Raspberry and Rosemary Scones

Still need a Christmas breakfast idea? How about adding these scones to the table? They have Rosemary for the green, Raspberry preserves for the red and their taste just screams home for the holidays. I originally made these scones last Valentines day for my roommates and I, but I have been wanting to try them gluten, dairy, and refined sugar free so I thought they would work just as well for christmas as they did for Valentines Day. The original recipe was from Giada de Laurentiis but I changed it to eliminate the bad stuff (well bad for me at least) and used raspberry where she used strawberry because I prefer it and its what we had on hand.

To be honest... I will probably make them again for Valentines Day (when I will be in London...even more of a reason to make scones).

Raspberry and Rosemary Scones

Ingredients

1 cup almond flour

1/2 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour (same thing as tapioca starch)

1 teaspoon xanthum gum

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup evaporated cane juice

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary

1/4 teaspoon celtic sea salt

6 tablespoons vegan butter (I use Earth Balance) cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1/2 cup coconut milk

about 1/3 cup raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

First combine the three flours, xanthum gum, baking powder cane juice, salt, and rosemary and whisk together.

Next add in the vegan butter and cut in until it looks like a coarse meal.

Now add in the coconut milk slowly and stir in.

Spoon dough onto a greased cookie sheet about an inch or two apart. Indent the center of each spoonful of dough and place about a teaspoon of jam into indentation.

Bake the scones for 20-25 minutes, then remove from the oven and let cool completely.

PJ Breakfast: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins

My friend Meredith, with her mom and sister, has started a pajama breakfast tradition when everyone gets home from college for christmas break. We all go over there, dressed in our pajamas and have a fabulous breakfast that her and her mom prepare. This year I wanted to be able to contribute, so I decide I would whip up some mini muffins to take with me. I am personally a huge fan of anything pumpkin flavored so I thought that would be a good place to start. And what's a better combination than pumpkin and chocolate? It's always a crowd pleaser.

Meredith also has the cutest 1 1/2 year old daughter and she guzzled down a few of these mini muffins before breakfast even started, so apparently I am not the only one who loves pumpkin and chocolate together.

These came out a little lumpy looking and pretty gooey but they are really tasty. And in addition to being gluten and dairy free, they are also refined sugar free so they do not spike your blood sugar and sustain you for longer. This makes them a healthier option without tasting healthy in the least.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins

Ingredients

1/2 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup almond flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour

1 teaspoon xanthum gum

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 (16oz) can unsweetened pumpkin puree

1 cup chocolate chips (I like enjoy life allergy-free chocolate chips because they are miniature so they distribute more evenly throughout the batter)

2/3 cup agave nectar

2 eggs

1/2 cup coconut oil

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line mini muffin pans with mini cupcake papers. I filled 48 mini muffin cups and had extra batter. (I am not sure how many muffins this actually makes because I ran out of muffin pans).

Sift together the three flours, xanthum gum, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Once sifted together, give the dry ingredients a quick whisk, to mix again.

Next, add in the pumpkin, eggs, agave nectar, and coconut oil and mix with a hand mixer or stand mixer. Then add in vanilla and mix again. Stir in chocolate chips by hand.

Use a spoon to fill each of the mini muffin cups with batter, almost to the top then bake for about 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out completely clean and the muffins are golden and lightly crusted on top.

Let cool completely before eating or transferring to another plate. In fact these muffins taste even better the next day because they become more muffin-consistency as they sit.

And here is a picture of my favorite slippers and the muffins ready to head out to the breakfast. Can just mention again how obsessed I am with this tradition? I wish I could wear pajamas everywhere.

PS: I think I have had a break-through about gluten free flours. In the past I have had issues with gluten-free baked goods tasting sort of metallicish (yep, I made a new word). After I did some research courtesy of google, I discovered that it is most likely bean flours that give this metallic taste. It also turns out that Bob's Red Mill all-purpose flour consists of bean flours. Don't get me wrong, those pre-made mixes are very convenient and I thank Bob's Red Mill for all of the flours that make for us gluten-free folk, but I am too sensitive to that metallic taste to keep using bean flours.

So, now I am into sorghum and almond flour. But of course, with gluten-free baking you pretty much always need to combine more than one flour, so thats how I decided to combine my new favorite flours with a starch to come up with my own baking mix for this recipe. I plan on testing out more mixes in the upcoming days so I will keep ya'll posted.

