Two Pear Pies

Sometimes, I go on a baking craze. I have all the ingredients, time, and energy I need, not to mention a huge bag of pears from my voice student's garden, and I go, why shouldn't I bake two pies in one night? Sure, the first pie didn't go quite as planned, and I ended up baking until 10:00 at night, but the ending result was still quite rewarding.

These two pies compliment each other nicely. My first one, a Pear and Almond Tart, is mild, not too sweet, and nutty. I adapted this recipe to be gluten free by replacing the rather odd crust recipe (which involved grating the dough and pressing it into the pan...) with a regular gluten free pie crust. The tastes worked extremely well together. My second pie, a Rustic Pear and Apple pie, is a great burst of flavors and extremely simple to put together. The tart apples and dried cherries in this recipe go extremely well with the crust, and make a great contrast with the sweet pear tart. Not that you neccessarily have to make both of these pies at once, however.

Pear and Almond Tart

What you will need:

• 1 unbaked gluten free pie crust (Click here for the Rice-based pie crust recipe and instructions)
• 3/4 cup ( 1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 1/6 cup blanched whole almonds (blanching optional)
  
• 2 eggs
• 3-6 ripe comice pears, cored, peeled, and halved.

-Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare pie crust according to directions (place in 9-inch tart pan if desired) and bake for 10 minutes, until lightly golden brown.

-Place pears facedown in the pan. Lower oven temperature to 300 degrees F.

-For the filling, cream the butter and sugar until the mixture is pale and light. Put the almonds in a food processor and chop until fine. Add the butter and sugar into the food proccessor and blend, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Pour over the pears. Place pie on a cookie sheet or other pan before putting in oven and bake approx 1 hour and 20 minutes, until the top is crisp and tests cleanly with a toothpick.



Notes: This was my first time using a tart pan as opposed to a pie pan, and I didn't really know what the difference was, so I thought I'd say for those of you who are also new to tart pans. Instead of pinching the dough to the edge, as with pie pans, you simply press the dough into the crimped edges of the pan and trim off the excess by wiping your finger along the top of the pan. It gives the tart a very professional look, though in this case, the filling tends to obscure the crust.

Also, I had read that working with the pie dough when it is cold makes shaping it much easier, but I had never really tried it. This time, I kept the balls of dough in the refridgerator for about 20 minutes before hand, until they were a little tough to maneuver, and the dough held together magnificently.

It is extremely important to place a cookie sheet or other pan underneath the tart pan. When the butter based filling is still relatively cool, it holds together and forms a mound. This mound liquifies during baking and will spill over the edge of the pan (as you can see in the picture above) and into your oven if you do not place a pan underneath to catch it. I learned this the hard way.

For those of you who don't know how to blanch an almond or what blanching means (I certainly didn't) my fellow baker, Vicki, informed me. This is how I understand it, though the internet may be able to explain more accurately than I can: You take a bowl of almonds and pour boiling water over them. The almonds will begin to slip out of their casings, and after draining the water, you can slip the casings all the way off with your hands. Repeat the process if neccessary. I did not blanch my almonds, as I felt two pies was ambitious enough, and the only effect it seems to have is a slightly bitter after flavor, but nothing drastic.

Lastly, I did not use comice pears, that I know of. I would imagine that if you want to make this recipe to its full potential, you should use comice pears, but any old ripe pears that you have should work fairly well.

Rustic Apple and Pear Pie

What you will need:

• 1 unbaked gluten free pie crust (Click here for the Rice-based pie crust recipe and instructions)
• 3 cups peeled, cored, peeled, and sliced apples
• 1 cup peeled, cored, peeled, and sliced pears
• 1/2 cup dried cherries or cranberries
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch or potato starch

-Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare pie crust following directions listed above.

-In a large bowl, combine the ingredients for the filling. Place in the center of the pie crust, spreading as evenly as possible.

-Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees F. Cover the edges of the pie crust or the entire pie with aluminum foil to prevent over browning. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F and continue baking until the fruits are very tender, approximately 40 minutes. The juices will be clear and bubbly.


Notes: For this recipe, I used the same unidentified pears as in the pear and almond tart and ripe fujii apples. The recipe recommends using Yellow Delicious apples and barely ripe pears, which I have used before, but unfortunately, the pie was a gift, and I never tasted it.

