Gluten Free King Cake

Store bought or home made? - Gluten Free King Cake
Photo by J. Stahl

In honor of Karneval, I decided King Cake was in order. Tuesday the children are celebrating at Kindergarten, so my husband and I put our heads together to get this made.  For whatever reason, baking with yeast never turns out well for me. However, my husband is able to make magic happen with yeasty goods.

So our plan was that he make the dough and bake everything while I worked on the decorating aspects. We modified the Gluten-Free King Cake recipe from Celiac Family.

Here are our modifications:

• 2 (.25 oz.) packages of active dry yeast
• 1/2 Cup warm water (100 – 110 degrees F) 
• 1/2 Cup + 2 tsp white sugar
• 1 Cup milk  (Alternatively, use Coconut, Rice or Soy Milk)
• 1/4 Cup butter (Alternatively, use dairy free butter)
• 2 eggs (can be substituted with flax-water mixture)
• 1-1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 2-1/2 Cups white rice flour (fine)
• 1 Cup potato starch
• 1/2 Cup tapioca flour
• 2 tsp guar gum (Alternatively Xanthan Gum, or Pixie Dust)

Nut Filling:

• 1 Cup packed brown sugar
• 1 TBSP cinnamon
• 1/2 Cup melted butter (or butter replacement)
• 1/2 Cup chopped walnuts

 Frosting:

• 2 Cups powdered sugar, run in the food processor and sifted again to remove lumps
  1/4 Cup fresh orange juice
  1 tsp butter, melted and cooled (or butter replacement)
  1 tsp almond extract
  2 tsp vanilla extract

 Additionally needed:

• three small sandwich-sized ziploc bags with 1/2 cup fine white sugar
• purple, yellow and green Wilton icing colors
• toothpicks and paper towels

Directions:

Mix all dry ingredients together, including yeast in your mixing bowl. Add eggs, one at a time. Add milk once the eggs are incorporated into the dough. Add the butter immediately after. You may or may not need the water depending on your weather and altitude.

Separate your dough into two balls. Roll out the dough on a large baking sheet with baking paper. Make your filling by combining all ingredients and place carefully in the middle of the dough in a long line.  Roll the dough together very carefully and pinch the sides together. Roll again very carefully while pinching the ends together so that they are on the bottom of the dough as you put the ring together.

It will look something like this:

Yeast has risen on this King Cake - Photo by A. Stahl

When both rings are done, rise carefully in the lowest temperature in your oven for an hour and a half. Remove from oven and heat the oven to 375°F/190°C.

When the oven has reached the appropriate temperature, fill an oven safe glass dish with water and place it on the bottom rack of your oven. Place one king cake inside and bake for 20 minutes. You may need to cover it halfway through with aluminum foil. (we did!)

When it comes out of the oven, it will look like this:

King Cake, finished baking - Photo by A.Stahl

 It has cracked a little, but this is fine. The icing and the sugar will cover this and no one will notice!
 Allow the cake to cool for about an hour. Allow the other cake to bake for 20 minutes while you begin making the icing and coloring the sugar in ziplock bags.

The icing is a very thin icing. For me, it is easier to decorate once I have removed it from the kitchenaid bowl and put it into a glass to more easily manipulate while pouring over the cake. I would highly recommend placing the cake back on the parchment paper as this will get very messy!

Carefully cover each cake around the ring with icing. Don't worry about being "cheap" at first. You can always fill in later with left over icing!

To make the colored sugar, simply use a toothpick to dip into the Wilton icing colors. At this juncture, you simply mix this in the plastic baggies by hand, making sure there are no lumps of dye in the sugar, and no clumps. It's easy work and you can quickly make it happen by asking your preschooler to help mix a bag or two. (wink!)

Put your colored sugar crystals into cups and distribute evenly on both cakes. There are many ways to decorate your King Cake with sprinkles or sugar crystals.  When you are finished, it will look something like this:

King Cake - photo by J. Stahl

You can transfer the cake onto a decorative plate or cake stand once the icing has quit dripping and the sugar has settled. I would recommend asking a friend or spouse to hold the pan while you use a spatula or cake knife and server to transfer it from the pan to the plate.

