Archives for January 2019

The Perfect Gluten Free White Cake

By Nicole Hunn | Published: January 25, 2019 | Posted In: Cakes, Desserts

This bakery-style gluten free white cake, made without any egg yolks, is the perfect moist and tender blank canvas to dress up for any occasion.

What is a white cake & how do you make it?

A white cake is simply a yellow cake made with only egg whites and no egg yolks. Egg yolks add a more yellow tinge to a vanilla cake and give it more of a custard-like texture.

A white cake is perfect for dressing up with food coloring to make a fancier-looking cake. And it’s also a great cake for adding sprinkles, nonpareils, or edible confetti to for a funfetti-style cake. It also makes more of a dramatic presentation than a yellow cake.

But this white cake is not just our very best gluten free yellow cake simply made without any yolks. When I decided to make a white cake, I tried just replacing the whole egg with more egg whites, without changing anything else and it works “okay.” But that cake is generally amazing, and “okay” just isn’t good enough!

The batter was really just too thick, and the cake became stale way too quickly. That means it wasn’t moist enough to start. An egg yolk is not just a yellow egg white. It has the fat of the egg in it, and fat is a tenderizer in baking.

This bakery-style gluten free white cake, made without any egg yolks, is the perfect moist and tender blank canvas to dress up for any occasion.

I tried increasing the amount of sugar in the recipe since sugar is also a tenderizer, but again the batter was too thick. The cake was also too pale for most of the baking time and then browned too much at the end once the sugars caramelized. No good.

Finally, I added more butter (1 more tablespoon of butter per cake, so 2 more tablespoons total in the recipe), and mixed the egg whites into the butter and sugar mixture at the start of the batter. That made a world of difference since it allowed for a vigorous beating of the egg whites without overbeating the cake batter once the flours were added.

For a truly white cake, you’ll also want to replace the pure vanilla extract, which is brown in color, with a clear vanilla flavoring. I use McCormick brand clear vanilla flavoring since I trust that their extracts and spices have clear labeling that will indicate anything gluten-containing right there on the label.

Since the price of pure vanilla extract has gone sky high lately, I’ve been using quite a lot of vanilla flavoring in place of extract, in fact. I also sometimes like to replace some of the clear vanilla with some butter flavoring, which really gives this cake that fresh-from-the-bakery flavor and smell.

A note about the egg whites

I made this cake recipe using egg whites from the carton, and egg whites from organic eggs that I separated myself. I found that the carton egg whites worked just as well as the fresh egg whites, and of course using them was much easier.

This bakery-style gluten free white cake, made without any egg yolks, is the perfect moist and tender blank canvas to dress up for any occasion.

The crumb coat

In the photo just above, you’ll notice that I have the cakes layered and filled, with a nice thin crumb coat on the top and sides. Whether you’re serving a layer cake to your family, the Queen of England, or just yourself, you’ll want to begin with a crumb coat.

Once you refrigerate a layer cake with a super thin layer of frosting on the top and sides, the “crumbs” really are sealed in and they won’t migrate to the frosting on the outside of the cake. Whether you’re making a messy frosting or going for a really smooth finish, crumbs just ruin the effect.

This bakery-style gluten free white cake, made without any egg yolks, is the perfect moist and tender blank canvas to dress up for any occasion.

How about that frosting?

I nearly used my recipe for ermine frosting on this cake, since it strikes such a nice balance between lightness and sturdiness. Plus, it’s not too sweet. But I do really love Swiss meringue buttercream, so I thought about making that, too.

Since this simple recipe took so much recipe-testing to get juuuust right, though, I was too pressed for time to make any sort of multi-step frosting. I started googling an “easier Swiss meringue” frosting, and I stumbled upon this Super Easy Swiss Meringue Buttercream. There’s no heating of the egg whites, and no beating them separately, either.

The SugarHero recipe linked above begins with a mix of pasteurized egg whites (from a carton) and confectioners’ sugar. Then, you add softened butter and vanilla, and beat the heck out of it.