The original version of this recipe recommends rolling out the pie crust dough to about 15 inch in diameter, placing the dough on a lightly greased baking sheet, placing the filling ingredients in the center of it, and carefully folding the edges of the dough over the filling, making a more rustic looking pie. This turns out a little bit messier than a traditional pie crust, but surprisingly well, and if you are looking to break out of the traditional pie crust pattern, I'd recommend trying it.

(The source for the original Pear and Almond Tart filling recipe will be listed soon, which I halved and replaced the crust recipe with a gluten free one, and the pie crust recipe was taken from Roben Ryberg's "You Won't Believe It's Gluten Free." The Rustic Apple and Pear Pie recipe was a slightly adjusted version of Roben Ryberg's recipe also.)

Coffee Cake

I had never made a coffee cake before and was slightly nervous about making my first one when I volunteered to do so for my friend's brunch. I had no idea that making a coffee cake could be so easy, and yet so tasty! This recipe makes a delicious, delicate, not-too-sweet coffee cake, that will make your friends forget they are eating something gluten-free.

What you will need:

• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1 1/4 cups cornstarch
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 xanthan gum

Topping:

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons butter

-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9-inch round or square baking pan.

-Combine the oil with the sugar in a medium-size bowl. Add the eggs. Beat with an electric mixer until light yellow and a little thicker. This will take a minute or two with a mixer, or build up some muscles by doing it by hand until the mixture is extra bubbly. Add the other batter ingredients and beat well. The batter will be very thick. Spread the batter in the prepared baking pan.

-Mix all the topping ingredients together in a bowl, until they crumble. (The sugar will not be evenly mixed with the butter, because in order for this to happen, the mixture reaches a creamy texture). Sprinkle evenly on top of the batter in the pan.

-Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle tests cleanly.

And that's it!

If you are looking for a place to start in gluten free baking, this is a great one, because the process is so simple, the baking time is very easy to judge, and the result is so rewarding, for both you, and your friends (gluten free or not!).

(This recipe is the corn-based version of the Coffee Cake recipe from "You Won't Believe It's Gluten Free" By Roben Ryberg. Potato flour and rice flour based versions of this recipe also exist.)

Graham Cracker Experiment

For ages I've been looking for a really good Cheese Cake recipe. I tried several that required no crust and one which I created a chocolate cookie crumb crust which I spent hours slaving over, and turned out only so so. Most of the truly amazing cheese cake recipes required a graham cracker crust, and I had simply never heard of a gluten free graham cracker.

After a little bit of research, I discovered that a graham cracker was essentially a cross between a cookie and a cracker, flavored with honey. But even in the gluten-filled world, graham cracker recipes are scarce. I looked at my gluten free cookie and cracker recipes and began formulating something I thought would turn out like a graham cracker, then compared the recipe to a regular graham cracker recipe, made a few adjustments, and felt satisfied. I wanted something that would become a dough I could roll out, with a small amount of agent so it would not rise, and a lot of flavor.

Here's what I did:

• 7 tablespoons butter (cold)
• 1 cup rice flour
• 2/3 cup corn starch
• 1/3 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3 tablespoons yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

-I preheated the oven to 400 degrees F.
-I creamed the butter enough so that it would be easy to mix in other ingredients. I then added the rice flour, sugar, salt, xanthan gum, baking soda, and cinnamon, and mixed until the mixture formed a fine crumb.

-Next, I added the vanilla, 2 tabelspoons of the yogurt, and the honey. Honey is rather difficult to measure and add to ingredients, and I'm not entirely sure if it's easier when it's cold or warm. I do recommend spooning it into the measuring cup rather than pouring it. Mixed well.

-The mixture was too wet. It was creamy rather than the dough texture I was looking for. After a little more experimenting, I ended up adding the 2/3 cup of corn starch and additional tablespoon of yogurt. The result was a satisfying ball of dough that was a very pretty brown color and very yummy.

-I lightly greased a baking sheet and placed the dough onto the center of it. With a piece of parchment paper on top, I rolled the dough out until it was about a quarter of an inch thick. (There ended up being too much for one baking sheet, so I cut the edges of the circle of dough, making a square on the sheet, collected the excess dough, and rolled it out into a separate baking sheet.) Then, with a knife, I cut the dough into squares, about the size of normal graham grackers, and pricked each square several times with a fork.