Since we had two cakes, one of them is for us to have today during lunch.  Here is how the filling looks when you cut a slice out.

King Cake filling - photo by J. Stahl

Enjoy!!

Slice of King Cake - photo by J. Stahl

Cupcakes and cakes inspired by Annalise Roberts

Alien Cupcakes - Photo by J.Stahl

One of my favorite cake recipes comes from Annalise Roberts' Gluten-Free Baking Classics.  I make her Yellow Layer Cake for every single birthday. We modify if we wish to have chocolate and only deviate if someone wants to have marble cake or pie instead.

Her cake recipe is one of the absolute fluffiest cakes I have had in ages! Everyone we've introduced it to has been quite pleasantly surprised that it has been gluten free.


The photo above of the Alien Cupcakes was made four years ago for my husband's birthday. We were stymied what to make and I figured aliens would be fascinating. The only thing I forgot to take into mind was that food coloring is usually off the table when it comes to Germans and cake. Oops. You live and learn, right?

The icing was made using Wilton's Buttercream Icing recipe, and I topped off all of the aliens with some gluten free fruit candy, gluten free pretzel sticks and chocolate candies. 

That same year, I made hamburger cupcakes using the same recipe.  I split the recipe and made half chocolate (remember to remove about 1/2 cup of the flour specified and add in the same amount in cocoa powder).  I colored the icing with red and yellow food coloring and left some white so that it would look like each cupcake had been given mayo, ketchup and mustard. Again, everyone was pleasantly surprised how delicate the cake was and how little sugar was used to make everything for this. The cupcakes were simple and held up well for my birthday party.

Hamburger Cupcakes - Photo by J. Stahl

If I could recommend any cookbook, and any one recipe out of a cookbook, this would be it!  If you can't afford a copy, please do be sure to request one in your local library.  It always helps for librarians to know that you are looking for specific books so that other people, like ourselves can find what they need when they go.  Just imagine if every library was equipped with a healthy selection of Gluten free books and cookbooks!

 Do you have a gluten free cookbook that you like? Any specific cake recipes that you would just love for the world to know and try out? Feel free to leave a comment below. I would love to hear about it!

Blintzes!

One of my favorite foods that I love to eat around Shavuot are Blintzes. My husband knows this recipe by another name, Palačinke. You may know it by another name, depending on your cultural background.

Note: This is not a GAPS or PALEO, but GLUTEN FREE recipe. Many Jewish holidays do not lend well to the GAPS Diet, and as our journey has started out, we're trying to work around these issues. Until we've worked them all out, I will continue sharing safe, gluten free recipes.

  The version that I enjoy involves four steps. First, you make the crepes. Secondly you make the filling and wrap it firmly inside the crepes. The third step involves baking.  The Fourth step - patience and a cold refrigerator.

The recipe really isn't complicated. We use the Schär Mix C for our flour mix, but I believe if you follow the directions, most any gluten free flour mix will lend to this. I would advise however, if you get this recipe in mind, remember that it will take several hours until pay-off, so you might want to make this in the evening if you plan on having it for breakfast, unless you plan on doing the pan-fry version. Those are pretty much immediate pay off.

The key here though, is to make your crepes and blintzes on the same day, or they'll make a huge fall-apart mess like mine did tonight. Normally, crepes are more forgiving than mine were. But, I let mine go a day and a half between making my blintzes. (whoops!)

See? They fell all apart.
That's ok though, my kids really will not care come morning,
and we'll have a BEAUTIFUL breakfast for Shabbat. :)

Anyhow,  there's probably about a thousand different ways (or more!) to make blintzes.

For the crepes, you will need:

100g Flour

2 Eggs

250ml Milk (If dairy free, simply use your milk of choice. We've done it both ways!)

