Gluten-Free Cornbread

I'm always looking for a gluten-free bread to serve with soup, etc., and since I am limited in the types of gluten-free flour I can use (no rice flour for instance), I have done a lot of experimenting, some more successful than others.  I am happy with my recipe for this corn-bread.  It is moist, and a bit dense - kind of a brownie type texture), and it is easy to cut a piece in half without it falling apart.  One important thing - DO NOT substitute corn flour for the masa harina.  Yes, they are both made from corn, but otherwise completely different.  My sister tried the corn flour instead, and the result was dry and crumbly.  

Gluten-free Cornbread

 

16 pieces

 

Ingredients

 

• 2 cups (200 gm) gluten-free oat flour, cold
• 1 1/3 cup (170 gm) Masa Harina (do not substitute corn flour)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder (optional)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• ¼ cup butter, at room temperature
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 2/3 cup milk, cold
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

 

Method

• Weigh out the flour, or spoon it into a measuring cup.  Never scoop oat flour out of the package with a measuring cup.  It will compact, and you will get more flour than you need.  
• Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a 8 or 9” square cake pan with butter.
• In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. 
• Cut the butter into pieces, then add to the bowl, rubbing the soft butter into the dry mixture with your fingers.
• Whisk egg and milk together.  Add to the dry ingredients and mix well.  
• Add half the cheese to the batter, and mix well.
• Pour the cornbread batter into the prepared cake pan, and spread the remaining cheese on top.
• Bake for 30 minutes.
• Cut into 16 pieces.  Serve hot with butter.
• Freezes well.

 

The reason I put baking powder as optional is that I don't do well with chemical leavenings, and don't use them.  

 

 

Making Bone Broth in a crock pot

 

In the dark of the Canadian midwinter, what could be more warming than having a pot of bone broth heating in your kitchen?  The aroma of "soup" cooking is very comforting at any time of the year.

I have always made bone broth in a big stock pot on my stove, but since you are supposed to cook it for a day or two, leaving a pot on a hot burner overnight left me a bit uneasy.  Nothing ever happened to warrant this unease, but still.  I decided to try doing it in my crock pot - I have a quite large one, and have always used it for cooking soup, making chili, etc.  It may make less broth at one time, but not having to "keep an eye on it" made it a relaxing experience.  The picture at the top of the post is the beginning of the beef bone broth I made that day, and below is after two days of cooking.

What a difference!  It was easy to have a large bowl nearby with a sieve over it, and I ladled everything through the that instead of trying to pour it from a pot.  I got 4 plus quarts/litres of delicious, nutrient rich bone broth.  Look at that rich colour!

Bone broth is really one of the most simple things to make, and you can use it as soup stock, when called for in a recipe, or simply heat some up to drink.  I have discovered that it is a great thing to have for my afternoon break because I feel less hungry after drinking it, something that just drinking a glass of water doesn't do for me.

Bone Broth

Ingredients

• Bones (chicken, turkey, beef, bison, ham, etc.)
• Cold filtered water
• Apple cider vinegar (2 tablespoons for poultry, up to a half cup for beef, bison, ham, etc.)
• Carrots, large pieces
• Onion, chopped in large pieces
• Celery, large pieces
• Sea Salt - optional (1 teaspoon per large crock pot)
• Optional herbs and spices of your choice.

Method

• Put the bones (about 3 lbs) and cold filtered water into the crock pot.
• Add the apple cider vinegar, and sea salt, and herbs/spices if using. 
• Add any veggies you are using.  This can include onion skins, the ends of carrots, celery leaves.  You can save all these in a bag in your freezer to add to your next batch of bone broth.
• Let the crock pot sit for one hour without heating. This allows the apple cider vinegar to penetrate the bones so more collagen from the bones will go into the broth.  This is what makes the gel that you will see sometimes under the chicken or beef when you roast it.  Collagen is excellent for your bones, teeth, etc.
• Turn the heat on the crock pot to Low, and let the broth cook for 24 - 72 hours.  You might have to add some water in between.  It may take a few hours before it looks like the broth is "cooking", but that is okay.  You don't want it to boil.
• Filter the soup, and keep the bones.  Yes - you can use the bones more than once. I know of some people who keep reusing the bones until they disintegrate.  Of course, they also add new bones after the first couple of batches, and always new veggies to each batch.  I even came across one post that recommended putting cleaned egg shells in the bone broth for added calcium. 