Going Gluten Free :(

I went to the doctor/nutritionist a couple of days ago to retrieve the results of a test I sent in awhile back. For any of you that know me well, you know that I am a bit of a medical anomaly. Anyway, it turns out I am allergic to dairy and gluten and then the doctor started throwing words around like hormone overload, insulin, potential diabetes, and major dietary changes. Needless to say I was totally freaked. The good news is that no permanent damage has been done and everything can be fixed. The bad news is I have to remove all dairy and gluten from my diet. This is hard for anybody, but to me it almost seems impossible for a college student who eats out most of the time and who is always eating with people. Seemingly impossible or not, however, it has to be done. So, after throwing myself a pity party, I began researching.

I must admit I am really lucky because I have already had some gluten/dairy free angels brought into my life who have started helping me figure out the new diet. My love for cooking will also come in handy. I am trying to look at it as just another cooking/baking challenge. This means that this blog will largely be Gluten and dairy free in the future, but trust me I will make sure everything tastes just as good as the original would have been. My first gluten and dairy free project post diagnosis was VANILLA CORNBREAD. I found it on the Gluten-free Goddess Blog and it is really good!

Gluten/Dairy Free Sweet Vanilla Cornbread

2 1/4 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free Cornbread Mix

1 cup light brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 rounded teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup very warm water

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a 9-inch cake pan with parchment paper (including sides).

Mix the first 7 ingredients together, then add in the remaining 4. The batter should be the consistency of a thick cake or muffin batter. If it is too thick, you can add a couple of tablespoons of water.

Pour the batter into the pan and place on the middle rack of the oven. Bake for 25-35 minutes until the center is set and a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let sit at least 15 minutes before cutting so that it doesn't crumble. You can serve with whipped cream, fruit, or just plain.

A few notes:

* If you can't find the cornbread mix, you can use 1 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Cornmeal, 3/4 cup sorghum flour, 1/2 cup tapioca starch or potato starch, and 1 teaspoon xanthum gum

*To make the recipe vegan, you can replace the 2 eggs with 1 tablespoon Ener-G Egg Replacer whisked with 1/4 cup warm water till its frothy

Chai Berry Muffins: Vegan

The other night I was watching a new Food Network show called Cupcake Wars. The show wasn't really as exciting as it originally sounded to me but one of the judges seemed really cool. She is covered in tattoos, loves punk rock, and loves to bake-especially cupcakes. Seemed like a strange combination to me, but I loved it, so I grabbed my computer and looked up her blog. It's awesome! It's called Bake and Destroy; I put it on my list of blogs on the side of the page but here it is again just in case: bakeanddestroy.net. My favorite part is her tagline- the food blog equivalent to a punch in the throat. I love the attitude!

I wasn't really looking for another cupcake recipe because I've made a lot of them recently but she does other things as well, including muffins. I saw one that immediately caught my eye. Vegan Berry Chai Muffins- Yum.

I was intrigued by the fact that they are vegan since I feel like more and more people in my life are discovering their food allergies. I love cooking and baking for people so I am currently exploring ways to omit some of these allergens. Thats why I decided to take it a step further and make them both vegan and gluten-free.

First I made the original recipe but didn't like them, partly because simply substituting gluten-free flour made them too crumbly and partly because they had a little too much spice for my taste so I cut out the cloves and cut back on some of the other spices plus added xanthum gum as an additional binding agent for the gluten-free flour. I really liked how the second batch turned out, so here is the revised recipe:

Chai Berry Muffins

2 bags Earl Grey tea

3/4 cup soy milk

1 3/4 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon xanthum gum

2/3 cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cardamom

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon salt

pinch white pepper

1/3 cup canola oil

2 1/2 tablespoons flaxseed meal

3 tablespoons water

1 cup frozen berries *I used blackberries and blueberries from my Papa's farm :)

Start by heating the soy milk over the stove until just before boiling. Remove from the heat and and step the tea bags in it for 4 minutes. Then remove the tea bags and let the milk cool.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, xanthum gum, baking powder, sugar, spices, salt and pepper. Then, add in the frozen berries.

In a separate, small bowl, whisk together the flaxseed meal and water making a paste. Add this to the dry ingredients along with the milk and oil. Stir just until mixed. The batter will be somewhat lumpy. Now, pour the batter into 12 lined muffin cups.

Bake at 400 degrees F for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick comes out of the center clean. Let cool for at least a minute before removing from the pan. Then enjoy :) I could be wrong, but even though they don't have any dairy or gluten I think they taste good on normal muffin standards.