Tag Archives: reduced refined sugar

Creative Cooking: Dried Plum Muffins

dairy free, egg free, gluten free, reduced refined sugar, soy free 1 Comment

“It’s the bacon song….”

Last night we discovered that our fridge is not working as it ought. Specifically, the refrigerator part (but not the freezer) is not staying as cold as it needs to be to keep meat from being spoiled, and when I went to start dinner, I learned that the ground turkey I had bought had gone bad. Since it was close to dinner time, I opted to do what I usually do in a crunch… we had breakfast for dinner.

The children love when we have breakfast for dinner. Pancakes, waffles, sausages, bacon, eggs… these are some of their favorite foods. Given what we had in the pantry and the freezer, last night ended up being pumpkin pancakes and turkey bacon with salad as our veggies. This, of course, meant there were pancakes and bacon available for the children to eat again this morning for breakfast.

When our son went to get bacon to eat, he began to sing. It turned out it was the “bacon song” he was making up and singing. When we laughed, he switched to the “apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” and reminded my husband and me that we do strange things all the time!

In fact, I was just accused of oddness last week when I made dried plum muffins. Someone thought it weird that I would even use dried plums. Another wondered why I did not call them prunes. I explained that dried plums have a lot of fiber, potassium, good vitamins like K, A and B, and are naturally sweet so you don’t need to add sugar. The reason I call them dried plums is because that is what prunes are, and I find people react oddly when you say you’ve made something with prunes. Of course, I discovered that dried plum muffins received the same reaction, so it may not be the name!

The fact, though, is that the muffins I made are healthier muffins with rolled oats and flax seed and garbanzo bean flour, so in addition to having no sugar, they are higher in fiber and protein. The version below have mini chocolate chips because I was making them for a children’s party, but you can omit the chocolate chips and then serve them as a breakfast muffin!

Dried Plum Muffins

Ingredients:

7 ounces of pitted, chopped dried plums (prunes)

1 cup gluten free rolled whole oats

1 1/2 cup boiling water

2 tbsp ground golden flaxseed

6 tbsp water

1 cup gluten free oat flour

1 cup garbanzo bean flour

1/3 cup potato starch

2/3 cup arrowroot starch

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 cup Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips

1 cup mashed, ripe bananas

1/2 cup safflower oil

1/2 cup water

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Baking Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 24 muffin cups with cupcake liners or grease them so the muffins won’t stick to your pan.

2. Mix the chopped dried plums with the oats in a bowl, and pour the boiling water over them, pushing the dried plums and oats down into the water so they are covered. Let sit.

4. Whisk together the ground flaxseed with the water, and set aside.

5. Whisk together the oat flour, garbanzo bean flour, potato starch, arrowroot starch, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  Stir in the chocolate chips and set aside.

6. Mash the bananas and mix with the oil and the dried plums and oatmeal mixture and the flaxseed mixture.

7. Make a hole in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients along with the apple cider vinegar. Mix up quickly just until the dry ingredients are moist.

8. Evenly scoop the muffin batter among the 24 muffin cups and bake for 15 minutes or until the cupcakes are golden and puffed and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

9. Remove the muffins to a wire rack and cool completely.  These keep well in a tightly covered tupper ware container.

Fruitful Flavors: Peach Pie

dairy free, egg free, gluten free, nut/peanut free, reduced refined sugar, soy free 2 Comments

“It won’t come off the pit….”

One of the many enjoyments of summer is eating a freshly picked, sweet and juicy peach. We have a farm down the road which grows peaches, and it is always a highlight of our summer when the peaches are ripe and ready for us to purchase and eat. The other day, though, someone asked me how I get peaches off their pits for making pies and cobblers, and I explained that I didn’t.

Peaches come in two varieties, clingstone and freestone. Both yellow and white peaches can be either. The irony is that the variety which is most difficult to remove from the pit, the clingstone, is the sweeter and juicier of the peach varieties. The peaches which fall off their pits, the freestone, are not as sweet and juicy. Most of the peaches one finds at the grocery stores are the clingstone variety because they are sold for taste. Hence, my friend’s frustration with removing the peach slices for baking.

If folks want to make peach pie or cobbler or crisp or muffin or cake using fresh peaches, the best option is to purchase freestone peaches which easily twist off the pits if the peach is ripe. If using clingstone peaches, then folks need to resign themselves to cutting the peach slices off the pit which means the slices won’t be pretty.

I don’t tend to do either, because as anyone who has followed my blog for a while knows, I am lazy and like to cook food as easily and quickly as possible. So I keep frozen, no sugar added peaches in my freezer and just pull them out when I have a hankering to bake with peaches. The fresh peaches, I just eat as a snack, enjoying their flavor as is.

The conversation with my friend of course gave me a craving for peach pie, so I went ahead and baked one yesterday which I’ll share below. You’ll note that there’s no sugar and very little sweetener at all because the flavor and sweetness comes from sauteing the peaches to concentrate the flavor and sweetness. Folks can also switch up the spices to your own tastes. Sometimes I like to use cardamom and ginger instead of cinnamon and nutmeg.

Some thoughts on pie crusts, too.  I made my own, but folks can use a store bought pie crust, whether gluten free or wheat. If you choose to make your own, you can follow a favorite recipe. Otherwise, some information for your use to to make your own pie crust.

Pie crusts are basically flour, fat and water. For every one cup of flour, whether wheat or gluten free, you will usually use 3 to 6 tbsp of a fat, whether butter, shortening or oil, or a combination of the three, and for every cup of flour you usually need 1 to 3 tbsp of water. Depending on tastes, some recipes call for a little bit of salt; others call for the addition of a little bit of sugar. I tend to use neither, opting instead to flavor my crust with spices like cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, etc….

Tips for making “from scratch” crusts:

