Tag Archives: Baking

Baking Day: Spice Cakes

Which one is gluten free and which one isn’t?

Click here for delicious “regular cake” and cream cheese frosting recipe from Cooking Classy.

Click here for the equally tasty gluten, dairy, oil, soy, and egg free version from The Vegan 8 with my modifications.

Oat Breakfast Muffin

It’s no secret that I’ve been doing a lot of baking lately… well, the last 4 months. This past week, I thought more about the flour I’ve been using. Four years ago, I was very strict about the flour I used. No blends, no tapioca, no potato flour, no bean flour. Oh, and I definitely didn’t use sweetener outside of honey, fruit, or unsweetened applesauce.

I wanted to get back to that cleaner way of baking and eating. I really do feel better, even though I almost never stray from gluten and dairy free.

I also wanted to get the best deal nutritionally from my flour. (But more about that in a later post.)

All this led me to bring back an old muffin recipe and tweak it just a bit (click for original post). One thing I remember is that the muffins were good, but crumbly and the taste could have been better.

As soon as I tasted the first muffin, I remembered how much I enjoy the taste of honey and the homey, comforting flavor of these flours without the add-ins of a blend. These muffins are so smooth and NOT crumbly, it’ll be hard to eat just one. AND these are dairy-gluten-egg-soy-nut-refined sugar free. It’s a tall order for a muffin, but it comes through!

So, without further ado, Oat Breakfast Muffins!

Oat Breakfast Muffins Recipe:

1 c. Brown Rice Flour

1 1/4 c. Oat flour (plus extra if needed)

1 c. Sweet Sorghum flour

1 scant tsp. salt

1 tsp. Cinnamon

2 tsp. Baking soda

2 c. Unsweetened applesauce

2 Tbs. Apple cider vinegar

1 tsp. Gluten-free vanilla extract

Flax seed egg (2 Tbs. milled flax seed + 2-3 Tbs. cold water and sit for 5 minutes)

2 Tbs. melted coconut oil (plus some for greasing pans)

6 Tbs. raw honey (I *may* have used a bit more)

  • Preheat oven to 380F. Grease pans with the extra coconut oil. (This recipe makes 18 muffins.)
  • Whisk dry ingredients together
  • Add wet ingredients and stir until mixed. If mixture seems loose, add a couple Tbs. of oat flour.
  • Scoop into prepared baking pans. Filled cups 1/2-3/4 full. These muffins don’t rise a whole lot, so keep that in mind.
  • Bake for 15-18 minutes.
  • Let set in pan about 10-15 minutes to firm up. Let cool on wire rack or plate.
  • Enjoy as they are, or with honey or fruit spread! Oh, and coffee. ;-)

Sugar Cookie Mini- Muffins

I was going for doughnuts. And I got them, but the flax seed spots don’t look very doughnut-y. However, the taste is delicious!

As a mini-muffin the spots are not as noticeable. When I have more free time, I’ll try these without the flax seed.

This is a variation on the chocolate doughnuts (click here).

Ingredients:

1c. Oat flour

1c. General purpose gluten free baking flour (rice based, Bob’s Mill blue bag)

1/4 c. Pure cane sugar

1/2 tsp. Baking soda

1 tsp. Baking powder

1 tsp. Salt

Whisk these ingredients together and then add:

Prepared flax seed egg – 2 Tbs. milled flax seed and 4 Tbs. water (or leave out and see what happens) 😉

1c. Dairy free milk or coconut milk french vanilla creamer (I used the later… because I’m out of milk)

2 tsp. Vanilla extract (gluten free)

4 Tbs. melted coconut oil

Stir until mixed. Grease a mini-muffin or doughnut pan with coconut oil. Use a ziploc bag with a corner cut to pipe the mixture into a mini- muffin pan or a doughnut pan.

Bake in pre-heated 375F oven for 10-14 minutes. Let set in pan 10-15 min, then cool completely on wire rack.

Make some coffee and enjoy!

Gluten-Free Vanilla Cake

The latest in adventures of gluten-free baking involved experimenting with various vanilla cupcake recipes. After much tweaking and several trials (see this post), the cupcakes tasted good, but the consistency was strange. I figured this was the result of trying to make a thick cake without eggs or gluten. I tried using my chocolate cake recipe, but modified slightly to make a vanilla cake.

