Gluten-free, vegan, buckwheat carrot muffins

I spent a glorious weekend in San Luis Obispo, CA with some dear friends and got back yesterday feeling like a child who had to leave Disney early. I wanted to stay and explore the farmers markets more, discover more hidden restaurants with lovely, knowledgeable servers and chefs who take care and creativity to new heights. These are just a few of the wonderful memories I have of this weekend, along with my dear friend who will now be the pastry chef at the Dolphin Bay Resort. (I know, pastry chef and me, go figure. She's a fabulous chef and I've learned so much from her about cooking over the years.)

Spring Salad at Luna Red

We ate lunch at Luna Red in downtown San Luis Obispo and had a brilliant, light, crunchy salad that was perfect for a warm Spring day in California. With the Greekfest right next door, the music made our day even more festive. The salad was filled with pea shoots, blood orange segments, carrots, radish, mint, a light citrus vinaigrette and a sprinkle of goat cheese. Couldn't have asked for anything better. A glass of rose and a table full of good friends made the afternoon complete. I highly recommend the restaurant.

The amazing selection of veggies at the farmers marke

One booth at the farmers market caught my eye, of course, with their big Gluten Free Goodies sign. I couldn't resist and bought a GF carrot cake muffin made with buckwheat and a delicious quinoa salad I'll be recreating later this week. (attempting I should say). It was filling and had a beautiful mix of savory and sweet with roasted veggies (yummy roasted carrots) and pepitas. I ate it cold right out of the container. Oh yeah!

But first up, after eating what was the best carrot cake muffin I've ever had (including my gluten-eating days), I decided to try and make it at home. Since Daughter has now eliminated eggs from her diet, that makes things a little more difficult, but not impossible. I do have vegan friends who I know will enjoy these also. The muffins in CA were not vegan, so this is just a small change and more of a challenge. I searched the Internet and found this recipe at She Let Them Eat Cake.com for buckwheat carrot muffins. These are already vegan, which is a plus.

I modified the recipe a bit to my own tastes, but I would encourage you to try her recipe also. And if you can't have some of the things I've added, feel free to eliminate what you want. I added the almond flour and GF oats for flavor, and added the splash of juice just because it looked a little thick. This may change based on your altitude and ingredients. If you add molasses, you may not need any more liquid. But I do like the oats for texture and flavor.



Gluten-Free & Vegan Buckwheat Carrot Muffins

1 & 1/2 cups buckwheat flour
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup GF oats
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 cups grated / shredded carrot (you could use zucchini too)

3/4 cup agave
1 mashed banana
3/4 cup olive oil
3 tbsp ground flax combined with 9 tbsp hot water (or 3 eggs)
Splash of orange juice to loosen up the mixture if you need it.
1/2 cup golden raisins

Eating these at my desk while I write this makes me very happy

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line a muffin pan with liners or grease with olive oil.

2. In a large bowl combine the first eight ingredients (dry).

3. Add shredded carrot to the dry ingredients and combine. In a medium-sized bowl combine agave, mashed banana, olive oil, and flax-hot water mixture. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Add raisins last.

4. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool to the touch.

These are quite good, and amazingly fluffy and not too dense, considering there is no egg in it. I've never used flax and hot water before and I was quite amused at the egg-white-like texture it creates. The mixture is quite thick and gummy before baking and that must be due to the flax mixture. What a find. I will certainly be trying this with other dishes and baked goods. This is my first attempt at gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free baking. So far, so good.

In retrospect, these could use just a little more sweetness so I think a bit of molasses and honey, or an orange glaze on top will make them just a touch sweeter and tasty. A bit of Tofutti cream cheese will make them sing for me in the morning with my tea. Try them and let me know what you think.

Coconut Cake Fit for a King

My husband had a very special birthday last week and to commemorate the occasion, I decided to get him a coconut cake. I could have made it, but he is always mentioning how much he misses his grandmother's coconut cake and I didn't think I could get close.