  1. If using solid fats, the colder the better: Put your butter and/or shortening into the freezer for ten minutes before cutting it into your flour. This is especially good for dairy free versions of butter which tend to be softer in texture. You want the fats to slowly melt in the oven while cooking, not become soft while you’re still preparing the crust.
  2. If using oil, the milder the better: Plant oils are great for crusts because they have healthy fats and you don’t have to cut the fat into the flour. You can simply stir the fat into the flour. You want, however, to use mild tasting oils like safflower, sunflower, canola, etc… because otherwise the oil flavor overpowers everything else. If you are using an oil for the fat, be sure to decrease the amount of water because you only want enough liquid to moisten the crust enough to hold together.
  3. The colder the better for the water: Recipes for crusts will call for ice water. This means literally putting ice into the water, because you want to prohibit gluten development. Now, if you’re making a gluten free crust, that isn’t an issue but if you’re using solid fats, the cold water will help keep the fats cold until the pie goes into the oven. Use just enough water, though, to moisten the flour enough to hold together.
  4. If you want tender, flakier crusts, use acids or alcohol: Acids like lemon juice or vinegar or an alcohol like vodka cook off in the baking process but react with the other ingredients to make for a flakier crust by tenderizing the dough. You only need to replace one to two tablespoons of the ice water.
  5. If want tender, flakier crusts, use lower protein flours: The lower the protein, the flakier the crust, but of course, that makes for a more delicate crust and one which is more carb intense. Find a balance. For example, use a whole wheat pastry flour which has less protein than 100% whole wheat flour but which is a sturdier flour than all purpose white flour. If using gluten free blends, choose a combination of brown rice flour and sorghum or oat which combines a lighter flour with a protein flour.
  6. If you want a crust that is easier to handle: Adding an egg yolks makes for a more pliable, sturdier dough to work with. It also makes for a richer tasting crust.
  7. For easier rolling and handling, cold is better: It is a good rule of thumb to put your crust into the fridge for half an hour to an hour because rolling soft dough makes it more likely that the dough will stick, causes the fats to melt before their time, and will be harder to transfer to the pie plate.
  8. For easier rolling and handling, paper is better: When rolling out the dough, if you don’t want the crust to stick and want an easier way to transfer the crust, use wax paper or parchment paper which you sprinkle flour onto. After putting the dough down, sprinkle it with flour and top with a second piece of wax or parchment paper. Then roll. The papers prevent sticking, and when you’re ready to transfer the crust, you can just pick up the paper and flip it onto the pie plate.

Peach Pie

Ingredients:

3 pkg 16 oz thawed frozen peaches, no sugar added or 6 to 7 cups sliced fresh peaches

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup agave

1 to 2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 to 1 tsp nutmeg

3 tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot starch or tapioca starch

Pie Crusts

Cooking Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
  2. In a shallow pan mix the water with the agave, cinnamon, nutmeg and starch.
  3. Add the peaches and stir to coat well.
  4. Continue to stir as the mixture comes to a slow boil and begins to thicken.
  5. When the mixture has become glutinous and is sticking to the peaches, turn off the heat and let the peaches cool.
  6. Line the bottom of a 9.5 inch glass pie plate with a pie crust.
  7. Fill the crust with the peaches, layering the peaches individually into the crust, using your clean fingers.
  8. Top the peaches with the top crust and make slits or create a lattice crust to cover the peaches.
  9. Bake for 15 minutes. Cover the entire pie with aluminium foil and bake for 20-25 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 10-15 minutes until the crust is golden brown and the peaches are bubbling.
  10. Remove the pie from the oven to a cooling rack and allow it to cool at least an hour before slicing into it.

 

Recipe Makeover: Butter Birthday Cake

dairy free, gluten free, nut/peanut free, reduced refined sugar Leave a comment

“I just want to make her happy.”

Many of my friends are in what folks refer to as the sandwich generation. They’re “young” enough that they still have children at home but they’re “old” enough that their parents are aging and in need of care. One of my friend’s mother has begun experiencing dementia symptoms which complicates my friend’s care of her mom because the mother keeps forgetting she has diabetes and that she now has adverse reactions to gluten and dairy.

The mother’s 80th birthday is coming up, and she apparently is fixated on having a butter birthday cake with chocolate frosting the way her mother (my friend’s grandmother) used to make. So, my friend reached out to me, asking if I might be willing to play around with the recipe which her mother had written down in an old journal of recipes.

The original recipe called for 1 cup of butter, 2 cups of sugar, 3 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla, 3 cups all purpose flour, 3 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, and 1 1/4 cup whole milk.

The butter: Substituting for the butter is easy. I simply used Earth Balance’s vegan butter. I did cut the amount to 3/4, though, which would cut some of the fat and calories but not diminish the butter taste.

The sugar: Since there were no nut allergies present, I opted to switch out the sugar in favor of a one to one ratio of coconut sugar. With diabetes, one has to be careful not to have too much sugar. While coconut sugar will still affect the system as a sweetener, it has a lower glycemic index than white refined sugar. If I had been making it for myself, I would have used one cup of coconut sugar, but I figured the mom would want a sweeter cake like the one of her memories.

The eggs: Three eggs are a lot, so I chose to decrease the eggs to two eggs and increased the milk by 1/4 cup to make up for the loss in liquid ingredients by the one egg. I could have used just egg whites but then it would have been a white cake we were making and not the traditional yellowy butter cake, which again, I figured would be what the mom remembered.

The vanilla: Since I reduced the butter and eggs, I increased the vanilla to 2 tsp to enhance the flavor and give the cake more of that browned butter taste.

The flour: With diabetes, one has to be careful about carbs, too. Cake is going to have a lot of carbs no matter what you do, but I tried to make them healthier carbs. I decided to use a Krusteaz gluten free blend which is a blend of sorghum, millet, and quinoa flours with brown rice flour which added a bit more protein and fiber than one would find in just a white rice flour blend.

The baking powder: Because we were making a gluten free cake, I needed to increase the leavener a bit. Instead of just adding more baking powder, though, which could give the cake a metallic flavor, I decreased the baking powder to 3 tsp and added 3/4 tsp of baking soda.

The salt: The mom has a bit of hypertension, so I decreased the salt to 1/2 tsp.

The milk: Since the mom couldn’t have milk, we needed to substitute. The recipe called for whole milk, though, which means we needed the milk to be thick. I opted to make a homemade butter milk, using soy milk and vinegar. Another good substitute would have been flax milk which has the texture of a whole milk, but flax milk doesn’t have any protein which I wanted to make sure was in the cake. Since I had reduced the eggs by one, I increased the milk to compensate not just for the egg but for the fact that gluten free flours can make for a drier cake.

The frosting: The recipe in the mother’s journal called for 1½ cups butter (3 sticks), softened, 1 cup unsweetened cocoa, 5 cups confectioner’s sugar, ½ cup milk, and 2 teaspoons vanilla extract… which was a lot of sugar and butter and also contained the milk the mother could no longer have. As such, I decided to make the frosting which my family loves because of it’s creaminess, which is just a combination of Enjoy Life chocolate chips and avocado oil and vanilla.