I made absolutely no changes to the recipe, as it’s perfect as written. It’s a bit lighter and less achingly sweet than a traditional buttercream, but it was still so easy to make.

This bakery-style gluten free white cake, made without any egg yolks, is the perfect moist and tender blank canvas to dress up for any occasion.

Ingredients and substitutions

This is actually a rather simple recipe, and it relies heavily on dairy (butter; buttermilk) and eggs (6 egg whites!). If you make any changes, you are going to have a different cake. Here is the best advice I can give you, but you’ll have to experiment as I haven’t made the cake successfully with any substitutions:

Dairy/Butter: For a white cake, for appearances, it’s better to use Spectrum nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening in place of butter, since it’s pure white in color. However, shortening does not have any moisture, and butter has some moisture.

If you’d like to replace the butter in this cake recipe with shortening, I’d recommend using butter-flavored Spectrum shortening as a substitute by weight (that would mean 14 tablespoons, since shortening weighs less than butter).

Watch the video, though, and pay particular attention to the appearance of the batter. I think you’ll need to add more buttermilk (I’d say about 1 1/2 tablespoons?) to get the proper consistency but go slowly. Speaking of buttermilk…

Dairy/Buttermilk: I don’t like “souring” regular milk (or almond milk) with some lemon juice or another acid as a buttermilk substitute since it doesn’t truly sour the milk. Plus, buttermilk is considerably thicker than regular milk.

Instead, if I don’t have buttermilk on hand (which I often don’t), I like to use whole milk (or for nondairy, unsweetened almond milk or cashew milk) in place of half the volume called for in the recipe. For the other half, I use plain whole milk yogurt (or plain nondairy yogurt). Whisk well, and you’ve got a perfect replica for buttermilk.

Egg-free: Since this recipe only calls for egg whites, and they’re not beaten until stiff like in a meringue, I think aquafaba (the brine from a can of no-salt-added garbanzo beans/chickpeas) would make a seamless substitute for the egg whites in the cake.

I think aquafaba would also work in the frosting recipe, but it will definitely call for some experimentation on your part.

Corn-free: If you can’t have corn, try replacing the cornstarch with arrowroot or potato starch, by weight.

A quick note about sifting flours

Okay, yes, you really do have to sift the flour with the cornstarch and the baking powder and baking soda. I hate to sift, and I rarely do it. But it makes an enormous difference in the final baked cake.

If you watch the video, you’ll see that I used a sifter. It’s this fast-and-efficient sifter from OXO (affiliate link, but shop around) and it’s been worth having.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

By Nicole Hunn | Published: January 23, 2019 | Posted In: Christmas, Cookies, Desserts, Holidays

These naturally gluten free peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are made with oats, oat flour and some cornstarch for the perfect chewy cookie.

A corner of a white tray with small peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies on it

I originally created this simple recipe for chewy, peanutty, oatmeal cookies in 2014 using an all purpose gluten free flour, and they were amazing. There’s still a photo of the original cookies below, and I’ve included the original recipe since so many of you loved it when it was first published.

But I love flourless baking, mostly because of its simplicity. This recipe isn’t technically flourless, since it contains old fashioned rolled oats ground into a flour (I never buy oat flour—it’s just too expensive and too easy to make in a blender or food processor as needed). Plus, it has cornstarch. But no rice flour at all.

Raw peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies on a tray in balls

What makes these almost flourless cookies so special

I truly consider this recipe to be a “starter recipe.” If you’re new to the gluten free diet or just starting out in gluten free baking, you can make this recipe with nothing more than regular grocery store ingredients.

I remember what it was like starting out baking gluten free, way back in 2004. There are so many products available in most grocery stores these days, but my favorite all purpose gluten free flour blends are all based on rice flour—and most are not sold in neighborhood grocery stores.

If there had been an option to make a chocolate chip cookie that my children would absolutely love ❤️and be proud to serve to friends without any special ingredients, it would have been such a relief, you know? I want you to have that available to you.