1 TBS Vanilla sugar or vanilla flavoring

2 TBS melted butter (or non-dairy butter substitute)

a pinch of salt

You mix this together and go ahead and heat your pan. When it is sufficiently warm, go ahead and pour a bit of the batter into your pan. This will NOT be a thick batter. These will be extra thin and only take about two minutes to cook in the pan. It takes a little trial and error with the first couple, but you'll get it!

When you're done, just keep piling the crepes onto a plate. You'll need these later.

I've used three different fillings for this recipe.

For dairy free, I've used the following formula: 250g soft tofu, pureed; 1 egg 3 Tbs. sugar. 

For dairy filling #1, I used the following: 250g of Quark with 1 beaten egg white, sugar (to taste), cinnamon and vanilla flavoring dusted in to taste.

For dairy filling #2, I used the following: 250g Cottage Cheese with 4 Tbs Sugar, cinnamon and vanilla to taste.

Really, with this recipe, it's whatever YOU like. Many people add fruit as well, and some people do not use sweet fillings at all.

One way I found best to measure out the cheese filling, is to use a metal ice cream scoop. I got a smaller size (1TBS) measurement so I just use 2-3 of these and then roll each crepe before frying or baking. (This is the scoop I use: WMF 1881876040 Eisportionierer 4,5 cm)

This is Dairy Filling #1 mixed with one egg.
I decided to try something new.

You'll wrap these similarly to spring rolls, and from here - either fry them in a pan, or bake in the oven. I prefer mine baked in the oven.

This is about 3 tablespoons of filling.
You can fill six blintzes with this recipe.

You can wrap this way and roll, or wrap the bottom
and then roll the sides together before rolling further.

When you have finished rolling your blintz, it will look like this.
This is the shape it will keep once baked in the oven.

If you choose the pan fry option, this blog has great directions on how to keep it from coming apart. 

If you decide on the oven baking route, you'll want to go ahead and preheat your oven to 350°F., before you make all of the wraps and butter a 9 by 13-inch glass dish or baking pan for your blintzes. 

Buttered glass dish.
An easy way to do this is to save your butter wraps.
You would be amazed how much butter remains on those.

Once you've managed to squeeze in as many blintzes as you can into the baking dish/pan, you'll want to use some melted butter (or butter substitute) to cover the tops of the blintzes. Bake these for around 15 minutes in your oven.  Once the dish/pan has cooled enough that you can touch it, you'll want to put the blintzes into your refrigerator until they are quite cool.

When you are ready to eat them, dust lightly with confectioner's sugar, or you can make a sauce to pour over the blintzes. (Example sauce here)

Happy Baking! Remember this recipe next year at Shavuot.

What I've been reading about these past two weeks

As I'm sure you all know by now, there's been a great scandal here in the EU about horse meat appearing in foods that have specified they are 100% beef, 100% lamb or a mix of 50-50 Lamb/Beef. Including some halal foods. And depending on the sect of Islam that one is in, halal can vary as to whether horse is halal or not.
Sufficed to say, I've been watching in horror as we cannot afford kosher meat or the trip to get any, and we cannot go meat free due to our dietary needs and my celiac being so bad.  So far, none of the foods we eat have been affected, praise G-d, but it is still quite frustrating nonetheless.

While testing all of their meat products, Iceland found out that some of their meat pies are vegetarian... not 100% beef. (cue maniacal giggling from me)

... his team did not find any horse meat ... one brand of locally produced beef pie ...contained no meat at all.

... "It was labeled as beef pie, so it should be beef pie."
Yahoo News

Four new products tested positive for horse in the UK. Taco Bell and another fast food chain have been affected.

"The affected products are Birds Eye's Traditional Spaghetti Bolognese and Beef Lasagne - which the company took off shelves last week as a precaution; Brakes' Spicy Beef Skewer; Taco Bell's Ground Beef."

