Almond Shortbread

It is Christmas in a few days, and therefore I wanted some delicious cookies. The best cookie ever in my opinion is a delicious butter shortbread cookie. We used to buy Walker's shortbread a couple of times each winter as a special treat; at the time six dollars seemed like an exorbitant price for a box of cookies (but is pretty typical for GF cookies). Much of the beauty of shortbread is in its simplicity: just flour, butter, sugar, and a little vanilla and salt. When I tried to de-glutenize (I have decided that this should be a word) my original shortbread recipe, I got a hideous melted mess. I tried again, with a recipe adapted from this, and had success. In time for Christmas.

Almond Shortbread

Dry ingredients

½ c sorghum flour (66 g)

¼ c almond meal (30 g)

¼ c cornstarch (33 g)

¼ c brown rice flour (33 g)

¼ tsp sea salt (use 1/8 tsp if your butter is salted)

1/8 tsp xanthan gum

1/8 tsp baking powder

½ cup butter (1 stick)

1/3 cup granulated sugar (70 g)

½ tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. In a medium bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients. In a separate, larger bowl, cream butter, sugar, and vanilla together with an electric mixer (or use a stand mixer). Don't overmix the butter and sugar. Add the flour mixture to the bowl about ½ cup at a time, blending well with the mixer each time. Eventually, you will end up with a crumbly mixture of dough.

Crumbly dough.

You can combine the dough together, roll it out then chill it, and use cookie cutters, but I thought a roll of cookies would be easier. To do this, I piled the dough-crumbs on a piece of parchment paper, and used the paper to help roll all of the crumbs together in a cohesive lump. Squish the dough into a fairly-even log shape.  

Squish the crumbs together using the parchment paper.

Log of dough.

Once you are happy with the shape, wrap it up and chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes Edit 7/14/12: chill at least 30 minutes to avoid a melted cookie mess. Use a sharp knife to cut the dough into ¼ inch rounds. Carefully lay these on a baking sheet lines with a silpat or parchment paper.

Pierce the cookies with a fork several times, this will allow steam to escape, which makes for a crisper shortbread. Edit 7/14/12: Chill the cookie sheet and cookies for another 15-30 minutes, this will help prevent spreading cookies.

Bake for 25-35 minutes, until lightly golden brown. Err on the side of an oven that is too cool rather than too hot if you have an unreliable oven like I do; if the oven is too hot, these melt and spread and fall apart into crumbs.  

This was a very tasty cookie that reminds me a lot of Walker's shortbread that I used to love.

Meyer lemon baking

I am perhaps one of the last food bloggers to have discovered the joys of the Meyer lemon, but I am glad to have baked with them finally! I love cooking with lemon because of the way the citrus can brighten a sweet or a savory dish; especially because many varieties only appear in stores in the winter, where they are like an edible ray of sunshine. Meyer lemons, though, are especially fantastic. They are a bit sweeter than a normal lemon, and smell somewhat floral. They are also only in stores for a little while in the winter here in the Pacific Northwest, which made me eager to cook with some.

I picked up a bag of Meyer lemons last week, mostly to juice and zest them, because I like to keep a little stash of lemon zest in the freezer for convenience. I then ended up making two different lemon-based baked goods. Both recipes turned out to taste quite pleasant.

First, some almond-lemon biscotti, made almost exactly the same as this recipe by the Gluten-free Girl. The main differences were that I used different flours (swapped brown rice for sweet rice and tapioca, and switched potato flour instead of potato starch) and almonds instead of pecans. I think the one thing I will change next time is to use more like a half-cup of sugar, these are more like a desert then a snack.

I also modified my scone recipe slightly. I swapped out the potato flour for buckwheat, and used 1/4 cup lemon juice instead of coconut milk. Also, I added the zest of a lemon into the dough, and added in an extra tablespoon of sugar. I felt like these needed something else, maybe poppy seeds or almonds, but they taste good regardless.

So, you should go make something with Meyer lemons while they are still in stores! They are a fantastic fruit.