Butter Birthday Cake with Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients:

3/4 cup Earth Balance vegan soy free butter

2 cups coconut sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

3 cups gluten free flour

3 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups “milk” of choice (soy, flax, almond, etc…)

2 tbsp white vinegar

2 cups Enjoy Life chocolate chips

1 cup avocado oil

1 tsp vanilla

Baking Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Prepare three 9 inch cake pans by lining them with parchment paper.
  3. In a mixer cream together the butter and coconut sugar until a paste forms. Only takes a minute or so.
  4. Mix in the eggs, one at a time.
  5. Add vanilla. Set aside.
  6. In a bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
  7. Stir the milk and vinegar together and let sit for a couple of minutes to thicken.
  8. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed butter mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Mix well.
  9. Divide the batter evening among the three cake pans.
  10. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes until the cake is puffed and golden, pulling from the sides, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
  11. Put the pans onto a wire rack to cool for ten minutes. Then remove the cake layers from the pans and allow them to cool completely on the wire racks.
  12. In a large microwave safe bowl put the chocolate chips with the avocado oil. Heat for a minute. Then stir until the chips have completely melted and the mixture is smooth.
  13. Add the vanilla and mix well.
  14. Pour the mixture into a mixing bowl and put into the freezer for 15 minutes.
  15. Check the chocolate. It should have begun to harden around the sides but still be sloshy in the middle. Scraped down the sides and put the mixture back into the freezer for 10 more minutes. (If your pan is very shallow and the mixture is hardening in the center already, then you don’t need to put it back into the freezer.  Just scrape down and follow the next step. My bowl is deep and requires almost 25 minutes in the freezer.)
  16. After the second time in the freezer, if needed, pull out the bowl, and scrape down the sides. The middle should no longer be sloshy but a soft hardening, not a completely solid hardening. Use the mixer to begin to whip the chocolate.
  17. Begin on low speed and slowly go to a higher speed, making sure to occasionally scrape down the sides. The chocolate mixture will become lighter in color and fluffy and creamy in texture.
  18. When the cake layers are completely cooled, frost the cake in between the layers and around the sides and top, and enjoy!

 

 

Shortcut Cooking: Oatmeal Date Cookies

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“We haven’t made cookies in a while….”

My husband had some errands to run, and my high school daughter was playing with the band at an event. So, this left my son and I to occupy our time together. Since I had a workshop coming up, I suggested that we do some baking.

The problem was deciding what to bake. I’d had a series of workshops recently and done a lot of baking so I was a bit tired of the same ol’, same ol’, which were a stock series of recipes which I usually make for the workshops because they’re quick and easy in addition to representing the various different substitutions I teach about in the workshops.

My son’s suggestion was that we make cookies because we hadn’t made them in a long, long time.

There was a reason for that…. I have found that cookies take longer to make, both in the assembling and in the baking. But my son was correct, that we hadn’t made any in a while, and they would be something different. So, we went to work creating a recipe.

I decided that if we were going to bake cookies, I wanted to make something that would be quick. This meant beginning with what we had in the pantry and not creating everything from scratch. So, we opted to use a gluten free flour blend that I had already made up for another item and had leftovers of in the pantry. We also decided to use pre-chopped, store-bought dates which we found in the pantry as well. Because I’m always trying to be healthy, we chose to make oatmeal cookies with whole rolled oats, also in in the pantry, and to use coconut sugar instead of white sugar so I could use half the amount I’d have to use of white sugar.

Using the mixer sped the assembling process up, and because we decided to make oatmeal cookies, we could simply drop the batter onto the parchment paper and flatten them without any rolling or forming. By using vegan butter, I minimized the spreading so I could put 16 cookies (the 1 tbsp size) instead of 12 to a cookie sheet which meant all the cookies fit onto just four cookie sheets, so I could bake two sheets at a time in the oven, resulting in only 20 minutes of baking time.

The result was that from when we started rummaging in the pantry to when the second batch of two cookie sheets came out, it was less than 45 minutes. Now, those are cookies worth making!

Oatmeal Date Cookies

(These make about 60 small cookies or 30 large cookies.)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup Gluten Free flour blend (I used a homemade blend of garbanzo bean and sorghum flours mixed with tapioca and potato starch)

3 cups Gluten Free whole rolled oats

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

8 oz pkg pitted, dried, chopped dates

1 cup vegan soy free butter or coconut oil or natural shortening

1 cup coconut sugar

2 tbsp ground flaxseed mixed with 6 tbsp water (Mix ahead of time and let it sit)

2 tbsp additional water

Baking Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
  2. Mix together in a bowl the flour, oats, salt, baking powder and cinnamon. Stir in the dates. Set aside
  3. In a mixer, cream the butter with the coconut sugar.
  4. Add the flaxseed mixture with the dry ingredients and the additional water. Mix until well combined.
  5. On the prepared cookie sheets, drop the cookie batter by 1 tablespoon-full for smaller cookies (2 inch diameter) or 2 tablespoons-full for larger cookies (4 inch diameter). Leave about an inch in between the cookies.
  6. Press the dough down with a fork in both directions and bake in the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes for the small cookies until the cookies are puffed, golden and stiff to the tough. For the larger cookies, turn the pan around after 8-10 minutes and bake for another 8-10 minutes.
  7. Allow the cookies to cool for a couple of minutes on the cookies sheets before moving them to a wire cooling rack with a spatula to cool completely.

Healthy Habits: Quinoa Black Bean Salad

dairy free, egg free, low fat, nut/peanut free, reduced refined sugar, soy free 2 Comments

“It’s a bit difficult to avoid all of nature….”

Recently my health insurance provider decided that they wouldn’t cover allergy medications any more which is a big blow to my health. When one goes to an allergist for the first time, the allergist will test you for 80 most common allergens. I am allergic to 78. Have been since I was a child, and they haven’t changed in over 40 years, despite repeated testing every seven years.

For the first thirty years of my life, I coughed, hacked, and sniffled my way through life, never without huge wads of tissues in hand and rarely able to breathe through my nose. The advent of new medications, specifically nose sprays, seemed an opportunity for relief. True to my life, though, it turned out I was allergic to most of the new medications. Go figure! But there was one which actually worked, and for the past 15 years, I was able to breathe through my nose, divest down to one tissue a day, and only hack, cough and sniffle two or three times a year when the allergy seasons were at their worst.

Now, though, I’ve slowly begun a descent back to what I had forgotten, not being able to breathe unless completely upright, blowing my nose so often that it’s red and raw, once again needing to invest in my own tissue company, and finding myself at the doctor’s more than I’d like to be for antibiotics for sinus infections.

On the plus side, I’ve been so sick at times that I’ve been forced to stay at home which is an unusual opportunity for me because I suddenly have time which I wouldn’t have had if I were out at my usual meetings and running of errands. It has also meant I can see firsthand which parts of my life really must be attended to and which can survive without me.

On the downside, feeling unwell makes me tired which stimulates cravings for food which aren’t always the healthiest of choices. Since I always have to watch my weight and my sugars, I have been trying to create comfort foods which curb my cravings but which are healthy.

One such recipe is for a quinoa salad. If you are unfamiliar with quinoa, it is essentially a seed which is a good protein source.  Because it cooks similarly to rice, folks tend to eat it like a grain, and folks who are diabetic or needing to watch carbs should know that quinoa is high in carbohydrates. Since quinoa is also high in protein and fiber, though, eaten judiciously, quinoa is a great comfort food.

I make a quinoa salad which I and my family really likes which uses multi-colored quinoa, black beans, kale and carrots. The quinoa and black beans provide the carbs which are filling but also fiber and protein. The kale and carrots provide nutrients gained from vegetables and cuts the amount of quinoa (and hence the carbs) in a cup serving.