"Horsemeat was first discovered in January in frozen burgers on sale in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and since then traces have been discovered in processed beef products and prepared meals across the EU.
A first wave of tests ...in the UK found horsemeat in some products sold by Aldi, Co-op, Findus, Rangeland and Tesco.
Subsequent rounds of testing revealed ...some products sold by Asda, Sodexo - which supplies food to schools, care homes and the armed forces - and the Whitbread Group.
Last week Ikea withdrew a batch of frozen meatballs from sale..."
BBC News UK

Then I found this gem from Deutsche Welle:

"Food labs usually only check meat for what they suspect might be in it - a lot could pass unnoticed. Now, German researchers have come up with a single test for meat products to identify as many as 50 different animals."

"The greatest advantage of the new technology is that everything can be traced. The disadvantage: the smallest amount of contamination can be a problem."
Deutsche Welle

Then, breaking news goes out to tell us about an organic egg scandal here in Germany. Lots of farms are not doing their hens as free range or even feeding them organic, and the oversight committees only go and check in on these farms one or two times a year. That explains why sometimes my eggs were looking very anemic and not organic free range. This is so upsetting, as we are paying upwards of 2-2,50€ per package of 10 eggs. No, they do not come in a dozen here in Germany. Don't ask me why, I don't know. I guess that never caught on.

Here is the IFOAM press release. It really does not give a lot more news than what they're releasing here so far. Basically the low down is that everything is done by paper, and the FSA comes in 1 or 2 times a year to look in on the farm. They may or may not inspect closer.

"Chickens and their eggs can only be described as free-range if each animal has access to at least four square metres of space, while the description organic, or "bio" in German, requires further specific conditions."
The Local.de

"About 150 farms in Lower Saxony and 50 more in other German states are now under scrutiny."
http://www.dw.de/egg-fraud-scandal-hits-already-food-conscious-germany/a-16625982

"Joyce Moewius of the German Association of the Organic Food Industry (BÖLW) says she believes the problem has been that farms have kept too many chickens, rather than that eggs have been declared retrospectively as coming from the wrong kind of farm."
"In addition to the EU organic seal, several associations, such as Bioland, Demeter or Naturland, offer their own standards, which are above those of the EU."
Deutsche Welle

"The German state of Lower Saxony appears to be the centre of the alleged scam but Roland Herrmann, an investigating prosecutor, said that scale of the operation was "nationwide," and that anybody found guilty faces up to six months behind bars."
The Telegraph UK

"In 2012, the number of chickens kept as free-range increased by 8.9 percent and as organic -- out in the open -- by 8.7 percent. The number of chickens kept in battery farms however declined by 4.2 percent."
The Global Post UK

"Two years ago, a European Union-wide health alert was sparked when German officials said animal feed tainted with dioxin had been fed to hens and pigs, contaminating eggs, poultry meat and pork at affected farms."
BBC News UK

I'm thinking this is where the FSA has to make good on claims of oversight... rather than coming down to a farm once a year, they need to go multiple times a year, and the physical paperwork that is filled out on the farm needs to go in computers on the same day.  But, that might make too much sense for those with purely bureaucratical minds.

On top of all of this, we get news filtered through The Local.de that there are issues with milk here in Germany having carcinogens in them.

"Hundreds of farms in Lower Saxony have been banned from selling milk in the latest food scandal to hit Germany, after authorities discovered thousands of cows had been given carcinogenic animal feed."

" The source was traced back to 10,000 tonnes of a Serbian shipment of contaminated maize which found its way into animal feed delivered to 3,560 farms in Lower Saxony, including 938 dairy farms, the state's Agriculture Ministry said on Friday."
The Local.de

I never found anything on Der Spiegel or Deutsche Welle, and it never was specified if this is an organic or conventional set of farms, and whether our milk has been effected and I need to move back to the organic non-homogenized variety I was previously getting before making so much milk kefir.  (I almost need my own cow to be honest!)

In the UK, there's been an outbreak of the Schmallenberg virus again. It affects cattle of all sorts, so I expect to see that come this summer and fall, our prices for lamb and beef has gone up, as well as woolen items.

