No bake gluten free pie. Blah blah blah blah pie. As long as it ends in pie, you’ve got my attention. Now that I have yours, we can talk about how this gluten free pie is a perfect warm weather treat that won’t having you slaving away in the kitchen when you’re trying to enjoy the outdoors, and your lovely guests. Make it ahead, freeze it and then allow it to thaw a bit while you eat, say, a lovely gluten free cold pasta salad.

This pie is a (much better) riff on the yogurt pies I used to have as a kid. Those were a tub of thawed Cool Whip mixed with some strawberry flavored yogurt (probably nonfat, at least if it was the lowfat 90′s, when everyone got fatter), pour into a premade graham cracker pie crust, and then frozen.

This gluten free pie is worlds apart from that one (which, sadly, makes me shudder when I recall the plastic taste). Lightly sweet, totally real and absolutely fresh and creamy. Instead of strawberry flavored nonfat yogurt, we use full fat plain Greek yogurt mixed with fresh strawberries reduced with just a touch of sugar (if you’re reading this and it’s no longer strawberry season, frozen and thawed strawberries would work great). Instead of Cool Whip, fresh whipped cream stabilized with some unflavored gelatin. You can skip the gelatin, but the pie will be much more icy in texture.

After I made the pie a few times, I bought more strawberries and made more of that gorgeous, bright red strawberry puree and have been drizzling it over gluten free waffles, mixing it into yogurt and stirring it into lemonade. Oh my word.

You can even stir some of the strawberry puree into the top of the pie right before you freeze it. Or serve it with some more sauce on the side. Or just give it to me. I’ll figure something out.

The crust is just a basic no-bake cookie crumb crust. One time I used crushed thin & crispy gluten free chocolate chip cookies, another time gluten free graham crackers. Or … you could make things even easier (and let’s face it way better for you!) and serve it crustless. Naked pie! To avoid any confusion, I am not suggesting eating it when you’re naked (not that there’s anything wrong with that but this is a family blog so let’s keep it clean).

Gluten free chocolate chip cookie dough is an indulgence. No doubt about that. But since it’s been making its way around the web for a while now, I want you to have it within reach. That’s the business I’m in around here (well, I’m all up in your business, too). The art … of the possible. The regular way to make edible cookie dough, according to most, is without eggs. I tried that. I did! And sometimes it didn’t, well, suck. But it never tasted like chocolate chip cookie dough! Now, it does (how-to secrets below). And then after that, it turned into truffles. Let’s indulge.

Bite into your first truffle, and as the chocolate shell gives way to the creamy and buttery cookie dough center, you’ll know what I know: this is important work we’re doing here.

I will spare you all my whining about the times I tried, and failed miserably, to make these truffles taste like the crazy treat they are meant to be. I will spare you, but it’s a struggle. I really want to whine my little heart out. That’s the esteem in which I hold you. High. It’s high esteem.

You do not have to dip these in chocolate, but I did have to. That way, I can serve them after they are no longer well-chilled from the refrigerator. The chocolate is like a protective shell for the gorgeous edible raw chocolate chip cookie dough beneath. Just make sure the balls of cookie dough are really cold when you dip them, since melted chocolate is most cooperative for dipping when it’s warm. That way, the dough will stay together well during the dipping process.

Oh, right! Here’s the secret: pasteurized eggs. There is a company called Safe Egg that makes pasteurized eggs, which are safe to eat raw. I bet there are other companies, too. I found them at a slightly more expensive local grocery store, and believe me when I tell you that I’m not planning to buy them all the time. But they’re lovely for homemade mayonnaise, and of course perfect for making everybody’s favorite gluten free cookie dough. Oh, and did you know that you can even pasteurize your own eggs? It’s not even hard. Just watch the temp carefully, and your eggs will be quite safe.

The other secret? My Basic Gluten Free Flour Blend, Xanthan Gum Free. We’re not baking these, so they don’t need to hold together during baking. Plus, xanthan gum raw? Not a great taste.

Related Recipes:

Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

A collage of photos and links to tons of Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Gluten free flour blends are, really, the most important resource on this entire gluten free blog. A slightly more complex blend of flours (like my Better Than Cup4Cup Blend), including xanthan gum, is essential to success in most of my gluten free recipes. But lately I find myself using a more basic, 3-ingredient flour blend without the benefit of xanthan gum in some recipes, and it’s strangely liberating. Woohoo! I still believe that xanthan gum is a critical component of most gluten free baking, but this basic gluten free flour blend is an important resource, too, in a certain type of more delicate recipe. Scroll all the way down for the infographic that makes short work of remembering how to make this simple flour blend (it has also taken up permanent residence on my gluten free resources pages), but first, let’s review all the wonderful recipes this blend has made possible so far. Who knows where we’ll go from here!

[If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know the drill with the clickable collage, but just in case—hover over each photo for the recipe title, then click the picture to open a new window with that post and the entire recipe]

Here’s the 10¢ tour of these recipes made with my xanthan gum-free basic gluten free flour blend (remember – the links are all above):

Gluten Free Crêpes: The ultimate in delicate, crêpe batter without xanthan gum swirls around that frying pan with ease.

Gluten Free Fluffy Chocolate Chip Pancakes: These gluten free pancakes are made extra fluffy by the yogurt in the batter, but without xanthan gum the batter is still easily pourable.