Quinoa Black Bean Salad

Ingredients:

2 cups water

1 cup multi-colored quinoa

2 cups frozen, chopped kale

1 cup thinly sliced baby carrots

16 oz can of no salt, no sugar added black beans, rinsed well and drained completely of all water

3 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 tsp ground cardamom

1-3 tsp honey (optional; use desired amount of sweetness if using; if making for just the family, I omit; if making for company, I use 2 tsp)

Cooking Instructions:

  1. In a medium saucepan, pour the water and add the quinoa. Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until the quinoa has plumped, is showing white rings, and has absorbed all the water. This will take anywhere from five to 15 minutes, depending on how vigorously you are simmering the water. I find that it’s helpful to stir the quinoa every so often.
  2. Once the water is absorbed, remove the pan from the heat, cover the quinoa and let it sit. You want the quinoa to be completely dry before you mix it with other ingredients. This can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on how much of the water was actually absorbed into the quinoa before you removed it from the heat.  When it’s completely dry, you will be able to fluff the quinoa with a fork. If the quinoa clumps together when you try to stir it, then it’s still a bit damp.
  3. While the quinoa is drying, thinly slice baby carrots to make a cup. You can use regular sized peeled carrots but then you’ll want to cut the thin slices in half because you are only cooking the carrots a short amount of time in the microwave with the kale, and you don’t want the carrots to be hard. Once you have a cup’s worth chopped, put it aside for the moment.
  4. Put 2 cups of frozen, chopped kale into a microwave safe bowl.  Follow the instructions for cooking, only halfway during the cooking time, remove the bowl, stir the kale and add the cup of chopped carrots. Finish cooking the kale in the microwave.
  5. Add the kale, carrots and black beans to the quinoa and mix well.
  6. In a measuring cup, whisk together the olive oil, apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper, cinnamon and cumin and honey, if using.
  7. Drizzle the dressing onto the quinoa salad and use a spoon to incorporate the dressing into the quinoa salad.
  8. Salad can be served warm or cold. Can store in the fridge for a long time.

Changing Tradition: Dairy Free Pumpkin Cheesecake

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“What exactly is traditional?”

This year, for the first time in eight years, I did not coordinate the parades and barbecue for the high school band which signifies the end of a “tradition” for our family. Every Memorial Day for these past few years, we’ve woken up early as a family and headed to the high school to drop off a high school child and to receive all the food parents were donating to the barbecue. Then, my remaining children, husband and I would head over to the local camp to set up for the barbecue. After cooking and serving hamburgers, hot dogs and veggie burgers to 70 people, we’d clean everything up, unload at home, and head back to the high school to pick up our child from the second of the two parades marched in on Memorial Day.

What’s varied over the years is the number of my children who helped at the barbecue. First there were two while my eldest marched with the high school band; then there was one as my middle child marched. What didn’t change was the fun we had serving as a family, and the expectations of my youngest who from his youngest years loved going to the camp on Memorial Day. Last year, however, I resigned from 15 years of school volunteer work to focus more on other opportunities.

For my youngest, who is on the autism spectrum, he was torn between wanting to support his mother and what he saw as a loss from participating in our “traditions” for Memorial Day. As it is, this year would have marked a change whether I had continued or not because my husband’s father passed away a couple of weeks ago, and though we spent a week with my mother-in-law for the funeral, my husband and youngest went back this weekend to help her sort through my father-in-law’s office materials.

Before my father-in-law passed away, though, I reminded my son that traditions are what we make, not what make us and that this could be a year to do something slightly different. For some of us, our foods are very traditional… foods we’ve always had and therefore must continue to have. This can make it difficult if we’re trying to eat healthier or suddenly have food allergies altering our food needs.

This week I received an email from someone who has always loved pumpkin cheesecake. It’s apparently been a “tradition” to make it for Memorial Day, a tradition that dates back to his childhood when he wanted pumpkin pie for Memorial Day and his mom wanted to make a cheesecake, and they compromised. This year, however, his mother can no longer eat dairy and has to be careful of her total carb intake due to diabetes, and he feared their tradition would have to end. Instead, he learned that the tradition simply need to be modified.

I used tofu versions of the dairy for the cheesecake, reduced the “sugars” by using a smaller amount of agave instead of a larger amount of sugar, and reduced overall carbs by opting to not have a crust for the cheesecake. The gentleman said his mother enjoyed the cheesecake immensely, so for those of us wondering if change can be good, this cheesecake says, “Yes.”

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Ingredients:

3 (8-ounce) packages tofu cream cheese, at room temperature
¾ cup Agave (If you like your cheesecake sweet, you may want to increase this to one cup)
1 (15-ounce) can pureed pumpkin or two cups cooked, pureed pumpkin
1/4 cup tofu sour cream, at room temperature
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon fresh ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
4 eggs, at room temperature

Topping: 12 ounce tofu sour cream, 2 tsp agave, 1 tsp vanilla

Cinnamon

Cooking Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and wrap a 10 inch springform pan with aluminum foil around the bottom. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.

In a mixer, beat tofu cream cheese until smooth. Slowly add the agave with the mixer on low, scraping down the sides as needed. Add the pumpkin puree, sour cream, and the spices. Beat together until well combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well in between each addition.

Pour into the prepared pan. Spread out evenly and place in a large pan that will hold the springform pan and water. Pour boiling water into the larger pan until it’s about halfway up the springform pan. Bake the cheesecake in the oven for about an 1 hour or so. The cheesecake will be slightly jiggly in the center but a knife inserted near the edge should come out mostly clean.  Mine took an hour and ten minutes. This made a creamy, less dense cheesecake. If you like your cheesecake to be more solid, bake longer until the center is more firm.

Mix the sour cream with the agave and vanilla and spread over the top of the cheesecake. Bake for about another ten minutes. You just want the topping to solidify a bit.

Remove from the oven and let sit for 15 to 30 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours until the cheesecake is set. Remove from the springform pan and sprinkle with cinnamon on top before serving.

Healthy Habits: Aquafaba

dairy free, egg free, gluten free, informational, lesson, low fat, nut/peanut free, reduced refined sugar, soy free 2 Comments

website souffles

“What?”

I travel to libraries to give workshops on allergy friendly and healthier baking. Last weekend, at a workshop, I spoke with a group of about 30, and I received an email this week with a follow up question about aquafaba.

If you have not heard about the new rage, aquafaba, it’s apparently the words for water and beans and refers to the liquid you find in a can of chick peas or after you cook dry chick peas.  The chemistry of the liquid is yet to be determined but what is known is that it makes for a wonderful egg and dairy substitute. You can whip it like eggs to make meringues or replace eggs in baked goods or mayo or waffles and more.  You can whip it like heavy cream to replace dairy in whipped cream, mousse, or ice cream and more.

