Elana is giving away 5 pounds of almond flour and her new cookbook, The Gluten Free Almond flour Cookbook.  But it’s only open until Jan 11th, so move as fast as you can!  This recipe is great. My favorite is just how it is. Vanilla cupcake and chocolate frosting.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vegan Chocolate Frosting (grain free and gluten free)

½ cup coconut flour, sifted
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
6 eggs
½ cup grapeseed oil
½ cup agave nectar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1. In a medium bowl, combine coconut flour, salt and baking soda
2. In a small bowl, blend together eggs, grapeseed oil, agave and vanilla
3. Mix wet ingredients into dry and blend with a mixer or hand blender until smooth
4. Pour batter into well oiled muffin tins
5. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes
6. Cool completely
7. Top with chocolate frosting

Makes 12 cupcakes

Related posts:

1. The World’s Best Gluten Free Zucchini Cake Ever!
2. World’s Best Gluten Free Buttermilk Biscuits

General Mills has developed a wonderful website just for us. You can sign up for their newsletter dedicated to gluten free. There is a tab for recipes and you can print their list of gluten free items. They have over 200 gluten free products to chose from!

http://liveglutenfreely.com/

This is one of the recipes they have on their site.

If you contact the company by phone they will send you pages of printed recipes. I did this a few months ago (before this site was up and running) and they sent me tons of recipes and a list of their GF items.  Awesome!!

Turtle Brownies

Related posts:

1. General Mills-no Gluten Free list but very helpful
2. 10 minute Gluten Free Peanut Butter Layer Bars
3. Elena’s Pantry Giveaway

These bars are so simple. They take about 10 minutes to whip up. They taste like a homemade Reeses!

Peanut Butter Layer Bars

Peanut Butter Layer:

• 2 cups cookies crumbs  finely ground (I use GF gingersnaps or arrowroot cookies)
• 2 sticks of butter
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup peanut butter (or any nut butter)

Chocolate layer:

• 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 4 tbl peanut butter

1. Mix together butter, crumbs, sugar, and peanut butter until blended. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 9×13 pan.
2. Pour chips into microwave safe bowl and add the peanut butter. Microwave for 1 minute and stir. Spread over 1st layer and chill for at least 1 hour.

Warning: You will be lucky if these bars last more than a day. They are very addictive!

Related posts:

1. Gluten Free No Bake Cookies
2. General Mills- Gluten Free site finally avaliable
3. Getting Started with a Gluten Free Kitchen

Who doesn’t love no-bake cookies? Before the introduction of GF oats I couldn’t eat these, they always gave me a stomach ache. Now, I can make them as often as I want to. I always make mine with old fashioned oats. I love the chewy texture and those following the GF diet need as much fiber as possible because it tends to be low on the daily fiber requirements.

No-bake Cookies

• 2 cups white sugar
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 cups GF oats
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. In a saucepan bring sugar, cocoa, margarine, milk, and salt to a boil for 1 minute.
2. Add oats, peanut butter, and vanilla; mix well.
3. Working quickly, drop by teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper, and let cool.

Cooks Note: Sometimes I use my instant oatmeal mix in place of the plain oats. With the cinnamon it gives the cookies a slightly Mexican hot chocolate taste which my family loves.

Related posts:

1. 10 minute Gluten Free Peanut Butter Layer Bars
2. Amazing Cream Cheese Icing

Apples seem to be the theme this time of year.  Why not live it up on the GF diet also?

I live in an area surrounded by orchards.  In case you didn’t know, apple trees have an on year and then an off year. This year happens to be the on year for my dad’s trees. An off year at my dad’s house still brings in enough apples to can over 30 quarts of apple pie filling, apple sauce and apple cider.  I can’t even imagine what I will get this year. So far my 9 month old daughter has been spoiled from having only homemade canned foods to eat. Applesauce happens to be her favorite.

Give these recipes a whirl!

• Carmelized Apples If you can’t have cornstarch you can substitute by using about half the amount of tapioca starch/flour or potato starch. Remember you are thickening  so sometimes the amount is not exact.
• I think I might have found a new favorite for my daughter if she likes cranberries and much as her mama. Happy eating! Cranberry Applesauce
• And of course it wouldn’t be fall without apple pie! Old Fashioned Gluten Free Apple Pie don’t forget the crust recipe: Gluten Free Pie Crust You should have some cornstarch in the pantry and by now you should also have at least  white rice flour. Brown rice flour is usually easy to find and if necessary to cut cost you could substitute sorghum for the amaranth flour. I am always trying to limit the number of flours I keep on hand.

Give these other apple treats a whirl:

1. Miniature Caramel Apples
2. Grilled Cinnamon Apples
3. Apple and Calvados Sorbet

No related posts.

Cream Cheese Icing                                                                 

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 2 packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
• 8 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar (about 2 lbs.)
• 2 tablespoons milk

Makes: About 5 1/2 cups of icing.

In medium mixer bowl, cream butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add sugar one cup at a time and milk. Mix well. Beat on high until smooth (only 30 seconds to 1 minute). Thin to ice cake smooth; use full strength for piping borders.

NOTE: If you use light cream cheese or margarine icing will be softer. Just add more sugar to desired consistency

Related posts:

1. The World’s Best Gluten Free Zucchini Cake Ever!
2. Gluten Free No Bake Cookies
3. 10 minute Gluten Free Peanut Butter Layer Bars

Honestly, this was my breakfast this morning!

I found this wonderful recipe for carrot cake but I had 8 zucchini that needed to be used up. I substituted 1 1/2 cup carrots for 2 cups zucchini (squeezed dry)  in the following recipe. I didn’t know if this recipe would actually turn out so I decided to try it as bread first. It was pure heaven. It was exactly like the zucchini bread I loved to eat growing up. Except this was all Gluten Free. I had a huge day of baking. I decided I was going to make a zucchini cake with cream cheese frosting for my daughters baptism.

Except I had 8 zucchini to use up, remember?

Only one loaf of bread was made but I made an astounding 8 cakes. Plus I was able to freeze enough shredded zucchini to make at least 8 more cakes. On occasion when I get the baking bug I will bake a few extra cakes and freeze them. That way they are on hand if we have a party to go to, the girls need it for school or we just plain feel like cake. I also do the same with cupcakes on occasion. In the end, I also made a half sheet yellow cake with caramel frosting. Boy is our church going to be in for the sweet tooth of their life!

Zucchini Cake/Bread

Original carrot cake recipe from Pamela’s Product’s.

• 3/4 cup oil
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups shredded zucchini
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups Pamela’s Baking & Pancake Mix

Yield: one layer or one loaf

Beat oil, eggs, and sugar together, then mix in the rest of the ingredients. Batter will be thick. Poor into a greased loaf pan (8 x 4) and bake at 350° for 50-55 minutes (toothpick should come out clean), or use a greased 8-inch layer cake pan and bake at 350° for 40 minutes. This recipe doubles easily and came out great everytime.

Frost (if desired) with a cream cheese icing (recipe)

Related posts:

1. Amazing Cream Cheese Icing
2. World’s Best Gluten Free Buttermilk Biscuits