Enter Angela Saban. I've have tried many of her cakes and treats, all of which are gluten free and amazing. I knew it would be good, and I knew it would be closer to grandma's than I could ever get. What I received was a beautiful, huge cake that lived up to my expectations and more. Husband was totally surprised and said it may not have been grandma's cake, but it's the closest he's ever come to it. And since it was gluten free (and he is not)  I think we've accomplished something here, don't you?

The cake was beautiful on the outside with a pretty ribbon on top with Happy Birthday written on it, edible blue glitter sprinkled on lightly and a generous amount of light frosting and coconut surrounding it. The cake inside was four layers high and yet it was light and sweet. The cake was not too dense and not too sweet, making it a great combo for the light whipped buttercream icing. All white, all coconut and all amazing.

The party was a combined celebration for the Husband and a wonderful 6-year-old boy who is very close to our family. My daughter made her famous gluten-free chocolate cupcakes topped with vanilla buttercream frosting and decorated with crushed K-Too cookies just for him and his friends. They loved them, and we even had a couple left to bring home and freeze for another day. The cake, as you can see, is sky high and even though there were 15 people eating it, we still had enough to leave a piece for the hostess, give a piece to my Mom, freeze a piece and eat some the next day. Angela did say it would feed 25 people and she wasn't kidding!

And just for the record, I don't get anything for writing this. I paid for the cake and I will be doing so again on any other occasion where I don't have time or inclination to make a cake. I'm just trying to come up with an occasion soon!

Enjoy!

Pizza Perfection Quest #3

 Pizza, oh yeah!

I knew I would have three teenagers in the house yesterday, so I decided to give pizza crust #3 a try. I am determined to find a crust that Wows everyone. And if you have to have a quest in life, this one isn't so bad.

For this experiment, I used Bob's Red Mill Pizza Crust Mix and Chebe's Pizza Crust. I decided to mix them because I know Chebe has a chewy texture, but I'm not that keen on the flavor. I know Bob's Red Mill makes a mix for most everything, but I wanted a more chewy crust. For that reason, I used the Bob's Red Mill mix, but substituted one cup of the mix for one cup of Chebe's mix. Everything else was the same (yeast, eggs, oil, salt, garlic powder) as the back of the Bob's package.

The crust was less sticky than the previous mix, although still not a dough you can roll out. Mostly, just used a spatula and olive oil to spread it around.

Bake first for about 10 minutes to firm it up, then top with marinara and mozzarella and bake another 10 minutes.

Results? I thought the flavor was good, but I didn't get much of a fluffy dough texture from this one. It was thinner than the second crust and had a nice flavor, but a little too much of the Chebe flavor came through for my taste. The two teens who had the previous pizza liked this one, but not as much as Crust #2 (same reasons). Of course, they did each have 3 pieces, so it wasn't too shabby. The teen who hadn't tried any of them so far loved it and ate even more.

So far the votes are in:
Crust #2 is the best so far (King Arthur)
Crust #3 runs a close second (Bob's and Chebe)
Crust #1 follows up behind as the "Not bad, but I've had better" pizza. (Bisquick)

Don't worry though, there are still a few more to go, and we are determined to try them all just for you! Got a suggestion or recipe? Let me know and we might give that one a try too!

If you try any of these, please let me know how it works out for you. Let me know here, or on the FB page.

Enjoy!

My kind of cookbook!

A new GF cookbook for me!

Now, this is my kind of cookbook. Since I'm not much of a baker, I prefer to take a mix and tweak it. Now, there's a gluten-free cookbook out there that does just that! It's called The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten-Free and it's all about taking cake mixes and making awesome cakes, cupcakes, and even bundt cakes using these mixes. Yahoo!

I've ordered it on Amazon after checking it out in the preview and it looks great. Can't wait to start cooking. Even though I've been tweaking these mixes for a long time, it's nice to get new ideas sometimes. Let me know what you think if you've used this one.

Enjoy!