp cheddar, even though I'm sure that's not very authentic, because I always have it around. You toss all the ingredients in the blender together and then pour the mixture into mini muffin tins. So easy!

My kids LOVE these. I made them pretty regularly for awhile, but had nearly forgotten about them until a couple of days ago when one of the kids was reminiscing about them. They're really tasty--chewy and cheesy. I don't consider them particularly healthy; the tapioca starch is, like it sounds, pretty much just straight starch. But the cheese, egg, and milk add in some protein and fat to make them go a little farther in filling up my perpetually hungry pack o' boys.

I ran out of tapioca starch with the batch today and had to substitute in potato starch for the last 1/2 cup or so....couldn't tell a difference.

Here's the link to the full recipe:

Easy Brazilian Cheese Bread at Simply Recipes

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Thanksgiving Part 3, plus a GF muffin recipe

Last year was our first gluten free year, and I didn't really feel ready for doing everything homemade. So I wound up buying pre-made bread (and regular old wheat rolls for our non GF guests). We did make a pie:, as I recall.

But this year I'm ready; I'm going to attempt my very first gluten free dinner rolls! For the most part, we just don't eat a lot of bread around here, and when we do I either use a mix or pick up a loaf at the store. But Thanksgiving calls for homemade rolls, don't you think? A nice thing about Thanksgiving is that a lot of the traditional dishes don't really require much or any modification to make them gluten free. Turkey? no gluten! Mashed potatoes? the same. Cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes are similarly problem free.

So, by my calculations, the things we need to worry about are the rolls, gravy, stuffing, and desserts.

Rolls: I'm going to give these a try:

Art of Gluten Free Baking

(in a perfect world, I would have done a trial run at some point in the past few weeks, but....I didn't)

Gravy: as far as I can tell, the only thing we really need to change here is using corn starch instead of flour for a thickener. Fortunately, I have a lifetime supply of corn starch that I inherited from a friend after, if I recall correctly, a botched or abandoned attempt at homemade play-doh

Stuffing: I still need to figure this out. Most of the recipes I've found seem very elaborate (you know, compared to a box of stovetop stuffing). 

Desserts: I found this recipe for a crustless pumpkin pie:

Ginger Lemon Girl

And, of course, you can't go wrong with Alton Brown's chewy gluten free chocolate chip cookie recipe. Oh no you can't. 

Okay, and then, supposing you need to whip up a quick snack/breakfast food to keep your kids out of your way while you're trying to cook all that stuff....how's about a gluten/grain free, (mostly) sugar free cinnamon muffin? Yum! 

I started with this recipe from Taste and Tell blog, and then I, of course, made some modifications. Second time I made them, I doubled the recipe, and that seemed to work better (mostly because of the 5 egg thing), but if you want to halve it, I'd do 3 eggs and maybe add a couple of extra tablespoons of coconut flour.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoon cinnamon
2 cups coconut flour

1 cup tapioca starch

2 cups erythritol

1/2 teaspoon stevia

2 cups milk
1 cup oil
5 eggs
cinnamon sugar – for sprinkling on top (1/2 cup sugar mixed with 1 tablespoon cinnamon)

Preheat oven to 375F. Prepare muffin tins.

Combine dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients. Mix only until moistened. Fill muffin cups and top with cinnamon sugar.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick entered in the center comes out clean

Sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top and serve

Grain-free, gluten-free, low-carb chocolate muffins that kids like

My first recipe post!

Our baking needs around here are pretty....specific. So I find myself adapting recipes to the point of unrecognizability more often than just using them as is--at least with baked stuff (which is pretty much all I do. Dave is the cook; I am the baker). We are all glutenless, for various reasons that mostly boil down to a lot of autoimmune stuff and things just going more smoothly health and behavior-wise when we keep it that way (no one, as far as we know, actually has celiac disease). And, owing to a personal history of gestational diabetes and a family history of type II diabetes, I try to keep carbs low for myself. And then I just prefer grain-free over not, though the kids wind up with plenty of grains in their diets, really.

So coming up with things that I can eat AND the kids like is sometimes challenging. But I made these muffins last night, and they're a hit with the whole family (even muffin skeptic, Ari). I've been toying around with the recipe for awhile, and I think I finally have it how I want it, so I'm recording it for posterity before I forget how I made it. The result is a not too sweet but very chocolately muffin with a nice, non-crumbly texture. It would be REALLY good topped with the chocolate buttercream I have leftover from Dave's birthday cupcakes, but I'm trying not to go there. For the BABY.

Food photography is not my thing. But this is what they look like:

Uhh, like chocolate muffins. The recipe is very, very loosely adapted from a King Arthur flour recipe. So loosely that I wasn't sure I should even mention it.

Here's what you need:
Makes around 16 muffins. Inconvenient, I know. That's just how it turned out.

2/3 cup cocoa
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons coconut flour
3/4 cup tapioca starch
1 1/4 cups erythritol
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 bar (more or less) 85% cocoa chocolate, chopped
3 eggs
1/2 tsp stevia
1 cup whole milk
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp vinegar
1 stick butter, melted

Preheat oven to 400. Prepare greased muffin tins or use silicone muffin cups (I LOVE my silicone muffin cups, btw).

Mix cocoa, coconut flour, tapioca starch, erythritol, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large mixing bowl.

In a smaller mixing bowl, whisk eggs and then mix well with other liquid ingredients. Pour liquid mixture into dry ingredient bowl and mix. Fold in chopped chocolate.

Fill muffin tins around 3/4 of the way full and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

I am figuring, very roughly, that these come in at around 7-8 grams of carbs per muffin, assuming you zero out the erythritol. The tapioca starch is by far the biggest source of carbs. I use Ener-G brand, which, the nutrition info says has 63 grams in 3/4 cups, or just under 4 grams per muffin. The milk and eggs and chocolate all add a bit more. Most of the carbs in coconut flour are fiber, so another small amount of net carbs from that. And I'm probably forgetting something, but that's what I'm coming up with.

A few notes on ingredients:

Coconut flour/tapioca starch: coconut flour is my go to flour these days. Combining it with the tapioca starch makes it hold together better, keeps you from needing to use a gazillion eggs like in a lot of coconut flour recipes, and just kind of gives things a more "normal" taste and texture. I don't think you taste coconut at all in this recipe, but I may just be used to it. Cocoa does a good job of masking it, though.

Erythritol/stevia: my favorite fake sugar combo. Both because I like the way it tastes and because I haven't found anything too scary about erythritol. Maybe there'll be a study soon saying it makes lab rats grow an extra head, but for now I feel fine about eating it and giving it to the kids.