At the end, you will have a beautiful, nutrient rich bone broth.  It may gel, which is great, but it also may not, depending on the amount of bones per water.  Either way, it will still be packed with minerals and other nutrients for your good health. 

Nanaimo Bars

 Nanaimo Bars is one of those very Canadian treats.  I have always loved them, but they are also very rich, so one piece goes a long way.  It wasn't something Mom made often, and buying them in the grocery store—they were much too sweet. In the grocery store version, the middle section was mostly sugar. I wanted to make a gluten-free version, and also one that was less sweet, so I went searching and found a recipe at Rockrecipes.com.  

It wasn't gluten-free, but the only part with gluten was the base, and I substituted oat flour for the graham crumbs.  Worked perfectly.  Not to mention that the base was thicker than other recipes, which I loved.  And just to be sure, I made the custard powder from scratch.  If you can't have gluten, you know how careful you need to be about gluten contamination, even if the ingredient list appears safe.  So here is the recipe.  I hope you enjoy it as much as my family does!

Gluten-Free Nanaimo Bars

Adapted from Nanaimo Bars - Building a better version

Yield - 36 

Ingredients

Base 

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 2 1/4 cup (225 gm) oat flour
• 3/4 cup fine or medium unsweetened coconut
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts  

Filling 

• 2 1/4 cups icing sugar
• 1/2 cup custard powder
• 2/3 cup butter at room temperature 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons whipping cream 

Topping 

• 1 cup chocolate chips 
• 2 tablespoons butter 

Instructions 

Base

• Weigh out the flour, or spoon it into a measuring cup.  Never scoop oat flour out of the package with a measuring cup.  It will compact, and you will get more flour than you need.  

• In a medium pot, melt together the butter, sugar and cocoa over low heat.
  
• Keeping the pot on the heat, add the eggs, stirring constantly to fully cook the eggs to a soft scrambled texture.
  
• Add the oat flour, coconut and walnuts.
  
• Mix together until well combined, and then press into the bottom of a parchment paper lined 9x9 inch baking pan.
  

Filling 

• With a mixer, beat together the butter, custard powder and icing sugar.
  
• Add the vanilla extract and whipping cream and beat until smooth.
  
• This frosting should be very stiff but spreadable. If you think it's too thick, add more cream, a little at a time, until it's right.
• Spread evenly over the base, and then chill in the fridge for a couple of hours. 

Topping 

• Melt together the chocolate chips and butter over low heat, just until the chocolate is melted. 
• Spread quickly over the chilled filling. Return to the fridge until the chocolate sets.
• Cut into squares or bars. These freeze well.

Sour Cream Cookies

Every year at Christmas, it was my job—also my pleasure—to make our Grandmother's sour cream cookies for the family gathering. They were a favourite with my siblings. I would fill a couple of ice cream pails with them, and bring them along.  When I stopped being able to eat gluten, along with one of my sisters, and one of her sons, it became trickier.  My first attempt at a gluten-free version involved using rice flour. It tasted fine, but the cookies fell apart easily.  And then there was the thing about me not being able to eat rice or rice flour.

So I did some experimenting with oat flour, and these are the result.  My sister says they are just as good as the "glutinous ones." High praise in my family!

Sour Cream Cookies

 

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

 

Ingredients

•       1/2 cup butter, at room temperature

•       1/2 cup dehydrated cane sugar

•       2 large eggs, at room temperature

•       ½ teaspoon vanilla

•       2/3 cup sour cream (cold)

•       300 gm gluten-free oat flour (cold)

•       ½ teaspoon baking soda

•       1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

 

Method

•       Preheat oven to 350 F, and line a couple of cookie sheets with parchment paper.