For my workshops, I always bring samples so folks will know that I’m telling the truth about being able to “have your cake and eat it, too”, and I try to provide a variety of desserts which are gluten, dairy, nut, peanut, soy and egg free. Depending on the season, the particular items I bake vary. For this workshop, I made meringues with the aquafaba and a chocolate cream pie with an aquafaba topping so folks could see how the aquafaba worked as both an egg and a heavy cream substitute.

The participant in the workshop who had emailed me did so because she was looking for the meringue recipe which wasn’t actually on this site. So, I’m remedying that situation by including it below. *grin* I’m also including some other tips for how you can use aquafaba in recipes.

Tips for using aquafaba:

  1. Purchase no salt, no sugar added versions of the chick peas if you are using canned chick peas. This helps you to control the sodium and sugar levels. You simply drain the liquid into a bowl and use your chick peas for another recipe at another time. If you prefer to use dry beans, soak them until doubled in size, bring the water to a boil, then simmer until the beans are soft. Drain the liquid into a bowl for your use and save the chick peas for another recipe.
  2. To use the aquafaba as a regular egg sustitute, simply measure out 1/4 cup per egg needed and whisk the egg with a fork just until frothy. Then use in your recipe as you would an egg. Works well for baked goods and French toast.
  3. To use the aquafaba as eggs which need to be whipped for angel food cake or Belgium waffles, start with room temperature aquafaba, add between 1/4 to 1/2 tsp cream of tartar and whip with the whisk handle of your mixer until stiff peaks form (as pictured above). Fold into your mixtures are indicated in your recipes.
  4. If you want to whip the aquafaba for a meringue topping or meringue cookies or to use as a whipped cream topping or as a substitute for heavy cream in ice cream, when you add the cream of tartar to the room temperature liquid, you should also add your sweetener at the same time. If you try to fold in the sweetener after you’ve whipped the aquafaba, it will deflate and soften. I find that powdered sugar works the best because it’s the lightest weight. Depending on how sweet you like your foods, 1/2 cup to 1 cup of powdered sugar per 15 oz can of liquid works well for most recipes. After you have added both the cream of tartar and powdered sugar, then you can whip the aquafaba to the desired stiffness. It’s best to check if the sweetness is to your liking when soft peaks have begun to form so you can add more if needed before you reach the stiff peak stage.

How to Make Aquafaba Meringues:

To make the aquafaba meringues you simply need a 15 oz can of chickpeas.  Drain the liquid into your mixing bowl and put the chickpeas in the fridge for another use.   Add at least 1/4 tsp and up to 1/2 tsp of cream of tartar.  Then add powdered sugar to your liking.  Start with 1/2 cup to 1 cup of powdered sugar. You can always add more later if you find it’s not sweet enough for you. Add 1 tsp of vanilla alone or with 1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder if you want vanilla or chocolate flavor.

After you’ve put everything into your mixer, use the wire whisk handle to whip the aquafaba until it looks like the picture above.  It usually doesn’t take very long.  (When the peaks are still soft, check the sweetness to see if you need to add any more before whipping to stiff peaks.)

After it’s whipped to stiff peaks, put some into a gallon zip lock bag and snip off the end.  Preheat your oven to 250 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Using the ziplock bag, pipe meringues onto the parchment paper.  I usually make them about tablespoon size. I also like to make the meringues pretty by sprinkling a mixture of unsweetened cocoa powder and powder sugar on top of each meringue before putting them into the oven.

Once you’ve filled the cookie sheet with your meringues, pop them into the oven and bake them for at least an hour.  Then check them.  When they are done, they’ll be hard and dry.  If they’re not quite done, cook them longer for 15 minutes at a time until they are.  (If you make them tablespoon size, they’ll be done after an hour.  If you made them larger, they may take more time.)

Once they’re done, turn off the oven and let them cool in the oven for half an hour.  Then take them out and let them cool completely on a wire cooling rack.  When you go to take them off the parchment paper after they’ve cooled, carefully lift them off and place them into a tupperware, using parchment paper or plastic wrap to layer them.  They’ll keep for a good while in the tupperware.

Valentine Greetings: Chocolate Surprise Cupcakes

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choc-surprise-cupcakes

“Yay! Another snow day!”

After a winter of warm days and relatively little snow, Mother Nature decided that we needed three feet to fall within a week and a half. My middle child is vexed that the three tests she was supposed to have had a week ago still have not been administered due to two snow days and three start of school delays. My oldest and youngest, however, have been thrilled for the extra time to hang out in dorms with no classes (my oldest at college) and to play at home with the family (my youngest in middle school).

As a family, we’ve made use of the snowbound time to catch up on the never-ending t0-do list and to spend time together since the youngest really wanted us to play with him. Many hours sledding in our backyard, playing board games, competing on the Wii, and watching reruns of old shows left the family in the mood for something “special” to eat.

Since Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, we decided to make some Chocolate Surprise Cupcakes, one of the family’s favorites. You make a chocolate raspberry center which you tuck into the cupcake batter so when you eat it, you enjoy a nice creamy flavor surprise.  What’s nice about this recipe is that it’s free of most foods folks tend to be allergic to, so just about anyone can enjoy them.

Chocolate Surprise Cupcakes

Filling Ingredients:

1 cup Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips

2 tbsp Polaner’s seedless raspberry All-Fruit

2 tbsp Earth Balance vegan, soy free butter

Cooking Instructions:

  1. In a microwave safe large glass container, place all three ingredients and microwave for 1 minute. Stir until the mixture is completely smooth.
  2. Place the container in the refrigerator and let the mixture cool and begin to thicken. It can take anywhere from 10-30 minutes, depending on how hot your microwave makes the chocolate, how exact your measuring is, etc…. What you want is for the mixture to be thick enough when you spoon it that you can mound the chocolate onto a cookie sheet.
  3. When the chocolate has thickened enough to form little mounds, place a piece of wax paper on a cookie sheet and create 24 chocolate mounds using a teaspoon to scoop out the chocolate mixture. You essentially are making a little “hershey kiss” of your own.
  4. Once you have 24 more or less equally sized chocolate mounds, put them into the fridge to harden while you make the cupcake batter.

Cupcake Ingredients:

3 cups favorite gluten free flour blend

1/2 cup unsweetened Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder

3 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup agave

3/4 cup safflower oil

2 cups water

2 tsp vanilla

3 tbsp vinegar

Baking Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line 24 cupcake tins with cupcake liners.
  2. Mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt well and set aside.
  3. Mix the agave, oil, water, and vanilla and add to the dry ingredients with the vinegar. Mix well until the dry ingredients are moistened.
  4. Put 1 1/2 tbsp of batter into each of the 24 cupcake tins.
  5. Carefully peel and place one of the chocolate raspberry mounds into the center of each of the cupcake tins.
  6. Divide the remaining batter evenly among the cupcake tins (about 1 1/12 tbsp) to cover the chocolate mounds.
  7. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes. The cupcakes will be rounded, firm to the touch, and a toothpick inserted into the center will come out clean. My oven always bakes them in 15 minutes but a friend said hers took 20.
  8. Let the cupcakes sit in the tins for 5 minutes. Then remove them to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
  9. Frost with your favorite frosting recipe or use the one below is one I’ve adapted from Elana’s Pantry.

