Molten Chocolate Lava Cake, Gluten Free

You can see here why it is called "molten" and "lava" since a little batter spills out of the finished cake.

We don't typically do a lot to celebrate Valentine's Day at my household. It can be a fun holiday, if you are seeing someone; but it can be painful if you are single, or a hassle if you're not, or both either way. I suppose it just seems strange when a holiday insists that you must be romantic in a certain way on a certain day, especially a holiday named for a Roman martyr. Valentine's Day is nice excuse for chocolate and a date night, though.

Which was part of the inspiration for making a gluten-free chocolate lava cake. I keep seeing glutenous chocolate recipes everywhere on the Internet because it is February. I used to make this recipe a fair bit, because it is quick, easy, and delicious, yet seems quite fancy. So I adapted it to be gluten-free. It can also be made totally dairy-free if you use coconut oil instead of butter. Both are delicious.

This is a pretty fantastic dessert, and just in time for Valentine's Day, whether you celebrate it or not!

Molten Chocolate Lava Cake, Gluten Free

Adapted from Brandielle's recipe

Also, the Pioneer Woman made the original recipe with a bunch of step-by-step photos a few years ago, if you are so inclined.

Serves 2 (can easily double or triple)

4 ounces dark chocolate

¼ cup butter or coconut oil (½ a stick)

½ cup powdered sugar

½ cup gf flour, such as sorghum

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 425 F.

Melt the chocolate and butter together by microwaving in a microwave-safe bowl in 20 second increments. Stir between microwaving, until the contents of the bowl are completely melted. Allow the mixture to cool for 3-5 minutes.

Add the sugar, flour, eggs, and vanilla, and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Spoon the batter into two well-greased ramekins. Bake for 13-14 minutes, or until soft in the middle, but not liquid.

Remove the ramekins from the oven, and let cool for a few minutes. Invert the ramekins onto a plate. The cake should have a bit of gooey batter in the middle, hence the “molten” and “lava” in the title. Eat and enjoy!

Stirring the melted chocolate and butter/coconut oil

Stirring in the flour, sugar, vanilla, and eggs. It is important to let the chocolate cool off a bit before adding in the eggs, so that they don't congeal or cook.

The batter prior to baking.

After baking.

Inverted.

Delicious chocolate middle! It is like having chocolate sauce on your cake, but without the extra work.

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.

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.

Spiced Cider

Cider is awesome. Spiced cider, doubly so.

 As you are doubtless already aware, today is Halloween. I don't typically do a lot to celebrate Halloween, though I do enjoy the excuse to dress up and eat too much candy. We already attended our party that involved costumes for this Halloween season, though, and we don't get many trick-or-treaters at our place. Like, I think there were two last year.

But because I didn't have to go to work today, I was inspired to celebrate the holiday just a little. I had a pumpkin in the house, so on a whim I carved it! I haven't carved a pumpkin since I was eight.

And in a little while, I am going to make and consume spiced cider. You should too, as a little celebration. Or just because it is good.

I am planning on doing NaNoWriMo this year, and my book is set in Space. It inspired this Space-themed pumpkin.

This isn't a recipe so much as a method to make yourself some spiced cider. It is so good!

First, get some good apple cider. I am lucky that I have some farm-fresh apple cider, but there are some organic store brands that are good, too. Normally I am not a stickler for organic anything, but the less processed (in this case), the better.

Add 2 and a half cups of cider, a cinnamon stick, a teaspoon of lemon juice, a few cloves, and some freshly grated nutmeg to a saucepan. Bring to a boil, watching carefully! The cider will boil over in a matter of seconds, and make a mess. Reduce heat and simmer for ten minutes.

Serves two.

 Add the spices

 Briefly bring to a boil. After simmering for ten minutes, it is done!