-The actual baking process was a little convoluted. The smaller and slightly thinner batch was placed on the center rack, which proved to be too much for it. After eight minutes, it was burnt on the edges. The larger batch stayed on the top rack. After the initial eight minutes, I lowered the oven temperature to 325 degrees F. I checked this batch regularly, and the edges browned slowly. I baked it for about 25 minutes total.

-First out of the oven, both batches were rather soft, though the top was solid enough to tap with my fingernail. However, after cooling, the crackers became increasingly crispy until the entire batch were as crispy and crunchy as normal graham crackers.


The results: The biggest thing I learned with this batch is that if these graham crackers brown at all on the edges, they will taste burnt. The middle crackers, however, that turned the light brown color of normal graham crackers, were delicious, and as far as my memory could tell me, tasted very much like normal graham crackers as well. They were a little thicker, and a little heavier in taste, so they left my thirsty after one or two. I had my boss who is a professional gluten free baker and cook try one and she thought they were very tasty. My boyfriend ate one without knowing what it was and said, "oh! These are the graham crackers you were talking about making!" He grabbed another one on his way out and wanted me to leave the rest to be consumed later.

I feel like the most experimentation needs to be done with the baking time and temperature. I might change the flour ratios around a little bit, so that there is more corn starch and less rice flour, which I think might help with the heavy texture, and I might decrease the amount of cinnamon just a little cause it seemed a little strong, but really, I want to get a batch that is good all the way through, not just the center ones.

All in all, I feel like this recipe was a success. It produced graham crackers that are extremely similar to the original gluten filled ones that were tasty and enjoyed by non gluten-free citizens, and they made very suitable crumbs which could be used for a Cheese Cake, which was in truth, the original goal.

(This recipe was completely of my own invention. )

Bagels

There are some baked goods in the gluten free world that you fear you will never eat again once you have removed gluten from your diet. Bagels used to be one of my favorite foods, eaten with hummus or cream cheese or just plain butter, and I missed them dearly. Finally, I decided to try this Bagel recipe, no boiling water required. They turned out gorgeous, and I ate one the second it was cool enough to handle. The salt water spray gives a delicious flavor while also giving the bagels a nice chewy outside. I love to make a batch or two of these and eat them for the rest of the week. They make such an easy, tasty meal. I recently made them for a brunch where there was a mountain of normal bagels, and they were a big hit for the few gluten free guests there. Feel like a bagel is too difficult a project for you to undertake? The baking process is not too complicated at all!

What you will need:

Water spray:

• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Bagels:

• 3 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1/3 cup yogurt
• 1 cup cornstarch
• 1/3 cup rice flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a baking sheet.

-Mix the warm water and salt in a small spray bottle. Set aside.

-Place the egg whites in a medium-size bowl. Beat until very frothy, with big and little bubbles. Add the remaining ingredients. Mix well until very thick. (If you are mixing by hand and not with an electric mixer, I highly recommend mixing after adding the corn starch until it is fully blended with the first four ingredients, and then adding the rest. It makes for less lumps). The dough will appear soft, with many very small air bubbles.

-Place the dough in a resealable plastic bag. Cut 1 inch diagonally off one lower corner of the bag. Pipe the dough into three large or four small circles onto the prepared baking sheet. This sounds difficult but it's really quite easy. Squeeze the dough into one corner of the bag, leaving a little space at the bottom where you will cut the tip of the bag off. Cut the tip, and start squeezing the dough out. Try to keep squeezing the dough out as continually as possible for each bagel, so that the shape is more even. The pipe of dough will naturally curve to one side or the other, so follow that curve. When you complete the circle, let the dough overlap just a little and break the pipe of dough so you can start on the next one. With wet finger tips, smooth the overlapped bit of dough into the body of the bagel. Shape it however you want.

-Spray liberally with the salt water. Bake for 5 minutes. Spray again with salt water.

-Continue baking for 15 to 20 more minutes, until nicely browned.


They seem to turn out perfect every time.

Notes: Spraying the bagels 5 minutes after baking is very important. This allows the crust to form. If you forget and spray them later in the baking, they will still form the chewy crust but will not be as golden grown on the top. It also pays to measure the amount of warm water and salt, rather than estimating the measurements.

With the piping, you have a lot of say in what kind of bagels you are making. Typically you will want to make smaller circles than you think you should, because they do rise during baking. If you want more bagels out of your batch of dough, make the cut in the bag 1/2 inch wide, making for a thinner bagel. For thicker bagels, make it an inch wide as in the instructions and pipe them into tighter circles, however, the bagel count probably will go down. If you have some leftover dough that doesn't seem like it will be enough to make an entire bagel, make a mini bagel or just pipe little blobs onto the baking sheet to make bagel bites. Experiment to find the size and shape that you like best.