Several things I discovered:

  • Gluten, dairy, and egg- free baking lends itself more to thinner goods… cookies and thin cakes.
  • Chocolate covers up the “gluten-free” taste of the chocolate cake, which means I had several tries just to get the taste “vanilla cake” tasting.

Notes for this cake in particular (read before making):

  • Do not over mix.  Unless you want a cake with the consistency of rubber. Seriously. And don’t use a mixer. Wooden spoon works the best.
  • Clear vanilla extract might help make the cake less yellow… just make sure it is gluten-free.
  • Lemon juice helps give the cake a crisp flavor and mask the coconut oil.
  • Use pure cane sugar. The taste is remarkable. Refined sugar works, but pure cane sugar is the best.
  • All dry ingredients need to be sifted to have a lighter texture. My sifter has been contaminated with wheat flour, so I used a metal mesh strainer similar to this one.

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After a couple trials, this is the deliciously addictive result! (especially paired with this coconut-vanilla icing!)

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Coconut Vanilla Cake

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a round cake pan with coconut oil. (Or put liners in a 12-cupcake pan.)

In a small bowl, measure out:

  • 1 3/4 c. general purpose gluten free flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill Baking Flour) general purpose gluten free flour
  • 1/4 c. brown rice flour
  • 1 c. pure cane sugar
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. salt

Sift these ingredients into the mixing bowl. Pour in:

  • 1/3 c. melted coconut oil (not hot)coconut milk creamer
  • 2 Tablespoons French Vanilla flavored coconut milk creamer (note: this is the only ingredient I used that is manufactured in the same factory as tree nuts, otherwise this recipe is nut-free)
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tsp gluten-free vanilla extract
  • 1 c. cold water

Stir these ingredients until just blended. Seriously, if you want to leave a few lumps, that will be OK.

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Pour into pan and bake 30-38 minutes. (Note: This cake takes longer to bake than the chocolate version and is more moist. I started checking the cake at 30 minutes. I waited until the top was browning and my finger did not leave any indentation when testing it. See the picture below. It is mostly done, but 5-7 more minutes would make it even better (notice the finger indentation).

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Let the cake sit in the pan at least 1 hour. Remove from pan and ice with this delicious coconut-vanilla icing. Or eat it plain. It’s really that yummy. I keep this cake in the refrigerator. It is delicious served room temperature or cold!

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Coconut-Vanilla Icing

After coming up with a delicious gluten-free vanilla cake (see post here), I needed an equally delicious dairy and egg free icing to go on it. This is it. And I don’t even like the taste of coconut all that much. I sure do with this icing though. Maybe it’s all the sugar. Seriously, it’s sweet. And so, so good.

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Coconut-Vanilla Icing

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 c. coconut oil
  • 3 Tbs. french vanilla coconut milk creamer
  • 2 Tbs. coconut milk
  • 1 tsp gluten-free vanilla (Clear extract could help keep the color of the icing lighter. I did use regular and I really didn’t notice.)
  • 1 Tbs. lemon juice

Directions:

  1. Mix the coconut oil until there are absolutely, positively no clumps of oil left. Don’t melt it at all. Just cream it while you ponder the meaning of the words strength and patience. ;) Just kidding. Sort of.
  2. Add in the vanilla and coconut milk. Sift in 1 cup powdered sugar. Using a hand-mixer, mix until well-blended. Add in creamer and sift in anther cup powdered sugar. Mix until blended. Add in lemon juice and remaining 1/2 cup powdered sugar (again, sifted).  Mix until all is completely blended. The consistency should be smooth, but not runny. (I forgot to take a picture). If too runny or sticky, add in coconut milk or sifted powdered sugar until you get the desired consistency.
  3. This makes enough icing for two 8×8 or a double layer cake.

*Notes:

  • The first cake I iced when it had cooled and before the frosting went in the refrigerator. It was good, but ran a little, then firmed back up.
  • The second cake was iced a couple days later, after the icing had been refrigerated. I let it warm up to room temperature before icing. It was a tad bit more difficult to ice with, but it kept it’s shaped and was worth the extra effort. If you want to pipe the icing (which I can’t vouch for), I would recommend refrigerating it over night first. img_0711

It’s a Process: the Vanilla Cupcake Project

The struggle was real, but educational. And I did end up with a delicious cake! Recipes for cake and icing to follow. Who knows, I may even try cupcakes again. But not anytime soon… 😉