Flourless Buns

Weird huh? All this time I have been trying multiple flours trying to capture the 'real' taste and the best bun recipe I have come across is a flourless one! They have a bit of a different texture, kind of a cross between a popover and a biscuit, but they actually behave like real buns, and by that I mean you can TEAR off a piece rather then crumble off a piece!

I was very skeptical when I came across this recipe at Food.com, but there were enough good reviews that I thought I would give it a shot, and I'm glad I did :)

Ingredients
4 Tbsp. Shortening (Butter works too)
3 Tbsp. honey
2 Eggs
1 Tbsp. Yeast
1 Cup Sour Cream
1/2 Cup Potato Starch (or Tapioca Starch)
1 Cup Cornstarch
1/2 Tsp. Baking Soda
1 Tbsp. Baking Powder
2 Tsp. Xanthan Gum
1/2 Tsp. Salt
3/4 Tsp. Vinegar


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F.
Combine all ingredients and mix well to remove any lumps.
The dough will be more of a sticky batter-like mess. Wet your hands to handle it. To make buns shape into balls or use an ice cream scoop to make them even. Place on greased baking tin, muffin tin or popover tin. OR if you want to make hot dog buns (which is what I did), shape into rectangle-ish shapes on a greased cookie sheet (or use parchment paper).
Bake for 18-20 minutes, until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean.
Let cool, they will fall a little bit as they cool.

I think I'm going to see if I can get this to turn into some sort of pizza dough since it's something I will actually eat! (I just haven't been able to convince myself to eat gf bread/buns on a regular basis, but these are good!)
I'm also hoping the dough might substitute for my Deep Fried Cheese Balls that I used to make! I think this recipe is definitely worth some experimentation, plus it's a really economical recipe as well requiring things you can find in pretty much any grocery store!

Gluten Free Flour

This is something that never crossed my mind to try before and there is so much to learn!
The first thing I learned (by baking the most disgusting loaf of bread EVER!) is that you have to use an All Purpose blend. Of course you can buy premade blends but we know that buying premade anything isnt really how I roll...so I took the hard road. I bought corn flour, potato flour, white rice flour, brown rice flour and sorghum flour (and theres a lot more types out there too!). I found this AP blend online and it seems to work ok but hubby says the bread leaves a bit of an aftertaste. BUT its edible...yay! It definitely doesnt rise as well as regular bread and has a denser texture. Im also working with no eggs right now and I think if I could use those it would be easier! Adding Xanthan Gum to gluten free recipes is a must for helping the bread hold together...who knew? I had some on hand but I have only ever used it to thicken puddings etc! You can also use Guar Gum but since I have the other stuff in the pantry thats what Im using :)

This recipe is in parts rather then cups. It makes it easier to make as much or as little as you need. If you need more, treat each part as a full cup. If you need less, treat each part as a Tbsp. (just for example but you can use any measurement you want).

Gluten Free All Purpose Flour Blend
3 Parts Brown Rice Flour
3 Parts Corn Starch
2 Parts Sorghum Flour
1 Part Corn Flour

Mix it all together until its all one colour. Dont leave any traces of individual flours. Use on a 1-1 ratio as a sub for flour in your recipes.

Add Xanthan Gum when baking as follows:
1 tsp. per cup of flour for Breads and Pizzas
1/2 tsp. per cup of flour for muffins and quick breads
1/2 tsp. or less per cup of flour for cookies and bars

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

Spinach Mookshake

Or at least that's what my 2 year old calls it. Mookshake, milkshake, smoothie or green milk....however you label it, it's delicious and it's chalk full of nutrition!! Made with slight modifications from Weelicious.

Ingredients
4 cups (packed) fresh spinach
2 Large Bananas
2 Cups Milk
1 Tsp. Vanilla Extract
2 Tbsp. Honey

Put it all into the blender and blend until smooth. Refrigerates well for a day or two if there is any left over. There's not usually! Sometimes I blend it up before adding the honey and take some out, mix it with some plain yogurt and xanthan gum (you could use other thickening agents) and feed it to my not quite 1 year old as pudding! She loves it!


It's definitely a vegetarian snack, and could easily be made vegan and or milk free. Maple syrup would be a good substitute for the honey, and you could use soy, rice or even almond milk!

Lately anytime I ask my son what he wants for a snack he asks for a spinach mookshake. He loves them that much. I tested it out on some other children this morning, and they were actually fighting over it...fighting over spinach!! Imagine that!

New Pantry Items!

I got to escape the house this afternoon without my two kids since my mother in law is here, and I got to go into stores and actually *gasp* take my time looking at things! Bulk Barn is one of my new favourite stores. Not because it's always cheaper, because it's not (although sometimes they are!), but because you can try so many new things without committing to spending a fortune and ending up with a huge bag that you will never use.
My experimental purchases of the day:
Organic Coconut Sugar It has an interesting less sweet then sugar taste and is less bad for you. It actually contains some good for you things :)
Arrowroot Powder To try as a substitute for corn starch
Steel Cut Oats To grind in my new grain grinder Kitchen Aid attachment that I'm geeking out about and dying to try out!
Hard Wheat For the same reason as above!
Chickpeas Because I'm going to try out a new recipe I found :)

Then I went to Earth's General Store. If you remember I bought a LivingSocial spend $10 get $20 for  a store gift certificate. It was great, I didn't have to print it out or anything. I have a smartphone, and I have the LivingSocial App, and I just pulled up the certificate on it and she put the info into the computer and that was it!! The store has moved and it is quite a bit larger now. They have everything from bulk shampoo (but you have to bring your own container so I didn't get any of that), to a small produce section and pretty much everything inbetween. I spent quite awhile in there. I had to spend all $20 at once, but I didn't want to spend a ton over so I just got a few things.

Xylitol I need to do more reading so I just got a bit, but it can replace sugar, has fewer calories and actually has health benefits!! We tasted it and it has a hard to place taste. The best description is that it tastes 'cold'. It's very different!
Xantham Gum I'm going to experiment with my granola bar recipe!
Amazing Dad's Original BBQ Sauce I'm going to go by the ingredients (since I can actually understand what they all are!) and try to make my own, this one is a little sweet for our tastes.
Organic Vinegar For a starter for my homemade vinegar project that I want to start!
Daiya 'Cheese' This one is for my mother in law. She can't eat a lot of fat for health reasons, and can't buy fat free cheese in Canada. She lives near the US border and gets it from there, but when she comes to visit she never gets to have anything with cheese! This is a very low fat cheese alternative. Great for people who can't have dairy. And it actually doesn't taste all that weird, which totally surprised me! It has a 'different' taste to it, but not bad. We haven't tried to melt any yet, but apparently it actually melts and strings like cheese.

I'm ready to start experimenting with my recipes and see what happens! Hopefully I'll have some results to post about in the next couple of days :)

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8