Reese's Cupcakes

For my MIL's birthday, I asked her if she wanted chocolatey or fruity?  She voted chocolate.  I then asked her if she liked Butterfingers or Reese's more? Reese's.  And thus became this year's birthday cupcakes!

 

I found Gluten-Free Chocolate cake recipe found here and it did not disappoint.  I'm still using the Namaste Perfect Flour Blend that my Costco sells, but eventually I need to work on mixing up my own blend. 

I topped these with the peanut butter buttercream and some chopped Reese's.  My goodness.  Talk about delicious and rich!

These are the perfect blend of a not too sweet cake and yummy peanut butter goodness on top.

Enjoy!

For the GF Chocolate Cake Recipe.

Peanut Butter Butter Cream
2 sticks butter, softened
16 oz Powdered sugar
1 tbsp Vanilla
2-3 tbsp milk
2/3 cup peanut butter

Whip the butter and peanut butter until smooth and creamy.  Gradually add in powdered sugar.  Once all of the powdered sugar is incorporated, add in vanilla and a tablespoon of milk at a time until frosting is desired consistency.

Frost cupcakes and top with chopped Reese's.

Spiced Chocolate Brownies

In sheer excitement over my new found gluten free baking journey, I think I may have overdone it on stocking.  As I said before, as soon as I accepted the challenge, I ordered about 20lbs of different types of flours from Vitacost.com.  When they were delivered to my door, the cardboard box was a little disheveled and when you opened it, all of my flours were in individually packaged "bricks" stacked together.  As I unloaded my flours, my husband joked that it looked like (what he would imagine to be) a drug shipment.  We still laugh about this "delivery."  About two days after, I found the Namaste GF flour blend at Costco which I ended up loving and buying 4 bags of.  At this point, you'd think my pantry would be well-stocked, if not overly-stocked.  Well, let's not stop there.  Over a month ago, I was visiting my sister in California and I decided to stock up on bags of almond meal from Trader Joe's.  At this point, Austin's new TJ store had yet to open, so I wanted to make sure I had almond meal a plenty to get me through to the opening.

Little known fact though, I'd never used almond meal before so I'm not entirely sure why I thought I needed so much of it.  In any case, I had opened one bag to get a feel for texture, etc, and after a month of being in the fridge decided I'd better use it.  Insert Foodgawker search for almond meal recipes here.

This recipe was to showcase a specific brand of molasses.  I did not use that brand, I used what I had.  It also said to bake pan brownie-style, but I liked the idea of individual bites.   

These brownie bites taste a little bit like a mixture between a cake-y brownie or dense cake.  Take your pick.  Then I dressed them up with a shot of cinnamon chocolate buttercream and they were delicious!

I kind of want to experiment with the spices a little more.  Maybe add cloves and nutmeg?  More gingerbread style?

I basically followed this recipe that I found on Foodgawker with a few changes you can see below. Enjoy!

Mini-Spiced Chocolate Brownies
1 cup almond meal
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp cocoa powder
4 tbsp flour (I used Namaste GF blend)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp molasses
4 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line mini-muffin pan and fill liners 2/3 full.  Bake for 10 minutes. Allow to cool then frost.

Spiced Chocolate Buttercream
1 stick butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tbsp milk

Cream sugar and powdered sugar until smooth.  Add cinnamon and vanilla extract. Add 1 tbsp milk at a time and whip until desired consistency.

Homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches

Gluten free baking: take one.

The hubs is a cookie fiend.  Love loves cookies (especially chocolate chip cookies), cookie monster style. Sadly since I've been cutting out gluten, his weekly cookie consumption has also taken a hit.  So I figured I should do right by him since he's been so wonderful about this diet change and work on perfecting his chocolate chip cookie.

While I'm anxiously awaiting my shipment of flours and new digital kitchen scale, I was shopping at Costco the other day and came across one of their new products, Namaste Perfect Flour Blend.  Each of the flours in this blend are ones that I ordered so I figured for $10, I should try their perfect blend (and ended up buying two bags in case it really was perfect).

First batch of cookies, I used a recipe I found online that called for coconut milk, a few different types of flours, and less eggs.  I followed the recipe exactly except for using the Namaste flour blend.  The blend is pretty dense, so I ended up cutting the amount of flour down.  When I get my kitchen scale, I'll actually measure out the flour by grams which should be a little more accurate.

Batch 1: Overcooked and crumbly.
Batch 2: (same dough) Cooked for less time, better right out of the oven, super crumbly the next day.

Day 2, I decided to "make" my own recipe based on what I had read for GF baking and going off of my favorite Tollhouse recipe.  Result: awesome.  You'd never know they were gluten free.  Even the dough was dare I say pretty much identical---even better after it was chilled for a few hours. To combat the "crumbly" day after cookie, I let them cool almost to room temperature then packaged them away and put them in the freezer.  The days following, we would grab a few and let them come to room temp microwave them for immediate enjoyment and they were perfect.

And to kick things up a notch, I made some this Salted Caramel Coconut Ice Cream on Labor Day to make sandwich cookies out of.  Also great to just scoop out onto warm, microwaved cookies---truth be told, that's what I had for breakfast after I worked out this morning.  That's okay, right?

Tips and Tricks for GF Baking I tried:

• Bake at a temperature 25 degrees lower than regular recipe
• Chill dough prior to scooping and baking
• Use brown sugar for chewy cookie and more egg yolks
• Beat butter and sugar longer than normal
• Use room temperature ingredients

All in all, GF baking round 1 = success.

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups Namaste Perfect Flour Blend
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs + 1 egg yolk, room temperature
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in separate bowl and set aside.  Beat butter until light and fluffy ( I used my paddle attachment).  Add brown sugar and continue to beat until well combined and fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.  Gradually add in flour mixture until well mixed. Fold in chocolate chips.

Chill dough for 1-2 hours.  Drop by spoonful onto parchment paper lined baking sheet.  Slightly press down tops of cookies.  Cook for 8-10 minutes. I cooked for 8 minutes then let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 2 more before moving them to cooling rack.

Eat or freeze!

***I also made gluten free pizza crust with the Namaste Perfect Flour Blend and it turned out fabulous.  Nice and chewy and delicious!***