Pumpkin bread, gluten, dairy, sugar-free

 Yesterday was my six-month anniversary of going gluten-free. On June 2, I got a phone-call from my doctor, going over the results of some bloodwork, and was told I should stop eating gluten as soon as possible. I resolved myself to a life without gluten, and hopefully some relief from almost-daily joint pain, which on a bad day made it hard even to walk across campus. Now, months later, I have learned a lot and feel amazing compared to where I was in June. Like, I can go on hikes and don't need to spend two days recovering. I have more than two hours of energy each day. Not all of my symptoms are gone, but I am very happy with where I am at compared to just a few months ago. Cooking gluten-free still isn't intuitive, but I think I have gotten a lot better at it. There are very few things the Man has deemed inedible, anyway. So in conclusion, life is pretty awesome right now.

But gluten isn't the whole story. I am dairy-free now too, and I was a lot less dignified when I found that out in July. There were tears, and anger. Now, though, when someone finds out that I am gluten and dairy-intolerant, the reaction tends to be “That sucks, what do you eat?” I am happy to say that there is a lot I can eat. I just have to be a little more creative now. Creativity was part of what inspired this bread recipe.

This particular bread was my response to trying to accommodate a family member with a more limited diet then myself, so that she could eat some bread at our Thanksgiving gathering. There are a lot of good reasons to limit one's sugar intake, and if you make this using the stevia as a sweetener, then the only sugar in the bread is the little bit naturally in the pumpkin. When stevia-sweetened, the bread is almost savory. With the agave or honey, it is only slightly sweet. I enjoyed it both ways.

Pumpkin Bread

Gluten, dairy, and sugar-free

2 Tbs ground flax seed

3 Tbs near-boiling water

15 oz pumpkin puree

2 eggs

3 Tbs agave nectar or honey (see below for stevia substitution)

2 Tbs vegetable oil (or olive oil or melted butter)

2 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 cup almond flour

½ cup brown rice or sorghum flour

½ cup buckwheat flour

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ginger

¾ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large glass bowl, mix together the flax and hot water until they form a paste. Allow it to sit for a minute or two.

Flax seed paste replaces the need for xanthan gum, and adds structure to the bread.

Add in the pumpkin, eggs, agave, oil, and vinegar, and whisk together with an electric beater for a minute.  

Wet ingredients together. I know this is a whisk and not an electric beater; using the latter helps the bread rise more. A whisk works, though!

 Add the flours, salt, spices, baking soda and baking powder and stir together. The batter should be like somewhat fluffy muffin batter. Add a little extra water if needed.

Finished batter 

Grease a baking pan (or line with parchment paper) and pour the batter into the pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes, and allow the bread to cool before slicing, otherwise it will crumble.

Modifications: if you have a nut allergy, the almond flour can be replaced by another flour like sorghum or quinoa. An extra teaspoon or two of oil may be needed, though, as almond flour has a lot of fat in it.

To make this truly sugar free, replace the agave with two or three teaspoons of steavia powder, and add an extra egg white in with the wet ingredients.

Gluten-free Goddess Brownies

So I have made the Gluten-Free Goddess' recipe for brownies four different times since I went gluten-free. It is a perfect recipe, and it gets raves every time I make it. Everyone thinks it is great, from little kids to college students to my family. I brought them to a research group meeting one time, and didn't tell anyone they were GF. People still thought they were amazing.

Here is her recipe. Seriously, make this even if you aren't gluten-free. I normally use butter instead of coconut oil, and sorghum flour instead of brown rice flour, but I want to make it exactly as written sometime.

That is all.

Celebratory Gluten-Free Pancakes

Pancakes that won't make me sick. They also tasted good.

Sunday used to be the day where I slept in late, and would hopefully stumble out of bed in time to get to the second service for church. Given that I was at school Monday through Friday, and usually spent my entire Saturday doing homework, Sundays were reserved for catching up on sleep and finishing up any assignments due the next day. Now, though, Sundays mean work. Usually six or eight hours of it.

I'm working at a hotel now, and the weekends are always busy. I can usually get to church, provided we go to the early service, but even that is pretty iffy, as there is a lot to do at my job that day.

Today, however, was my day off! Because the Man and I no longer see each other much on the weekends, this was a cause for celebration. And on any celebratory day, there should be a good breakfast. With bacon and pancakes. Even if you have food allergies.

Here is what I came up with this morning. These do crumble quite easily, but they generally stay intact while flipping them. They were very light and fluffy, despite being whole-grain.