These bagels are at their best fresh. Freeze them over night and, to get some of the moisture back in the next few days, toast them before eating. Thawed, they are still good, but a little dry and grainy.

(This recipe was the Corn and rice-based version of the Bagel recipe in Roben Ryberg's "You Won't Believe It's Gluten Free." A potato flour and sorghum flour version of this recipe also exists.)

Cheese Crackers

One of the more frustrating aspects of living gluten free is the shocking number of snack foods that contain gluten. Even if they are not a wheat based snack, a large number of these snacks contain maltodextrin, a malt based preservative, or they have been processed in facilities using wheat. And sometimes, when you are socializing with friends, or when you just need something quick before you run out the door, you get tired of plain old salted potato chips.

Every person i know who has tried these crackers has become instantly addicted, and so they make a great gift. Once your friends are hooked, they will think you the most generous person on earth for baking them a batch of their new favorite crackers. The corn starch base makes for a melt in your mouth texture, while the crackers themselves are very cheesy, crispy, and with just enough salt. And they are quite simple to make! (Apologies to my dairy free friends. This is one I don't think we'll be converting. I might be able to make my saltine recipe dairy free, however.)

What you will need:

• 4 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded
• 4 tablespoons butter, softened
• 3/4 cup corn starch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons milk

Topping:

• Salt, dried herbs, or spices, as desired.

-Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease a baking sheet.

-Combine all the ingredients, except the milk, in a medium-size bowl. Mix until the mixture resembles a fine crumb. Add the milk and beat well. (Use your hands if you're having trouble getting all the dry ingredients incorporated into the dough).

-On a lightly greased surface (or just the baking sheet), pat or roll the dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into 3/4 inch squares or another small shape that you like. You can also cut the dough into larger round or square cracker shapes, if desired (just extend baking time).

-Prick the tops of the crackers with a fork and sprinkle lightly with your desired topping.

-Bake on the prepared baking sheet until golden brown and crisp, approximately 10 minutes. The crackers will be light and crispy, although barely browning at the edges. The bottom of the crackers will have a bit more color.

My mouth waters just looking at these guys.

Notes: It's important to shred the cheese as opposed to grating it. Grated cheese is too thick to be thoroughly mixed with the other ingredients. Simply use on of the sides of your cheese grater with the small holes.

This recipe says you can use cookie cutters and the like to shape your crackers however you want. I didn't have a large amount of success with that, as I found the dough too greasy and sticky. However, if you experiment with adding a little more dry ingredients and handling the dough correctly, it may be possible. My method is to pat the dough out directly onto the baking sheet and then use a knife to cut a grid pattern into the dough. The edges look rough and ragged, but this lessens with baking. Once they are done, I use the old knife lines like a perforated edge and cut the crackers apart with my spatula.

Also, to retain freshness, these crackers should be stored in air tight containers. If they start seeming a little soft, you can re-crisp them by putting them in a hot oven for a few minutes.

(This recipe was the corn-based version of the Cheese Crackers recipe from Roben Ryberg's "You Won't Believe It's Gluten Free." Rice flour, out flour, and potato starch based versions of this recipe also exist.)

Chocolate Cookies

A couple weeks ago I suddenly remembered my first days in my new apartment. The fridge was completely empty except for an oreo cream pie that my room mate's mother had made for us. We feasted on it whenever we were hungry until we managed to go grocery shopping. The memory inspired me to work towards a gluten free oreo cream pie. Unfortunately, my first experiment with oreos did not give me the hard crispy cookie I was hoping for, but it still turned out quite yummy, chewy, very chocolatey, and absolutely delicious when topped with whipped cream.

The following recipe is only slightly adjusted from the original. My thought was to increase the cocoa powder to make them a bit more chocolaty, and cut out a lot of the baking soda and baking powder, so they would rise and bubble less. However, it seems that even a little leavening agent in what I wanted to be a flat cookie was too much. I will try again! But for the mean time, here's a very yummy chocolate cookie recipe:

What you will need:

• 1/4 lb butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons plain yogurt
• 2/3 cup rice flour
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/4 tsp xanthan gum

-Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a cookie sheet.

