Desserts

California-Style Pumpkin Cheesecake with Vanilla Riesling Poached Pears

November 28, 2010
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In the spirit of sharing at Thanksgiving, I want to share this dessert that I made for everyone with you. A take on my mother’s famous California-style cheesecake, with a bit of an Autumn flair. There wasn’t any left the next day, so I think it was a pretty successful dessert. I hope you enjoy it as well, whether the snow is blustering about in the cold, or you are on a sunny beach greeting the Atlantic sunrise as I did.

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Gluten Free and Grain Free Hazelnut Dark Chocolate Brownies

November 5, 2010
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Woohoo! I am happy to announce the chocolatey rich grain-free awesomeness that is the gluten free brownie. Ok, after 3 batches of brownies in two weeks, I might just be done for a bit. I’ve gotten my fill of rich dark chocolate fudgey sweet goodness, and I think I am ready to move on to another dessert. My husband may not be ready to move on just yet though. So there may be another batch soon in our future, but we’ve got the grain-free part worked out.

Honestly I really didn’t do much adapting from the original recipe. I just slightly altered some ratios, switched baking soda for powder (thought it might rise a little better since I couldn’t identify an acidic element in the ingredients), and subbed out the GF flour for cocoa powder. While they do rise significantly while baking (about 50% ish), I think the cocoa powder helps to keep them dense. The hazelnut flavor comes through nicely, and complements the chocolate well. I love that you can buy huge bags of nut-meals here for super cheap. They are just perfect for tarte shells, but happen to be perfect for grain-free brownies too.

42 comments

Gluten Free Dark Chocolate Brownies

November 3, 2010
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I don’t like chocolate cake. I mean it’s O.K., but my mother taught me very well (perhaps too well), that if you are going to give something a name involving the word chocolate, it better darn well actually taste like chocolate. And this is my eternal problem with chocolate cake. It’s dark, it can be rich with the right ganache or mousse filling, but is the cake itself that chocolatey? Do you feel like a cake is merely a transformation of pure chocolate into fluffy cake form? Maybe I just haven’t tried enough chocolate cakes before, but I have yet to find a plain cake that actually tastes like chocolate is oozing out from all sides. But these brownies? They have dark and intense written all over them.

27 comments

Galettes de Sarrasin (Buckwheat Crêpes) – The French Pancake

September 28, 2010
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Living in a French-speaking region (and not too far from France), crêperies are easy to find. Unfortunately, because crêpe batter is usually not 100% buckwheat, my husband and I have never been to one because we were never sure if he’d be able to enjoy them and still be gluten free. Back when we lived in the States, one of our favorite French restaurants would serve crêpes filled with chicken and mushrooms that were out of this world. Then, when we ventured off to Paris a couple months ago, I had the privilege of enjoying a crêpe filled with four kinds of cheese (au quatre fromages) – I think there was comté, brie, emmental, and chevre – and odd combo, but delicious. Little tiny hole-in-the-wall place by the Louvre that made them to order, I think with the café, my total came to something like only € 5!

56 comments

An Adventure with Peanut Butter Cookies, Gluten Free

August 5, 2010
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Flour-based cookies seem to be my gluten free nemesis. I’ve never gotten sugar cookies right, and my chocolate chip ones just turn into a flat melty mess unless I bake them in a bowl to become a mini cookie cake – sometimes, one has to get creative and work with the failures. But these I am determined to convert, and convert with resounding success. I started working on the recepe development to adapt a family recipe for peanut butter cookies. It’s been, well, let’s just say it’s been educational.

It took six. Six batches. Yes, it took six different trials of baking cookies – mixing together dough, carefully rolling out each rounded cookie, smashing them down with a fork oh so gently, slipping into the oven and saying a little prayer to the gluten free gods. And with each new batch, the disappointment intensified. I tried different flours, different ratios, different cooking times. And I ended up with a giant bowl full of all the crumbled memories of peanut butter cookie failures, each begging me not to end their fleeting existence with a trip to the rubbish bin (don’t worry, they didn’t, the ended up on top of ice cream instead). But, by the time I got through to batch #6, I had cookies. Rich, softish peanut buttery goodness, gluten free. And the disappointments from all the previous failures turned into pure joy. They are not quite as awesome as my dad’s grandmother’s famous cookies (well, famous in our family), but they are close. Oh they are so close.

23 comments

Cashew Butter Cookies

July 8, 2010

I’m not sharing a recipe with you today.  I’m sharing an idea, and that idea is cashew butter.  Ok, so it’s not an idea, it’s an ingredient.  I’m not sharing with you a recipe because this is one I want to adapt to be gluten free first.  This is my dad’s grandmother’s peanut butter cookie [...]

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