Trav's Gone Gluten Free!

Iced Lemon-Pistachio Biscotti

2008-11-13T17:54:00.000-08:00

Ever since I began this blog, I've been constantly learning. Not only have I been learning how to cook better, but also more effortlessly. It's so true what they say about practice; the more you do something the easier it gets. I've always loved to cook, but I used to be more cautious with culinary experiments. Partly due to economical reasons (it's expensive to burn up prime cuts of meat), but mostly because I had no real push to improve. This blog has motivated me to expand my ability to create amazing meals and deserts, and I'm loving it! I've been learning how to make things I never thought I'd attempt, like cheesecake, fudge, and BISCOTTI. Did I mention that I love biscotti.

I've caught the joy-of-cooking bug, and hope I'm eternally afflicted. Although I don't have any kids yet, I can imagine how hard it would be for busy parents to find the motivation to get creative with cooking. However I think it's important to try. Turning any meal into a communal experience helps people bond in a special way. Allowing the kids to pitch in makes it a family event that always has a happy ending (EATING!). Patterns and predictability can be comforting at times, but they can also stagnate. Personally, there is something about exploring the world of edible art that gives me a truly visceral sense of being human.

Now onto the recipe... The only laborious part of the following recipe was grating the lemon zest. I did end up doubling the recipe so I had enough to share with my co-workers, which made the zesting process twice as long, but completely worth it. The flavor the lemon zest adds to the biscotti is unreplaceable. I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Baking Mix, but feel free to use any GF baking mix you prefer.

Biscotti Ingredients

1/3 cup softened butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 tsp. natural vanilla
2 cups gluten free flour
4 tsp. finely grated lemon peel (ZESTY!!!)
1 1/4 cups unsalted pistachio nuts

Lemon Icing Ingredients

1 cup sifted powdered sugar
1 tsp. finely shredded lemon peel
2 tblsp. milk, soy milk, or lemon juice

Biscotti Cooking Directions

Lightly grease 2 cookie sheets and set aside (I used cooking spray).
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Using an electric mixer and a large bowl, beat the butter on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add the sugar, baking power, and salt. Beat until combined, occasionally scraping the sides. Then beat in the eggs and vanilla until fully incorporated.
Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Add what's left of the flour and mix by hand.
Stir in the shredded lemon peel and pistachio nuts.
Divide the dough in half, and using well floured hands, shape each portion into 8-inch long rolls. Flatten them down a bit until they are about 2 1/2 inches wide and an inch thick.
Place at least 3 inches apart on your prepared cookie sheets and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown and tops have cracked. Remove from oven and cool on the cookie sheet(s) for 30 minutes.
Take a serrated knife and cut each roll diagonally into 1/2 inch slices. Place slices cut side down on the cookie sheets. Lower the oven to 325 degrees F.. Bake biscotti for an additional 8 minutes and remove from oven. Turn each slice over and return to the oven for a final 9-10 minutes, or until dry and crisp (be careful not to burn them!).
Transfer to a wire rack and let cool. Once cool drizzle with lemon icing and chow down!

Lemon Icing Directions

In a small bowl, stir together the powdered sugar, lemon peel, and chosen liquid until it reaches a drizzling consistency. How easy is that?!
Enjoy!!!

Double Chocolate Biscotti

2008-11-01T13:12:00.000-07:00

Although this website is in a blog format, when I first decided to put this page together, my intention was to simply provide a place for people with celiac disease and/or wheat allergies to find useful information that would make their lives easier. When people are first diagnosed with celiac disease, it can feel pretty overwhelming. It typically calls for a complete dietary change, and a lot more home-cooked meals. Having the ability to go out to a restaurant with friends and family taken away from you can be pretty depressing, which is why I created the gluten free restaurant menu list that is located down the left-side column. If you know anyone with celiac disease, or wheat allergies, or food allergies in general, let them know about that list. And if you notice a page has been outdated, or has an "error" message, let me know so I can update it.

Besides the gluten free restaurant menu list on the left column, I also have a list of useful websites for people with gluten issues. All of the main celiac organizations are there, as well as great sites like Traveling Gluten Free and Be Free For Me. Traveling Gluten Free is a database of gluten free eating destinations world-wide, which is a great resource for those of us who travel a lot. Be Free For Me is a website loaded with recipes that are categorized by the food allergy/sensitivity they avoid. It's a really cool site for anyone with any kind of food allergy.

Now back to the FOOD! Biscotti has lost it's intimidation factor with me. I used to think it was so hard to make, that only expert bakers could pull it off. I now know that biscotti has to be one of the easiest baked goods to create, and the possibilities are endless! I decided to quiet the angry chocolate monkey that is persistently on my back, by giving this recipe a double dose of cocoa. Any high grade baking cocoa is usually safe from gluten, but it's important to read the ingredients in your chocolate chips for things like "modified food starch," "maltodextrin," and "malt flavoring." As a rule of thumb, the higher quality the chocolate chips/chunks, the less likely they'll contain fillers. Chocolate is perfect by itself! Why anyone would contaminate good chocolate with artificial flavors and gluten-containing fillers is beyond me; but it basically comes down to money. The less actual food ingredients it contains, the cheaper it will be to produce.

