Mrs. Kaiser's Healthy Gluten-Free (GF) Breakfast Muffin Recipe

I used to work with a school psychologist, Mrs. Kaiser, who recently went gluten-free. When we ran into each other at the supermarket the other day, she gave me this recipe, which sounds super healthy and yummy!

Ingredients:
2 cups almond meal
2 cups flax seed meal
4 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 cup or more of unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted....or other oil or butter
8 large eggs
1/2 cup water
1 T chia seeds

Directions:
Mix the preceding ingredients. Then add 1 cup of Craisins, 1 cup of coconut, and 1 cup of dried blueberries. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes.

Mrs. Kaiser suggested that you store a dozen of them in the freezer while eating a dozen during the week. They make a very healthy breakfast!

I can't wait to try them!

Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free German Pancakes (Also Called Dutch Babies)

When I was a kid, the German pancake (Dutch baby) at Elmer's Pancake House was the yummiest breakfast in my breakfasting repertoire. But that was before I had to go DF and GF.

Now I can make it whenever I like! And the recipe is surprisingly simple to follow.

If you're new to GF/DF cooking, let me share a word about xanthan gum. When I first started cooking GF, I thought, "What the heck is xanthan gum and where do I buy it?" It's what holds things together in GF baked foods, and it's an essential ingredient for people who eat gluten-free. You'll see it in a lot of baking recipes, from breads to cakes to pastries. So it's well-worth buying. If your grocery store offers Bob's Redmill products, they probably carry xanthan gum. If not, check your local health food store. You don't have to buy very much because it lasts a long time.

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp. dairy-free shortening (I use Earth Balance, which works like margarine)
6 extra-large eggs
1 and 1/4 cups soy milk (I use Pacific brand)
1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 cup potato starch flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1/4 tsp. xanthan gum
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup powdered sugar (confectioner's sugar)
1 Tbsp. lemon juice (or more--if you like it more lemony)

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). As the oven preheats, place the shortening in a 13x9 inch casserole dish, and stick it in the oven just until the shortening is melted. Then take it out. Spread the shortening around a bit with a spatula.
2. Put the eggs, soy milk, salt, and xanthan gum in a blender and mix it until frothy (30 seconds or so). Add all three kinds of flour and mix again. Stop the blender after 30 seconds and scrape the sides with a spatula. (Flour often gets stuck to the sides.) Mix a while longer (maybe another 10 seconds or 15). You want the mix to be frothy and wet, but not lumpy at all.
3. Pour the mixture into the very center of your melted shortening, in the casserole dish. Do not redistribute it at all. You'll see some shortening settle on top of the batter, and that's okay.
4. Bake 18 to 20 minutes. I live at a high altitude, so I bake mine for 20 minutes, but I'm told people at sea level can get by with less time. Just make sure the eggs in the center of it are cooked all the way through. When it first comes out of the oven, it puffs up like a deformed balloon. But it will shrink down to the size of bar cookies in just a few minutes. Let it shrink down a little before you do the next step.

5. Use a sifter to dust the rectangular pancake with powdered sugar (confectioner's sugar). Then evenly sprinkle lemon juice over the top of the powdered sugar (see picture). If you like yours really lemony, you can squeeze more lemon juice than the recommended tablespoon. In my opinion, the lemon juice is what makes it super-yummy!
6. Cut it into about eight rectangles and serve warm. No need to use syrup, as the powdered sugar makes it plenty sweet (although my brother used to add syrup to his).

Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free French Toast Recipe

French toast is my daughter, Annie's favorite breakfast! Here's how we make it GF and DF:

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 tbsp. soy milk
dash of ground cinnamon
GF bread of your choice (we like Udi's)
GF syrup (you're safe with pure maple, but some other brands are GF and DF too)
Earth Balance "margarine" or another dairy-free spread

Directions:
1. Mix the eggs, soy milk, and cinnamon together in a pie plate or flat-bottom casserole dish.
2. Melt a little DF "margarine" in a frying pan (or use olive oil or vegetable oil).
3. Dip a slice of bread in the egg/soy milk mixture, coating both sides with eggy stuff.
4. Fry bread on medium heat, until light brown on one side. Flip and brown the other side.
5. Spread with GF/DF margarine and top with GF/DF syrup.