Frosting Ingredients:

1 cup Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips

1/2 cup avocado oil

2 tbsp agave

2 tsp vanilla

your preference of “milk”

Cooking Instructions:

  1. Mix the chips, oil, and agave together in a microwave safe glass container.
  2. Heat the chips for 1 minute. Stir. If it needs to be heated more, do so 20 seconds at a time until you can stir the chips smooth.
  3. Add the vanilla and stir well.
  4. Transfer the mixture to your mixer bowl.
  5. Put into the freezer until the mixture begins to hard around the edges but is still softer in the center.  This can take between 15 to 30 minutes.
  6. Using your mixer, blend the chocolate mixture on high speed until the mixture becomes thick and smooth. You may need to scrape down the sides a couple of times.
  7. Add “milk”, a teaspoon at a time until the mixture is to the creamy consistency you prefer for frosting your cupcakes.

 

Healthy Habits: Tofu

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“The parts all contribute to the whole.”

As a drama director my job is to help folks bring every aspect of a character to life. Some excel at body language. Others mimic voices well. Most know how to speak with emotion but not always how to use facial expressions to enhance the emotion. When I work with folks, I get questions like, “But I sound just like an old lady. Isn’t that enough?” Or “What difference does it make how I walk?” And then I have to explain that every aspect of a character – how they speak, walk, dress, gesture – has to be spot on for the audience to believe in the illusion we are creating.

When I received an email this week from a wife who wants to get her husband to eat more tofu, I thought about the types of illusions created by food and cooking. Restaurant chefs learn how to garnish plated food artistically because “beautiful” food is better tasting. Right? Not necessarily but the illusion is created and our brains believe it, so our palate does too… sometimes. *grin* When we’re sad or upset, and we eat, it’s because somewhere along the line the illusion was created that “comfort” food is comforting. And sometimes it is, but most of the times it just makes us fat. *wry grin*

That doesn’t mean all illusions are bad, though, when it comes to food. For food like tofu, creating illusions is precisely what helps when a wife wants her husband to eat more of it so he can live a longer, healthier life. *grin* When one’s husband really wants a meat chili, what can you do to get his brain to believe in the satisfaction of a tofu chili instead? If he wants chicken in his stir fry, how can you make tofu an acceptable substitute?

The answer lies in the parts contributing to the whole. For example, what makes chili taste like chili? It’s the spices and the traditional add-in’s. Almost every chili recipe calls for chili powder or actual chili peppers. Most include onions and peppers, regardless of whatever else is also added. So, the key is to infuse all the part of a tofu chili with the flavoring which your taste buds associate with a chili. The other important factor in chili is the texture. People are particular about chili – that’s why you see all the debates about chunks of meat versus ground meat and meat only versus meat with beans. So, you have to mimic the texture of the type of chili you’re trying to substitute tofu into. I have a recipe below which I use which a lot of folks have liked in the past.

Another example of how to create illusions with tofu is baked tofu recipes. Commonly folks will substitute tofu in a stir fry or recipe by simply adding chopped tofu instead of chicken or beef. The problem is that folks were expecting a “meaty” taste and texture, but plain tofu is not going to supply that. Baked tofu, however, does. When tofu is baked, it becomes crispy on the outside and meaty, chewy in the center, the way beef and chicken can be. It’s obviously not the exact same, but if you flavor the tofu as you would the beef or chicken in a stir fry, you’ll find that the brain can buy into the substitution. Below I’ve pasted in some tips for making baked tofu.

Crockpot Tofu Chili

Ingredients:

2 cups chopped kale

2 cups sweet white corn

1/2 cup chopped onions

1 1/2 cup chopped peppers (I like to mix red, yellow and green for color)

2 cups chopped butternut squash

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp ground chili powder

1/2 tsp ground cumin

28 ounce no salt added diced tomatoes

16 oz can drained, rinsed no salt added dark red kidney beans

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp ground chili powder

1/2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp olive oil

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground chili powder

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp ground onion powder

2 14-16 ounce extra firm tofu

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground chili powder

1 tsp minced garlic

Cooking Instructions:

  1. Mix the kale, corn, onions, peppers, and squash with the garlic, chili powder, and cumin in a 6 cup crockpot.
  2. In a bowl mix the tomatoes and beans with the garlic, cumin and chili powder and then add them to the vegetable mixture in the crockpot.
  3. In a large pan, saute the olive oil with the cumin, chili powder, garlic and onion powder for about 30 seconds. Using your hands crumble the tofu into the pan so that they are in large chunks that look like ground meat. Mix the tofu into the hot seasonings well and saute until the water has evaporated out of the tofu mixture. Add to the mixture in the crockpot.
  4. Mix all the ingredients with the final dashes of cumin, chili powder and garlic. Cook on low for 4 to 6 hours.
  5. NOTE:  If you do not cook out all the water from the tofu, the chili will become watery. If that happens, simply use a spoon to scoop out the excess water and then remix your chili.

Tips for Making Baked Tofu:

  1. The tofu: Make sure you are using at least firm tofu. Extra or super firm is best.
  2. The seasonings: You can use whatever you want. Soy sauce, sesame oil, herbs, spices, pesto, black pepper, bottled sauces, whatever you like. You want to make sure to completely coat your tofu cubes well before you begin to bake them. If you use something like minced garlic, you should add that to the tofu later in the baking time so the minced garlic doesn’t burn. If you want to use a sauce, you can toss the tofu with oil and bake it and then toss them with the sauce after they’re done as opposed to before you bake them.
  3. Oil: Baked tofu works best if you have a little bit of fat to help with the crisping. I prefer to use oil. You can use olive oil or sesame oil or a nut oil or another plant oil… it all depends on the flavor you want and the seasonings you want to complement. Toss the tofu in the oil before tossing them with the seasoning you want to use.
  4. Shape: Cut the tofu into cubes for best baking. I like 1 inch cubes.
  5. Oven: 350 degrees is a good temperature to slowly bake the moisture out of the tofu and to create a crispy exterior.
  6. Baking Sheet: The best way to bake tofu is on a cookie sheet lined with parchment. It helps to absorb the moisture without causing the tofu to stick and allows the heat to reach all sides of the tofu.
  7. The baking: It’s good to place the tofu in a single layer and to turn them over at some point so the bottom side gets some of the circulating heat on it. The time will vary, depending on how watery your tofu is and how many you have on a sheet. Some tofu will be done in 15 minutes, others can take 30 minutes or longer. Some recipes will tell you to toss the tofu in cornstarch. This helps to reduce the moisture which can cut down on the time in the oven and can create a crispier texture. Other recipes will tell you to place items on top of the tofu to squeeze out the extra moisture before baking. This can cut down on the time, too. I never do that because I have no problem with baking the tofu a little longer while I do have issues with too many steps and the risk of squashing my tofu so I can’t have my neat little cubes.