•       Cream together the butter and sugar. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl.

•       Add the eggs and vanilla, and beat at high speed for 2 minutes.  Scrape down the   sides of the mixing bowl.

•       Add the sour cream and mix well.

•       Add the oat flour, baking soda and baking powder, and mix at low speed until well combined, scraping bowl periodically.

•       Drop heaping tablespoons of dough onto prepared cookie sheets, about 2 inches apart

•       Bake for 12 minutes, or until cookies are lightly browned at the lower edge.

•       Cool on a wire rack.

•       When completely cooled, use icing on top, and dip each cookie in shredded coconut.

•       Store in an airtight container.  They freeze well.

 

Oat Shortbread

 

I once saw a recipe for Scottish shortbread which included oatmeal.  That is how I knew that making shortbread using oat flour would be simple. And also delicious. Shortbread is subtly sweet, which makes it that much easier to eat several without feeling like you are over indulging.  :)

Oat Shortbread

 

Makes 3 dozen 3-inch cookies.

 

Ingredients

•       8 ounces cold salted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces 

•       1/2 cup packed light or dark brown sugar

•       270 grams gluten-free oat flour (cold)

 

Method

•       Preheat the oven to 300°F.  Put the oven rack in the middle of the oven. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

•       Cream the butter and brown sugar together on low speed until the butter combines with the sugar but isn’t perfectly smooth.  This will take a while but you don’t want the mixture to get warm.

•       Add the oat flour and mix on low speed, scraping the bowl frequently, until the dough has just about pulled together, about 3 minutes.  Shortbread is similar to pastry, so undermixing is better than overmixing. 

•       On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to about 1/4 inch thick, and as even as possible.

•       Cut the dough into bars or squares with a sharp knife or cookie cutters. If using cookie cutters, you can reroll the scraps and cut out more cookies. If the dough becomes sticky, refrigerate it briefly. 

•       Bake the cookies until golden on the bottom and edges, and pale to golden on top, 30 minutes to 1 hour. (After 15 minutes, rotate the baking sheet 180 degrees for even baking.) 

•       Cool on wire racks.

•       Store in airtight containers.  They freeze well.

 

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do, and that you will let me know how they turn out for you.

Faux Starbuck Oat Fudge Bars

So, first of all I have to say that I have personally never eaten one of the Starbucks Fudge Oat bars.  My cousin, who loves them, gave me a recipe she found for making them at home.  She hand wrote the recipe, and therefore, I have no idea where it came from and can't give them credit.  But here is my gluten-free adaptation of that recipe.  My cousin says the texture of the base is different, but she still thinks this is delicious.  :)

Faux Starbuck Oat Fudge Bars

 

Yield – 24 bars

 

Ingredients

Base

·      2/3 cup dehydrated cane sugar

·      2/3 cup brown sugar

·      1 cup butter, at room temperature

·      2 large eggs, at room temperature

·      2 cups (200 gm) gluten-free oat flour, cold

·      3 cups quick oats

Topping

·      1 cup whipping cream

·      2 cups chocolate chips

·      ½ cup butter

·      ½ teaspoon vanilla

 

Method

·      Weigh out the flour, or spoon it into a measuring cup.  Never scoop oat flour out of the package with a measuring cup.  It will compact, and you will get more flour than you need.  

·      Cream butter and sugar.  

·      Add eggs and mix well.

·      Add oat flour and quick oats, and mix well.

·      Spread ¾ of this evenly into a greased 9 x 13” cake pan

·      Put whipping cream, chocolate chips, and butter into a small pot over medium heat. Stir occasionally until chocolate and butter are completely melted, and mixture is smooth.

·      Add the vanilla and mix well.

·      Pour this topping over the base, and spread evenly.

·      Drop remaining 1/4 of the base in blobs randomly on the topping.

·      Bake at 350F for 25 minutes.

·      Cool completely before cutting. I recommend putting the pan in the fridge for an hour.

 

Store in an airtight container.  Freezes very well.