Gluten Free Chocolate Pudding: Most chocolate pudding is made with cornstarch, but cornstarch will cause pudding to leak liquid when it’s chilled. This pudding, made with my basic xanthan gum-free gluten free flour blend, is smooth as silk—hot or cold.

Gluten Free Cornmeal Pancakes: I have made these pancakes both with a more traditional gluten free flour blend and with my basic xanthan gum-free blend, and the xanthan gum-free variety has a much nicer bite.

Classic Gluten Free Pancakes: Ah, the classic gluten free pancake. You can make it with a more traditional gluten free flour blend, one that contains xanthan gum, but you have to begin with a super hot skillet and work quick quick quick, as the batter will thicken as it stands. This xanthan gum-free pancake batter pours with ease and makes for a tender pancake that tastes just like you remember.

Gluten Free Microwave Chocolate Cake for 1: Disappointed by every other gluten free microwave cake I had ever made, I finally got it! No xanthan gum in the flour (along with a few other secrets I spill in that post and recipe) makes for the perfect moist, tender cake for 1—even once it’s cool. Quick chocolate fix!

Finally, as promised, here’s that handy infographic with the basic blend itself (which also lives on the Resources page with all the other All Purpose Gluten Free Flour Blends). And Pin It so you don’t lose track of it!:

Love,
Me

P.S. Don’t forget your copy of Gluten-Free on a Shoestring Quick & Easy! Your support means the world to me. For real.

There used to be a recipe for gluten free rice pudding on this blog. It was an early one, too. Soon after I started a blog (March 2009) and long before I even know that blog was short for web log and even longer before I knew what web log even meant, I put up recipes for different gluten free puddings: chocolate, rice, vanilla, even tapioca, if memory serves. Variations of some of them ended up in the first Gluten-Free on a Shoestring cookbook. But somehow many of those early blog recipes disappeared into the ether. I even got some upset emails from some very flustered early readers about that very disappearance. It’s taken me this long, but stovetop no-bake sweets are back on the blog, baby!

It’s easy to forget how elegant something as simple as rice pudding can be. There’s no flour and no cornstarch, and not even any egg yolks. You’ll need nothing but the arborio rice plus some milk to make this thick and creamy gluten free pudding. Sometimes, when I’m feeling like feeling virtuous, I make it with brown arborio rice (Lundberg family farms makes it). It will tolerate any sort of milk at all, as long as it’s not nonfat, and you can dial back or dial up the sugar, too.

Single servings of gluten free pudding (like we did with this no-cornstarch gluten free chocolate pudding), especially in these little 4 ounce Weck jars, are perfect for stashing in the back of the refrigerator for an after-school, or a late night, snack on the double.

 I like to steep some whole cinnamon and whole nutmeg in the milk, too, just to dress it up. And all you need to remember about cooking the rice is not to overcook it. Simmer it in water just until it has absorbed most of the liquid before pouring in the simmering milk.

If you’d like an even quicker and easier version of rice pudding (one that’s dairy-free, too) that requires almost no tending, kindly turn to page 179 of Gluten-Free on a Shoestring Quick & Easy. That one even has a thin and lightly sweet crust on top that just … sends me.

There are lots of different recipes for pão de queijo. But this time I went with a copycat recipe of an original cheese bread dry mix that shall remain nameless since they sent me an e-mail telling me to remove reference to their product, which honestly is little more than tapioca flour and salt.* I’m still a bit partial to pan de bono, but I know so many of you love your mixes from this company and, to be honest, they feel like smoke and mirrors to me so I’d at least like you to have the option to do it for less at home. I’m nothing if not cheap (for reference, see the name of the blog).

*This original mix has “modified manioc starch” as one of its lesser ingredients, which it claims is necessary for binding the wet and dry ingredients. Since both the dough and the bread are extremely chewy and stretchy without any modified manioc starch, I can’t for the life of me imagine how that is necessary. So I didn’t knock myself out trying to find some of my very own modified manioc.

Remember, when you buy the boxed mix, you still have to add allllll of these other ingredients (eggs, oil, cheese, water or milk – I used milk instead of water and dry milk, like in this mix, so you don’t have to go hunting for dry milk). And a note about cost-savings: This nameless company sells its 7.5 ounce original cheese bread mix for about $2.50 (on average, being kind). The gluten free tapioca starch/flour necessary for this recipe costs about $1.12 (on average). So you don’t have to take off your shoes (like I did), that’s less than half as expensive.

In my recipe directions, I recommend your chilling the dough before baking it, but really it isn’t entirely necessary. Chilling the dough simply makes it stiffer, which allows you to make a slightly more round roll. But a truly spherical pão de queijo would require a different, somewhat more complicated method entirely. So I chill the dough, but I consider that an optional step.

Since pão de queijo (or Brazilian cheese bread) essentially has only one dry ingredient (other than salt), and that dry ingredient is a starch (tapioca flour/starch), it won’t brown much unless you seriously overbake it. And if you seriously overbake the rolls, they will be dry as a bone. They should have a thin crust on the outside, and be quite chewy and stretchy on the inside. These are not intended to be light and fluffy rolls. They’re kinda fun and quick and easy to throw together, though, and when you make it yourself without the mix, it costs about half as much. Win-win? I’m here for you, in all my cheap and shoestringy glory. You my homies. You can officially stop paying double the price for a box of tapioca starch now. Please?