Healthy Habits: Orange Cranberry Muffins and Pancakes

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“Of course you’re sick….”

It never fails. A day or two into our holiday break, one of the children or my husband starts sniffling and coughing. Then one by one, they all fall victim and within three to five days all four are sick. The same thing happens during the February winter break. The adrenaline which keeps their immune system pumping through the semesters seems to slow down, and their bodies’ immune systems drop their defenses. Fortunately, over the years, my body appears to have become immune to their sicknesses so 98% of the time now, I’m healthy as I nurse them as opposed to the earlier years where I was sick as a dog, too, but had to be the mom who took care of everyone else!

While everyone is sick, I’m always trying to find ways to get more good nutrients like vitamin C into them. One of the ways they prefer is when I make foods which have ingredients high in vitamins and minerals. Oranges and cranberries are both good for the immune system so I’ve created muffin and pancake recipes which the family likes to eat.

To help boost the “good” in the muffins and pancakes I use high fiber, high protein flours and add both orange juice and cranberries. I freeze fresh whole cranberries in the freezer in two cup bags which I can just pull out when I need them, and I keep unsweetened frozen orange juice concentrate in the freezer as well. For both recipes, I use the frozen cranberries and orange juice concentrate as is without any thawing.

Enjoy!

Orange Cranberry Pankcakes

(These make a lot: enough for a family of five with leftovers for the school week

so if you don’t want that many make half the recipe instead.)

Ingredients:

4 cups milk of choice (cow, soy, flax, etc…)

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/3 cup vegan soy free butter

1 tbsp safflower oil (or canola or grapeseed or sunflower or other type you prefer)

2 cups cranberries (fresh or frozen, not dried)

1/2 cup unsweetened orange juice concentrate (frozen is fine)

1/2 cup Agave

2 eggs (or 2 tbsp ground flaxseed mixed with 6 tbsp water or 1/2 cup aquafaba*)

4 cups of your favorite high fiber, high protein gluten free flour blend **

1 tsp salt

5 tsp baking powder

Cooking Instructions:

  1. Preheat a pancake griddle to 350 and grease with preferred method. If using a pan, don’t warm the pan until you’re ready to cook the pancakes and cook the pancakes on medium heat.
  2. Mix the milk with the lemon juice and set aside.
  3. Melt the butter in a microwave for a few seconds and mix it with the oil. Set aside.
  4. In a food processor, chop up the cranberries with the orange juice concentrate and agave. Stir in the milk and the butter with the two eggs. Set aside.
  5. Mix the flour with the salt and baking powder.
  6. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix just until everything is moistened and the batter begins to bubble a bit.
  7. Use a 1/4 cup to pour batter onto the prepared griddle. When the pancake edges are dry and the pancake batter begins to pop little bubbles, turn them over and cook a minute on the other side to complete the pancake.
  8. If making a lot of pancakes to store for the week, put them in single layers on a cooling rack to cool completely before putting them into the fridge. To keep warm for eating, put the pancakes on an oven proof plate in the oven on the lowest temperature setting.

Notes: *Aquafaba is the liquid from a can of chickpeas. To substitute for eggs, use 1/4 cup per egg and whisk until frothy (foamy but still clear and not white like a meringue.)

** See Food FAQs under Ingredients to see some recipes for GF blends https://pajamaliving.com/flour/

Orange Cranberry Muffins

Ingredients:

2 cups cranberries (fresh or frozen, not dried)

1/2 cup unsweetened orange juice concentrate (frozen is fine)

1/2 cup Agave

1 cup milk of choice (cow, soy, flax, etc….)

1/2 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup quinoa flour

1 cup tapioca starch

1 cup potato starch

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cloves

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp xanthan gum

1/2 cup vegan soy free butter

1/2 cup Agave

2 eggs

Baking Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 24 cupcake liners in muffin tins or grease the muffin tins with your preferred method.
  2. In a food processor, chop up the cranberries with the orange juice concentrate and agave. Stir in the milk and set aside.
  3. Mix together the sorghum flour, quinoa flour, tapioca starch, potato starch, baking powder, salt, cloves, cinnamon and xanthan gum. Set aside.
  4. Cream the vegan butter with mixer. Scrape down the sides. Slowly add the agave, mixing on low until the butter is creamy.
  5. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing the first in well before adding the second.
  6. Scrape down the sides and add the dry ingredients alternately with the cranberry milk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients, scraping down the side as needed.
  7. Fill the cupcake liners evenly with the batter (will be about 3/4 full).
  8. Bake for 15 minutes until cupcakes are puffed, golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
  9. Cool muffins on a wire cooling rack.

Creative Cooking: Brussel Sprout Chocolate Chip Cake

dairy free, gluten free, nut/peanut free, reduced refined sugar, soy free 2 Comments

brussel-sprout-cake

“The secret ingredient is what?”

After one day of Thanksgiving leftovers, my husband is usually ready for something different. So, over the past few days we’ve had a turkey shepherds’ pie (using leftover turkey, some of the roasted carrots and cauliflower, and the mashed potato timbale), turkey-vegetable soup (using leftover turkey, the rest of the roasted carrots and cauliflower, and the leek gravy), stuffing muffins (using leftover stuffing and some of the leftover turkey sausage stuffed mushrooms), cranberry waffles (using leftover whole berry cranberry sauce), cranberry muffins (using leftover cranberry-orange relish), and quiche (using the rest of the leftover turkey sausage stuffed mushrooms).

Yesterday as I was rummaging through the fridge to see what we still had leftover, I found the roasted brussel sprouts which I hadn’t used in any of the above meals. While searching online to see if there might be anything interesting I could use them for, I found a recipe for brussel sprout cake. I was intrigued but a closer look at the multitude of recipes — which I discovered to actually be the same two recipes just remade by many, many people — revealed a lot which I didn’t like about the cake.

One was simply that the cake seemed to be a variation of a fruit cake recipe, only with vegetables added, so the bake time was lengthy and the cake, more dense than I’d like. Two, the recipes called for two cups of sugar and two cups of oil.  Third, all the extras which make the cake more like a fruit cake — the raisins, walnuts or pecans, shredded coconut, etc… — were not ingredients my children would like in a cake. Four, the recipes, were of course, not allergy friendly for wheat, dairy and nuts.