In this recipe, you can use chocolate chips or chunks depending on your preference. You can also melt chocolate and coat the tops of each piece after the biscotti cools, thereby making it a triple chocolate biscotti! However you do it, experiment and have fun with it:) Food is all about sharing and sensual pleasure. The joy is not only in eating the food, but also smelling it and looking at it. Enjoy yourself, because that's what it's all about!

Double Chocolate Biscotti Ingredients

1/2 cup softened butter
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups all purpose gluten free flour (I used Bob's Red Mill)
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips or chunks

Baking Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Lightly grease a cookie sheet and set aside (I use canola oil spray)
Place the butter in a large mixing bowl, and with your electric mixer, beat the butter on med to high speed for 35-ish seconds.
Add the sugar, cocoa powder, and baking powder to the mix. Beat until combined, making sure to scrape the sides of the bowl to get it all incorporated.
Beat in the eggs until combined, and then as much of the flour as you can before it gets too clumpy. Remove the mixer and stir the remaining flour by hand. Stir in the chocolate chunks or chips.
Shape the dough into two 9-inch long rolls. Place the rolls on the prepared cookie sheets and flatten them slightly so that they're about 1/2 to 1-inch thick.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on cookie sheet for 1 hour.
Using a serrated knife, cut each roll diagonally into 1/2 inch slices. Place the slices, cut sides down, onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake at 325 degrees F. for around 8 to 9 minutes.
Turn the slices over and bake for an additional 7 to 9 minutes, or until dry and crisp (be careful not to burn them!).
Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.
Make a cup of coffee for dipping purposes and enjoy!

Corn Bread Biscotti

2008-01-05T19:24:00.000-08:00

This was the first GF biscotti I made after finding out I had celiac disease. Actually it's the first biscotti I ever made. It's funny how finding out you have some kind of dietary restriction can bring out your inner chef. Before discovering my gluten-intolerance, I never even thought about making my own biscotti. I figured it was too laborious to make the process worth it, especially since most coffee houses had an ample supply of the stuff. However, now things are much different. Go to any coffee house you know and try to find one that supplies gluten free biscotti, and if you find one, please let me know about it! It must be human nature to always want most, the things you can't have. This is especially true for people with celiac disease.

The following recipe comes from Peggy Cullen's book: Got Milk? The Cookie Book.. I know, I use her book for almost every cookie recipe, but it's only because her recipes are that good! In her book, she calls this "Thanksgiving Biscotti." Biscotti is a lot easier to make than I though it would be. Once you get this recipe down, you'll have no problem experimenting with a variety of biscotti recipes. Biscotti is simply twice-baked cookies, nothing more. You can use pretty much any pre-packaged GF Flour mixture, but I typically use the flour combination below.

The Following gluten-free flour recipe was adapted from the book The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Fast And Healthy by Bette Hagman.

Gluten Free Flour Mix

3 cups white rice flour
1 cup potato flour
½ cup tapioca flour
2 tsp xanthan gum

Corn Bread Biscotti Ingredients

1/2 cup yellow stone-ground cornmeal (check the ingredients for gluten in any form)

1 1/2 cups gluten free flour

1 cup sugar, plus a little extra for sprinkling

1 tsp baking powder

1 pinch of salt

1/2 stick cold unsalted butter cut into pieces

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

2/3 cups dried cranberries

Directions
1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Take some aluminum foil or parchment paper and line a heavy baking sheet, or coat the baking sheet with cooking spray.
2) Whisk up the cornmeal, GF flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter and mash up until the mixture has a gritty texture. A potato masher works great for this recipe. Or is you have access to one, use a food processor and pulse the mixture.
3) Beat the eggs and vanilla in a small bowl. Pour over the dry ingredients and mix to blend. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the mixture from the sides of the bowl. Add the cranberries and mix until the dough begins to clump.
4) Turn the dough out onto a table. Gather it together and form into a disk. Using a knife, divide the disk into two equal parts. Lightly flour a surface and form each piece into a 12 inch log. Transfer the logs to the baking sheet. Sprinkle the top with sugar.
5) Bake for 30 minutes, or until the logs begin to turn golden. Remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes. Leave the oven on.
6) Use spatulas to transfer the logs to a cutting board. Using a large knife, cut the logs crosswise and slightly diagonal, making 1/2 inch-thick pieces. Transfer the pieces back to the baking sheet, arranging them cut-side up. Bake for 12 more minutes, or until the undersides of the cookies show a little color (don't burn them!). Take out of oven and leave on baking sheets to cool completely.
The picture shows how I used some chocolate chips that were leftover from another cookie recipe.

*Makes about 3 dozen cookies