They tasted fairly plain, thus you can top them with anything you like, such as maple syrup, or jam, heck, use them in a sandwich! If you think a plain pancake is boring, add some cinnamon and vanilla. I used sorghum, millet, and quinoa flours, and they were very good. Also, I fried bacon on the griddle first, and did not clean off the bacon grease. While camping this summer, we figured out that pancakes are really good fried in bacon grease. Just a friendly hint, if you like and can eat bacon.

Celebratory gluten-free pancakes

1 cup of GF flour (5 oz/140 grams)

1 TBS baking powder

½ tsp salt

2 TBS oil

2 TBS Agave nectar (or honey or maple syrup)

1 egg

½ cup non-dairy milk (I used almond)

1-3 TBS water, if needed

Whisk together the dry ingredients. Add in the oil, agave, egg, and non-dairy milk. Stir together. If the batter is very thick, thin it with water, adding one tablespoon at a time.

Heat your griddle to about 350 degrees F. Or, heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Pour a small amount of batter onto the heated surface, as small pancakes are less likely to crumble when turning.

The pancakes are ready to be flipped when a few bubbles appear on the surface.

Makes 15 small pancakes, serves 3.

 Fry some bacon first, unless, you know, you don't eat pork.

These pancakes are ready to be flipped.

 Pancakes! 

 This was breakfast. It was awesome.

More things to do with marzipan

Have extra marzipan from making cake with it? Make candy!


There is nothing like coming home after a long day of using sterile cell culture techniques and making a huge mess in your own kitchen.

Though it does strike me as funny that I cook in a lab coat (seriously, they are better than aprons) but don't use them in the lab.

So today I made about 3 dozen rolls, a pot of ice tea, truffles, and am about to make spaghetti.

I'll show you the dinner rolls in another post, but because they are really easy, I'll show you the marzipan truffle-things that I made.

Start by slicing the marzipan about a quarter to a third of an inch thick.

Meanwhile, melt some chocolate (didn't measure. Sorry). You can do that over a double boiler, or you can put it in the microwave for bursts of 25 seconds to avoid scorching it.

I recommend the microwave.

Please don't do what I did and try to add cream, it just made the whole thing seize up :( What a mess! But it's friggin' chocolate, so of course I didn't let it go to waste.

Okay. So they easy thing to do would have been to dip the marzipan slices into the melted chocolate using a fork, then let them cool on a cookie sheet.

I managed to get a couple of them dipped, as I had a few extra chocolate chips that i melted. They are the rectangular pieces in the photo below.

Also, dusting them with cocoa powder looks nice, but is optional.


The truffle-shaped ones were made by rolling the marzipan into a ball, then squishing the seized chocolate around the marzipan and rolling. It was very messy, and also very delicious. But I didn't take pictures because it takes two hands and does not look pretty.

So, if you don't try to add cold liquid to the melted chocolate, this is actually very easy.

Almond cake and fruit compote

I know I promised you a tagine in my last post, but the busted water heater kitchen-leak also soaked the notes I took which had measured amounts of everything I did for that recipe *sigh*. I will try to figure out my amounts in the next couple weeks.

So as soon as we got the water-heater replaced, out car broke :( It was fixed pretty easily, but because of complications this week (read: soaked kitchen and walking due to a broken car) there has been a lot of eating-out this week.

But I did do one thing: I baked this almond cake. I think you should too, it was actually pretty easy and didn't take very long. And I feel justified in the fact that we ate this cake for dinner, because I walked to work (twice!) and to the store and mechanics on Friday. It evens out, really!

I followed the recipe from the Smitten Kitchen blog almost exactly, so go here for the recipe. The only difference besides my lack of the pretty almond decorations was that I added some vanilla extract.

It turned out beautifully!

The compote, which I made while the cake was baking, was totally made up on the spot. But I liked it.

So pretty much, cut up 3-4 strawberries, add a 1/3 cup of blueberries (mine were frozen) 1/3 cup of peaches (frozen as well) and heat over medium while stirring!

I also added a tablespoon of honey and a tablespoon of sugar, as well as a sprinkle of ginger.

After about 10 minutes of cooking, I mashed everything together. This is not the first time I have wished for an immersion blender.

But then I decided that I liked the compote better when a little chunky!

Make this cake, you will not be disappointed if you like almonds... or cake.