So, I decided I’d create my own brussel sprout cake which used gluten free flour in place of the wheat, agave instead of sugar and in half the amount, applesauce for some of the oil, and a small amount of mini chocolate chips in place of the original “extras”. When the cake was done, we topped it with a dark chocolate frosting, and the result was an extremely tasty cake which now contained the health benefits of brussel sprouts which includes being high in protein and vitamins C and K.

Brussel Sprout Chocolate Chip Cake

Ingredients:

2 cups roasted brussel sprouts

1/2 cup safflower oil

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 cup agave

1 tbsp vanilla

4 eggs (if you are watching cholesterol, use 1 cup liquid egg whites instead)

2 cups gluten free flour blend (I used Pillsbury brand for this cake)

1 cup gluten free oat flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt (you can reduce this if you are watching sodium intake)

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 cup Enjoy Life allergen free mini chocolate chips

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Baking Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line an 11 x 15 pan with parchment paper.
  2. Coarsely chop up the brussel sprouts in a food processor for a few seconds or with a knife on a cutting board.
  3. In a large bowl, combine the brussel sprouts with the oil, applesauce, agave and vanilla.
  4. Beat the eggs and add them to the brussel sprout bowl. Set aside.
  5. Combine the gluten free flour with the oat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves.
  6. Stir in the mini chocolate chips.
  7. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, along with the cider vinegar, and mix just until the dry ingredients are moistened.
  8. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes until the cake has puffed, is golden, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
  9. Cool on a wire rack.
  10. Frost with favorite frosting recipe. (We made dark chocolate but I think a cream cheese frosting or vanilla or cinnamon frosting would be equally tasty.)

 

 

Appealing Appetites: Just the Same Chocolate Cake

dairy free, gluten free, reduced refined sugar 1 Comment

chocolate-cake

“There can’t be any difference.”

One of the many heartbreaking moments for me as a mother of children on the autism spectrum was when my oldest started kindergarten. Several weeks into the year, I found my daughter in a corner crying. Apparently every day at recess since school had started, she sat alone on a swing because no one would play with her. As I gathered her into my lap, my own tears ran at her heartache. The autism meant she lacked the social skills needed to make friends, but it didn’t mean that she didn’t want or need friends nor that she couldn’t feel the hurt of not having any.

I arranged a meeting with the kindergarten teacher because I was a little surprised that at the age of five, students were already alienating other students. Isn’t everyone friends at the age of five? (Yes, I was naive. I was a young parent and didn’t know better yet!) When we met, I asked why no one was playing with my daughter, and the teacher said, “Well, Mrs. Castner, your daughter is a little… different.”

Different. If you look up the definition, you’ll see wonderful phrases like “not ordinary” and “distinct in nature” which appear to be good traits, but then you’ll continue reading to find “dissimilar”, “not identical”, “unusual”, “separate”. We live in a world where tension exists between sameness and difference. We encourage children to be themselves, to embrace what makes them unique… different… from everyone else while simultaneously wanting them to “fit in” and be like others around them… to be the same.

Too often the push toward sameness wins out over the desire to encourage individuality, and for my daughter, her difference meant children as young as five didn’t want to be her friend. She was too different, and therefore, they didn’t understand her. Without understanding, it can be difficult to draw into another’s experience.

Because I do understand, my heart ached again this past week when I received an email from a mother whose daughter is feeling “different” from her classmates because she has food allergies and can’t eat what others eat. We can ask as I did all those years ago, “What’s the big deal about being different?” The answer is that it IS a big deal because children at a young age don’t understand the difference and can react in negative ways. For this daughter, she felt she “wasn’t normal” because the other children wanted to know why she never ate cake at the birthday parties they attended and why her bread looked different at lunch.

The mother was reaching out because the girl was inviting classmates to her house for a birthday party, and she was anxious about the birthday cake. She didn’t want her birthday cake to be “different” because apparently children were asking her if there would be cake and whether it would taste the “same” as other birthday cakes.

I confess. I cried reading the email because it broke my heart to think of that much anxiety in a seven year old… all because of cake. I understood what was happening, though, because the fact is that many cakes which are gluten free and dairy free do have a different texture and different taste from “normal” cakes, and children know what they like and are often very picky about trying something “different”.

Fortunately, while the young girl in question couldn’t have gluten or dairy, she had no other food issues, so it was easy for me to create a chocolate cake “just like real chocolate cake” for her. The mother wanted it to be an “easy” cake which she could make with flour blends from her grocery store, so I used Bob’s Red Mill and Krusteaz blends which she could find at her store. I combined the two because, despite what you’ll read on the packages, a “simple substitution” of  just one of the blends makes for either a crumbly or a fallen cake. To achieve the “same” texture as regular cake, I needed to combine the two different types of flour blends. For the dairy, I used vanilla soy milk because it’s consistency matches milk in most cake recipes and the vanilla enhances the chocolate flavor. Instead of refined white sugar, I used coconut sugar which adds a subtle undertone to the chocolate as opposed to a sickening sweetness. Instead of butter, I added safflower oil which has a neutral taste but adds the fat needed to retain moisture in the cake. Instead of regular unsweetened cocoa powder, I used the Special Dark because it has a deeper chocolate flavor, and I added a cup of mini chocolate chips (allergy friendly) to give another level of chocolate taste.

We made the below cake for the French exchange student we had staying with us, and she never knew the “difference”. It was just as chocolately, just as fluffy, just as moist, just as tasty. I was confident that the little girl’s schoolmates would never suspect that it was actually “different”. *grin*

Just the Same Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

2 cups coconut sugar

1 cup Krusteaz gluten free all purpose flour

1 cup Bob’s Red Mill all purpose baking flour (the one in the red package made from bean flours; not the rice blend)

1 cup Hershey’s Special Dark unsweetened cocoa powder (the one with the red lining; not the regular unsweetened cocoa powder)

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 1/2 cup vanilla soy milk

1/2 cup safflower oil

2 tsp gluten free vanilla

1 cup Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips

1 cup boiling water

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Baking Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line three 9 inch cake pans with parchment paper.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the coconut sugar, the two flour blends, the cocoa powder, the baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
  3. Mix together in another bowl, the eggs, soy milk, safflower oil and vanilla.
  4. Stir the chocolate chips into the dry ingredients. Pour the bowling water on top, and add the wet ingredients along with the vinegar. Whisk everything together until it’s well combined.
  5. Divide the batter evenly among the three cake pans.
  6. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until the cakes are puffed and pulling away from the sides and toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (I had set the timer for 15 minutes, checked, and put them on for another 5.)
  7. Cool the cake layers in their pans for at least 10 to 15 minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely. (I actually stacked them one on top of the other with the parchment paper in between the layers and put them onto a plate in the freezer for about 10 to 15 minutes to cool them faster!)
  8. Frost the layers and then the whole cake with your favorite frosting. (What is pictured above is a cinnamon frosting made with vegan butter, powdered sugar, cinnamon and soy milk.)