Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Buckwheat Buttermilk Gluten Free Pancakes

My dad loves taking his kids, and now his grandkids, out to breakfast at diners. Some of my fondest memories with him have been made after grumpily getting dressed at an hour I'd rather still be sleeping and stumbling into whatever dive diner is closest. There's just something special about breakfast.

I've always been partial to pancakes for breakfast, preferably of the chocolate chip variety served with a dollop of slightly melting whipped cream. But since discovering my severe gluten-intolerance diner pancakes have not been an option. Luckily, I also love to make pancakes at home. (I have a grand total of SEVEN pancake recipes on this blog already! None of them are written as gluten free. However if you want to adjust them to be gluten free, most gluten free flours and flour blends adapt extraordinarily well to pancake recipes.)

I made a regular batch of my GF pancakes this morning, but I made a few adjustments that I haven't tried in a while and they turned out SPECTACULARLY! So good in fact, that my boys have already demolished them all, and poor hubby who's out mountain biking won't get to try them. Well not this morning. Livvie's Diner is open every morning during quarantine for 3 special guests only.



Buckwheat Buttermilk Gluten Free Pancakes
If you don't have one of the flours listed don't fret. Just make sure you measure out 180g of flour total. Millet flour would be a lovely substitution. I wouldn't use coconut, cassava or potato with this recipe as they absorb too much liquid.

90 g almond flour
40 g buckwheat flour
30 g brown rice flour
20 g oat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 cups buttermilk
2 medium or large eggs
butter for the skillet or pan

Measure out the buttermilk into a 2 or 4-cup measuring cup, then add all the liquid ingredients, including the eggs, and whisk with a fork to combine.

Put a large skillet or fry pan (preferablly NOT non-stick) on the stove on the lowest temperature possible. (The key to cooking killer pancakes, especially GF ones, is to make sure the pan is fully preheated but not too hot.)

Measure out the flours into a medium bowl, then add the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk well to combine. Dump the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk until completely combined. (Unlike with pancakes made with wheat flour, you do NOT want clumps in this batter.)

Put a little butter into the pan, and scoop or spoon the pancake batter onto the preheated pan or skillet. Cook on one side until small bubbles appear on the uncooked side. (If you add chocolate chips or blueberries, you may not be able to see the bubbles so go by how brown the cooked side is getting.) Flip the pancakes and cook until golden brown. Repeat with remaining batter, making sure to use a little butter on the pan for each new batch.

Enjoy!

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Squirrel Cupcakes!








































This is a project I would only ever agree to doing in quarantine. When my youngest took out a cupcake decorating cookbook ("What's New Cupcake?") and landed on a cupcake decorated as a squirrel, I knew I was done for. He is obsessed with squirrels, and here was a mini-cake that looked like a squirrel! His mind was blown.

I am not this type of baker. I do not particularly care for decorations, and I scornfully abhor cakes that look flawlessly, spectacularly gorgeous and taste like sawdust (wedding cakes, I'm looking at you!) I also hate high level of sugars in baked goods. Boxed mixes and frostings out of a jar are decidedly NOT my thing. And yet - because we are going a little crazy and any project that elicits enthusiasm from my kids seems like a good idea - we made squirrel cupcakes using a boxed mix and a fluff frosting that was so sickly sweet it literally made my head hurt. But the frosting was easy, fun to make and supremely easy to decorate with. So, for a kid birthday I will keep fluff frosting in mind.

The squirrel cupcakes were fun to make, although a little too complicated for my 5 year old. The directions I'll give below are simplified from the original. I wanted to give a general idea of how to create the squirrels without getting overly specific, because there are many ways to make the eyes and ears, and creative kids could really have a fun time experimenting. The tails look fabulous and are really fun to make. They would be good tails for skunks, foxes, maybe even a rainbow tailed unicorn? You can take this basic template and create lots of different creatures, just adjust your food coloring tinting of the frosting accordingly.









































Fluff Frosting

The authors of "What's New Cupcake" call this frosting "Almost-Homemade Vanilla Buttercream." I would call it "Almost- Store-Bought" because it tastes just like the artificial junk you get at the store, and spreads like it as well. This is not my type of frosting but I do think it has a time and a place, like for decorating with kids. An 8-yr old could whip this up on his or her own with no issues. And if a crazy sugar high is the end result, well as long as it's not an everyday thing, I think it's worth the toothache for some independent baking.

3 sticks (3/4 lb) unsalted butter, at 70 degree room temperature (leave on the counter for a few hours beforehand)
1 16 ounce large container of Marshallow Fluff
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Using a standing mixer or handheld mixer, beat the room temperature butter until smooth and creamy. Add in the whole container of Fluff and beat until smooth. Slowly stir in the confectioners' sugar and vanilla.


Squirrel Cupcakes

What you'll need:
4 cupcakes baked in white paper liners
4 mini cupcakes
1 batch of frosting (above) or one 16-ounce jar vanilla frosting
black food coloring (McCormick)
white decorating sugar (optional)
pink decorating sugar (optional)
4 Stella D'oro brand breakfast cookies (can be found in most major supermarkets, either in cookie section near the Oreos or in imported Italian section)
8 pretzel sticks
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
8 mini marshmallows
brown mini M&Ms, mini chocolate chips and/or brown jelly beans


Make the squirrel tails:


Trim your Stella D'oro cookies by slicing off the bottom 1/8 so that they look as tail-shaped as possible (see picture for reference.) Bake the Stella D'oro cookies in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown. (I think this is to dehyrdate the cookies and make them lighter, I skipped this step and some of my tails kept falling down. If you want to skip this step too just be forewarned that you might need to prop the tails up with an extra pretzel stick or too when you stick them into the cupcakes.) Melt the 1/4 cup chocolate chips in a glass bowl in the microwave by stirring every 10 seconds until completely melted. Spoon some melted chocolate onto the bottom of each cookie (please see picture for reference) and stick two pretzel sticks to each one, with half the pretzel stick hanging off the end.




Prep the bodies:
Remove 1/4 cup of the white frosting and place in a small ziplock bag, press out excess air and seal. Cut 1/8 inch off the tip to make a decorating bag.
Tint the rest of the frosting grey using the black food coloring.
Spread grey frosting on each cupcake top, and roll the edges in the white decorating sugar (optional).

Make the ears:
Use scissors to cut 4 mini marshmallows in half on the diagonal. Dip the cut ends in pink decorating sugar (optional, but recommended.)


Make the muzzles and nose:
Cut the remaining 4 mini marshmallows on the diagonal, to remove the bottom third of the marshmallow. The large piece is the muzzle. For the nose cut a brown jelly bean in half, or just use a mini M&M or a mini chocolate chip.

Assemble the heads:
Put a small dollop of grey frosting on the lower half of a mini cupcake. Attach the marshmallow muzzle, flat side against the cupcake and cut side toward the bottom edge. Now, you can either put your grey frosting in a ziplock piping bag or carefully use a small spatula or spoon, coat the muzzle and the head with grey frosting. Add the ears, coat the non-pink side in grey frosting. Add mini M&M or mini chocolate chip eyes, and optionally pipe in details like the eyelids and whiskers.

The finishing touches:
Add the heads to the bodies and pipe white frosting around the neck for fur tuft details. Cover the tails with grey frosting and pipe details if you like. Insert the tails into the cupcakes behind the squirrel heads, optionally using a dot of frosting at the back of the squirrel's head to help the tail stay upright. I just put the squirrels in a glass baking dish that conveniently held the tails upright without being noticeable, and once the frosting was completely set and cold from the refrigerator the tails stayed up once served onto plates.

Have fun with this one!