-Cream the butter and sugar in a medium-size bowl. Add the egg. Mix until light and thick. Add the other ingredients. Beat until thick and creamy. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto the prepared pan. Press to a 1/4 inch thickness with moistened finger tips (or thinner if you want a thinner cookie as pictured). Bake for approximately 8 minutes, until lightly browned. Transfer the cookie sheet to a rack and let cool completely.

They are just like normal cookies!

Note: When it comes close to taking these out of the oven, watch them closely. It is more difficult to tell when a chocolate cookie is done because they are supposed to be really brown, but it means that if they burn, it's harder to tell. Take them out erring on the early side. Straight out of the oven, they may seem a little moist, but they settle to a normal cookie texture after cooling.

Also, the recipe says that it makes 36 cookies, but this is only if you follow the directions of 1 teaspoon of dough per cookie. That may seem really small, but the cookies do expand a little upon baking, and I have grown fond of eating multiple small cookies at a time, rather than one large one. You can make them a little bigger, but your cookie count will go down, so be prepared.

As far as my oreo development plotting, here are some of my plans: 1. I may remove the baking soda and powder entirely so that the cookies don't poof up. 2. I have heard that adding eggs makes dough stiffer and better for hard cookies. 3. Adding extra flour is also a method for stiffening the dough.

(This recipe was of my own invention, adjusted from the rice-based Chocolate Cookie recipe from Roben Ryberg's "You Won't Believe It's Gluten Free." Corn starch, oat flour, and potato starch based versions of this recipe also exist.)

Fudgy Brownies

When I first tried one of the brownie recipes in my beloved gluten free cook book, I thought, "great! Just basic ingredients, easy preparation, no sweat!" Then when I pulled them out of the oven, they were thin, a little too chewy, and not terribly exciting taste-wise. I longed for the Chocolate fudge brownies that you had to eat over several sittings because they were so rich. Then, when a friend of mine gave me some sugar-free baking chocolate I though, "Hey! Maybe if I add real chocolate instead of cocoa powder to this recipe, the brownies will turn out richer!" So I took one of the recipes and replaced ounce for ounce cocoa powder with baking chocolate. The result was mixed. Once cooled, refrigerated, and reheated slightly, they were delicious. But there was an inch thick edge that had over-cooked and was much too chewy, and right out of the oven, the entire dish was fragile and fell apart in my hand.

Watching the thick batter bubble and bake in the oven reminded me very much of a time I tried to add milk to my scrambled eggs, added too much, and the result was a strange, over-fried mess, with more milk than egg to fry. I decided the problem was a dry/liquid ingredient ratio problem. Some fat was being added with the baking chocolate, and some flour like substance removed. I therefore decreased the amount of butter in the recipe and increased the amount of flour.

The result is a very tasty, rich brownie. The bottom is fudgy, slightly cakey and slightly moist. The top is crunchy and resembles the cracked top of a traditional gluten filled brownie. Delicious! I was foolish enough to leave them unattended at my friends' house and I doubt there will be any left by the time I come back! Also, this recipe preserved the simplicity and speed of the original version. You'll spend more time waiting for the brownies to bake them than mixing the ingredients!

Here was the fairly successful resulting recipe:

What you will need:

• 7 tablespoons butter
• 4 oz baking chocolate (unsweetened)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum

-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9-inch square (or circular) baking pan.

-Melt butter and chocolate together in the microwave or slowly over stove top. Stir regularly to encourage the chocolate to melt.

-In a medium- sized bowl, combine chocolate/butter mix and remaining ingredients and mix well. The batter will be almost dough-like.

-Press into the prepared pan. Bake for 15-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle tests cleanly and the top appears dry. Let cool before devouring.

That's it!

Notes: I considered adding a little milk or other liquid to this recipe to make the mixture a little more batter like. It is a little disconcerting to press the mixture into the pan rather than pouring it. However, the resulting brownies were so tasty that I don't think the recipe really needs it. Also, keeping milk out of the recipe and using margarine instead of butter would make this recipe dairy free!

(Pictures to Come)
Update: Apparently no photos on this one, at least not until I make this recipe again, as my friends ate all the brownies before I could take pictures of them. Speaks highly of their quality though!

(This recipe was of my own invention, adjusted from the Corn-based Brownie recipe from "You Won't Believe It's Gluten Free" by Roben Ryberg. Oat flour, Potato starch, and rice flour based versions of this recipe also existed, but mine is better :-p)