"Cases of Schmallenberg have now been reported in all the counties of England and Wales, and in Northern Ireland.
Scottish farmers are on alert for the disease, which is carried by midges.
Some farms have suffered heavy losses of newborn lambs during the winter lambing season.
The latest figures from the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency show the virus has been detected on 1,531 farms, in cattle, sheep, alpacas and goats."
BBC News UK

In other news, Belgian opinion on the Seralini study differs from that of the ESFA, A GMO Poll (US) Finds Huge Majority Say Foods Should Be Labeled, Nigella Lawson will be doing a live video chat (Google Hangout), NBC is casting for "Food Fighters", a reality tv series.  Hawaii and Vermont made historic GMO Labelling progress, and Sygenta was charged for covering up cattle death due to GMO feed. There was an interesting news article that states: "Buying Local and Organic? You're Still Eating Plastic Chemicals" - wow... not sure how to process that one actually...

Someone had posted a link to the EWG's 2011 Meat Eater's Guide, which looks quite interesting. It seems we're doing OK with our levels of beef consumption, fish consumption and how little we eat lamb. Some of it doesn't apply since we're mostly grain free.

Doctor Mercola has a great article on the benefits of Coconut Oil, which reminded me to go and buy two more containers of organic coconut oil yesterday. So, thank you Dr Mercola for reminding me I was out of it before I started another batch of bone broth!!

And I found this hilarious (in a laugh so I don't cry kind of way) image posted to the Take Back Food community on Google+. What is so sad is, this is the truth for the US market.

Just in time for St Paddy's I saw this recipe for Paleo Spinach Tortillas posted to a community on Google Plus. They are gluten, dairy, corn and egg free. Thank G-d I finally found a tortilla press!!

Then someone posted a link to sushi made with quinoa. I had never thought to do that, but that would be great if you are on a paleo diet.

Today, I found this gem listed as free for kindle:

Also, I found a wonderful new idea for swift smoothie making and in addition to all of this, I've been working to get my own Pinterest feed up, begin tweeting again, I'm taking a Psychology course and all of my books are here finally, as well as helping out in a couple Google Plus Communities. I'm also trying to learn how to more effectively post recipes once I have my own to share on the blog. For now, I'll just keep to sharing recipe pairings from the blogs I've got mentioned in my blog list and from the cookbooks that I mentioned in a previous post.
 

What have you all been reading about this week?
  

This weekend

Unsure of the source of this. If it is yours, please let me know!

I wanted to give an update on this weekend. On Friday, I had to go back to the doctor. I've been sick since December 30 with back to back viral and bacterial infections. No surprise given my current gut health and all the other issues I've faced in the last three years.

One thing I was asked was if I drank enough water in the day. Well, I have no idea. I drink at least 1 liter of water a day, and then I supplement with other drinks. Orange juice, Tea, Milk, etc.  Instead of more medication,  I was given oral sublingual Vitamin D to take, as my body is doing what it needs to do, though it is very uncomfortable.

I found this image this weekend while looking into recipes to make to eat. And it's true. Water is SO important for our daily lives.

On Saturday, I slept until after noon. We decided  after I spent an hour making more Fruit Salad to make another Food Wishes recipe: Garlic Parm Hot Wings. I decided to add the side of Spiced Roasted Broccoli. I have never had either before, and I must say both are triple star for me, and definitely will want to do them again. For Chef John's recipe, we substituted Hazelnut Flour in equal amounts called for breadcrumbs, and we used drumsticks instead of wings. Honestly? I could not tell a difference. Were we to do it again for anyone nut allergic, we would simply leave that off of the recipe.  Both of these would work well for GAPS Stages 5 through the Full GAPS Diet, depending on whatever changes you want to make.

The children tried the chicken, and one child ate two drumsticks. One ate half of that, but ate a rather sizable bowl of broccoli. Both had some fruit salad as dessert and one insisted that my snack (Fruit salad) was his... how dare I eat his bowl. (how funny of him!)

In the mean time, I was really good at following my doctor's orders of every hour sublingual vitamin D. . . even during my Google+ Hangouts.