Easy Gluten-Free Cinnamon Pull-Aparts

I'm pretty sure I read this one online, but I've made it so many times now, that I can just recite the recipe from memory.

Ingredients:
1 package of GF bread mix
1 cube of butter (margarine is OK if you're dairy free like me, but butter is best)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Directions:
1. Prepare bread mix, following directions on the package, but don't let the bread dough rise and don't put it in the oven yet.
2. Set up a series of bowls in your work space:

• bowl #1 = lukewarm water
• bowl #2 = bread dough
• bowl #3 = melted butter or margarine
• bowl #4 = sugars and cinnamon thoroughly mixed together

3. Have your bread pan close by. It needs to be sprayed with cooking spray, just like it would be for regular bread.
4. Dip your hands in the lukewarm water. By covering your hands in water, you'll find it easier to handle the bread dough without getting all sticky.
5. Scoop out a palm-sized hunk of GF bread dough and roll it in a ball. If you're having trouble making it into a ball because it's sticking, get your hands wetter.
6. Drop the dough ball in the butter or margarine. Make sure butter covers the whole ball.
7. Drop the dough ball into the sugar-cinnamon mix. This time you only want a light coating. Don't let it get too lumpy from excess water and butter.
8. Place the dough ball into the greased bread pan. Repeat steps 4-8 until all the bread dough is in the bread pan.
9. It's possible to use a bunt cake pan for this instead of a bread pan. In fact, I usually find my bread pan can't hold all the pull-aparts, so sometimes I make two bread pans of pull-aparts from one box of bread mix.
10. Allow this bread to rise, just as you would if it were a normal loaf of bread. Bake it in the oven for the same amount of time that it says on the bread mix's package--well, give or take five or ten minutes--check it toward the end. If I use a smaller loaf (like I split the dough in half) then it usually takes a few minutes less than it says on the package. I use the temperature that's listed on the package for this.

Give it a try. You'll LOVE this one!

How to Make Gluten-Free Garlic Toast and Gluten-Regular Toast at the Same Time

This Image: iClipart

When you first start cooking gluten-free, you make a lot of cross-contamination mistakes. You walk around giving your GF kid the guilty eyes, because she's sick and you're responsible. So before you try any more recipes, wipe that guilty look off your face. It's not your fault. You've got to go through a learning curve before you reach perfection, and after six years of cooking GF, even I'm not perfect. So live and learn, but don't wallow in guilt over it.

Today's GF instructions are for something you'd think is simple, but really, it's not. There are a lot of cross-contamination issues when we cook GF, and making garlic toast is a biggie. So here are the instrucitons for making gluten-free garlic toast simultaneously with your regular garlic toast, all on the same cookie sheet:

Guten-Free Garlic Toast AND Regular Garlic Toast Recipe

Here's what you need:

• cube of butter or uncontaminated margarine
• garlic powder (fresh garlic is okay, as far as I'm concerned, but my kids complain it's too strong)
• 3-4 slices of GF bread, whatever fits on your cookie sheet
• 3-4 slices of regular bread, same deal
• 1 pastry brush labeled GF
• 1 pastry brush that's strictly for your gluten-containing ingredients
• aluminum foil
• cookie sheet

Instructions:

1. Lay the cookie sheet on a table or counter. Measure the aluminum foil to 3-4 inches LONGER than the cookie sheet actually is.
2. Place the aluminum foil on the cookie sheet, but fold it in the middle. (See illustration.)
3. Melt 1/2 cube of butter (I chop it up into little pieces and microwave it in a measuring cup) and mix with a good dash or two of garlic powder. Use your GF pastry brush to mix it. I stick my finger in to taste it, making sure it's got a solid garlic flavor, but it's not overwhelming.
4. Use the GF pastry brush to spread melted butter on both sides of your aluminum foil. (The gluten-side has not yet been contaminated, so it's not going to matter if you touch the GF pastry brush to that side, at this point.)
5. Place only the GF breads on one half of the aluminum foil. Use the GF pastry brush to spread butter on each of these pieces of bread. If you have any extra butter, flip the bread over and spread extra butter on the back. The more buttery the bread, the yummier!
6. To avoid contamination, discard all GF items in the kitchen sink or dishwasher while you work with the gluten-contaminated side of the aluminum-foil-covered cookie sheet.
7. Place gluten-containing breads on the empty half of the aluminum foil, being careful not to accidentally drip crumbs on the GF side.--Cross-contamination can happen easily, so don't touch the GF side with your hands, don't carry gluten-containing breads over the top of the GF side, etc...
8. Melt the other half of the butter. (Again, I chop it into bits and microwave it.) Sprinkle a couple dashes of garlic powder in this and mix it with the pastry brush that is NOT for GF items. -- You must keep this pastry brush separate at all times, even when this recipe is over and done. Pastry brushes easily store bits of gluten between the bristles, so once it has been used on gluten-containing breads, it will forever be contaminated.
9. Brush the butter onto your gluten-containing bread slices now. Extra butter should be discarded, not stored, because it has been thoroughly contaminated with gluten.
10. Place the cookie sheet in a 400 degree F oven for a very brief time--usually 5 minutes or less. Just keep checking it. You want the garlic bread to turn golden brown but not black. I usually flip my garlic toast over once--doing the gluten-free pieces first to avoid contaminating them. Tongs will help you do this safely, but don't use them again to serve the bread unless you clean them thoroughly.

Variations:
It's possible to sprinkle your garlic bread with any of the following before toasting:

• dried parmesan cheese (the kind that comes in a can)
• dried parsley flakes
• grated mazarella cheese

Gluten-Free Banana Pecan Muffin Recipe--A Great Snack When Monkeying Around

If your kiddo is allergic to nuts, just opt to bake these muffins without the nuts. You can still have loads of fun monkeying around!

Dry Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Sorghum Flour
1/2 Cup White Rice Flour
1/2 Cup Brown Rice Flour
1/2 Cup Corn Starch
2 tsp Xanthan Gum
1 tsp baking soda

Other Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Butter
1 Cup Sugar
2 Eggs
3 Ripe Bananas
3 Tbs Milk
1 Cup chopped Pecans


In a medium bowl, mix dry ingredients. Whisk well to aerate the flours as they mix.

In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar together. Add the eggs and bananas. Mix until bananas are well mashed. Add milk and flour. Mix until combined.

Fold in Pecans.

Fill muffin pan with liners. Scoop dough into liners to 2/3rds full.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree F oven for 30 minutes. For a decorative touch, once they’re cooled, sprinkle them with powdered sugar.

Gluten-Free Scones for Breakfast

Annie and I had gluten-free scones for breakfast. I used a Gluten-Free Pantry boxed muffin and scone mix for this, but I'll go ahead and post the from-scratch scone recipe that I have:

Start with my favorite Super Fluffy Gluten-Free Flour:
2 cups tapioca starch
2 cups cornstarch
2 cups rice flour
2 Tbs. potato flour (NOT potato starch--that's different)

I like to use this Super Fluffy GF Flour in a lot of things, so I keep a tub of it on my kitchen counter, and I dip into it for many of my recipes. It makes things fluffy! YAY!

DRY INGREDIENTS:
2 cups Super Fluffy GF Flour (see above)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. xanthan gum
1/2 tsp. salt

WET INGREDIENTS:
1 stick (1/2 cup) very cold butter, cut into small chunks
2 large eggs
1/3 cup cold milk
bowl of water

DIRECTIONS:
1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a stand mixer.
2. Add butter chunks. Use wire whisk attachment to mix the butter in. You're ready to move to step 3 when the stuff in your stand mixer looks sort of like super-gritty corn meal.
3. Mix the eggs and cold milk together in a separate bowl, using a fork. Switch your stand mixer's gadget to a paddle instead of a wire whisk. Blend the egg-milk mixture into the dry ingredients, using the paddle attachment, but don't let it get too creamy. Stop mixing after 2 minutes or so, allowing the ingredients to become just blended.
4. If you want to add nuts or dried fruit, do so now. Blend it for one more minute, until the additional ingredient is well-incorporated.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Moisten your hands in the bowl of water. Use wet, clean hands to scoop out batter. Shape scones into triangular biscuit-like shapes. The batter will be gooey like muffin mix, but as long as your hands are wet, you will be able to shape the scones into triangular or biscuit-like shapes. Place scones 2 inches apart on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.
6. Bake in 350 degree (F) oven for approx. 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Makes 18-20 scones, depending on size.