 For dinner, we had Chinese. I had my usual salad and some spring rolls. I know - not GAPS, but I'd been good all day long and I really needed some kind of comfort food. Our local Chinese Restaurant has rice wrappers and will alter their recipe for our needs (no onions, leeks or peppers) and use a dedicated wok and oil for only their spring rolls.  MOST restaurants do not do this, but will make theirs with a wheat based dough or fry it in recycled oil.




On Sunday, we had a repeat of fruit salad for breakfast. I decided that lunch should be rather easy, so we'd make some ground beef/lamb with gravy and mushrooms with a side of German Cucumber Salad and some carrots and peas boiled in beef bone broth.

German Cucumber Salad, J. Stahl's Recipe

• 4 Peeled Cucumbers, preferably organic
  (or two foot long EU Cucumbers)
• dill
• salt and pepper to taste
• mustard (we are still finishing our pantry stock of mustard)
• Apple Cider Vinegar
• Milk Kefir

1. Peel your cucumbers and slice them thinly on a mandolin or either using your food processor's Mandolin Slicing attachment.
2.  Add your cucumbers to a glass dish, splash with a couple tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. 
3. Mix well.
4. Add about a teaspoon of mustard  and mix well
5. Add about a cup of kefir and your dill, salt and pepper generously.
6. Mix well and taste the salad. If it is not balanced enough, add a little more mustard or kefir to taste. It should be a slightly thin yoghurt type sauce with a tangy punch. 
7. Place in the fridge for about an hour before serving. Enjoy!

 I used some of our older canned peas and carrots, which simply have salted water in them. I drained those and used about 4 cups of bone broth to boil them in for about 20 minutes, before I took them off the hob and added about 4TBS of milk kefir to the broth and stirred. This is of course not acceptable if you are keeping Kosher, as meat and dairy are not to be mixed.  You could however make a vegetable broth instead and use the kefir in that - or you could simply skip that step if you are having this side dish with a Fleischig meal.  Our guts sorely need the probiotics AND the healthy bone broth.

The gravy recipe that I used was bone broth mixed with leftover duck fat from our duck recipe last week. It says "5 Minute Gravy" - THEY LIED. I was reminded of my new favorite movie, Julie & Julia.


Which then reminded me of my new favorite book by Rachel Held Evans, A Year of Biblical Womanhood.

... I’d grown overconfident, so the fact that I’d never in my life  used a pastry blender or a rolling pin didn’t stop me from going right  ahead and whisking together some flour, sugar, and salt, cutting in  two sticks of butter, adding some water, and then kneading it all  together to form two disks that looked exactly like the picture on page  438, thank you very much. Then I wrapped my pâte brisée in plastic  and put it in the refrigerator while I combined my (slightly browning) apples with sugar, flour, lemon juice, cinnamon, ginger, and salt.  A taste test proved I was on the right track.
“Assemble the pie,” commanded the directions.
No problem.
I dusted the counter with flour, placed the first pâte brisée on the  surface, took out my rolling pin, and began my slow break from sanity...
Rachel Held Evans: My “Biblical” Thanksgiving…


"It was only Gravy", I proceeded to tell myself, while it boiled away for over 30 minutes getting only slightly thicker than it was before. By the time the two cups of broth had boiled down and additional duck fat was added (YUM by the way!), I had been standing at the stove for an agonizing 40 minutes waiting on my broth to become "thick" like the recipe said it would. Again, they must not have taken into account what happens when you're the type of person who does not use gelatin (a pork by-product here) and can't find her agar-agar.  Oh well. Lesson learned. Next time I will be sure to include apple peels and boil my bone stock longer, and I'll have a more gel-like consistency when it comes time to repeat the recipe, no gelatin needed.



I have to admit I wanted to take photos of the kitchen to show the level of destruction we had in there, but I'm afraid it's a little too soon for the blog... what do you think? Leave a comment if you've not yet made the foray into GAPS and wonder what happens when you are baking and cooking your way through three meals daily in a small kitchen. I'll be more than happy to show you, as you've already seen how clean our kitchen can be. (hehe)


I wish you all a very happy and healthy Monday. xoxox