Plus, I’m so happy to be able to point reader in the direction of recipes like this when they email me to say that they can’t have rice flour but still want to bake a great cookie. These peanut butter oatmeal cookies are great cookies. And a drop cookie is easy for everyone to make.

A tray of baked peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

How to make these simple peanut butter oatmeal cookies

I always begin any oat-based recipe with old fashioned rolled oats (certified gluten free, since my son has celiac disease), which I buy in huge bags at my local Trader Joe’s (love you TJ’s!). Place those oats in a food processor and you’re one or two pulses away from quick-cooking oats. Place them in a blender and you’ll have oat flour in less than 60 seconds.

All you have to do to make these cookies is place all of the dry ingredients (oat flour, cornstarch, baking soda, salt, oats, granulated sugar, brown sugar) in a bowl and mix them. Then add the butter, peanut butter, eggs and vanilla.

Then just add the chips, mix and roll the dough into balls and chill them. That will help them hold their shape during baking.

The cookie dough is suuuuuper thick, but keep mixing and it will all combine. I really like using the back of the spoon to press down the wet ingredients into the dry when a cookie dough is thick. If you’ve measured properly by weight, I promise everything will combine in the end.

There is only 1/2 cup of peanut butter in this recipe, so it’s not a deep peanut butter cookie like our peanut butter sandwich cookies. Resist the urge to add more chocolate chips, though, since they’ll create a flatter cookie by separating the dough more.

Two trays of peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

The “original recipe” for these cookies

Originally, this recipe was made using most of the same ingredients, with just a few changes:

3/4 cup (105 g) all purpose gluten free flour, including xanthan gum (instead of oat flour)
3 tablespoons (27 g) cornstarch (instead of 90 grams)
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (72 g) granulated sugar (instead of a full 1/2 cup)
3/4 cup (75 g) old fashioned rolled oats (instead of a full cup)

Everything else in the ingredient list was the same as the recipe is written now. The cookies were also baked in flattened disks at 350°F for 8 minutes instead of 10 minutes at 375°F.

A baking tray with peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies on a wooden table

The photo just above shows exactly what the old recipe looked like. They were thick and chewy, still, and had a similar balance of chew from the oats and flavor from the peanut butter. In case you prefer the old recipe, I wanted to be sure you had it.

A pile of peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies on a square white tray

Ingredients and substitutions

Dairy-free: In place of the butter, you can try using half (56 g) Earth Balance buttery sticks and half (56 g) Spectrum brand nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening. That combination of fats should create the right moisture balance.

If you have Miyoko’s Kitchen or Melt brand vegan butter, you can try using just that, since those butter replacements are relatively well-balanced on their own. The cookies won’t brown as much, but they should still taste great. Be sure you’re using dairy-free chocolate chips.

Egg-free: The egg should be able to be replaced with a “chia egg” (1 tablespoon ground chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel). The additional egg yolk helps provide a chewy texture to the cookies. You can try replacing that with an additional tablespoon of unsalted butter, melted and cooled.

Corn-free: The cornstarch in this recipe can easily be replaced with arrowroot if you can’t have corn. Potato starch (not potato flour) should also work just fine.

Peanut-free: These cookies should be great with a no-stir (the kind that you don’t have to stir to combine any oil that has separated on top of the jar) almond butter, like Barney Butter.

Oats: Certified gluten free oats are safe on a gluten free diet. But if you’re avoiding oats, you should be able to use quinoa flakes in place of the oat flour, and beaten rice in place of the rolled oats. Please see my full discussion of how to replace oats in baking.

Instant Pot Gluten Free Meatballs and Spaghetti

By Nicole Hunn | Published: January 18, 2019 | Posted In: Dinner, Meat, Slow Cooker/IP

Once you learn to make these tender, flavorful gluten free meatballs and perfectly cooked gf spaghetti in the Instant Pot, you’ll never want to make them any other way.

Once you learn to make these tender, flavorful gluten free meatballs and perfectly cooked gf spaghetti in the Instant Pot, you'll never want to make them any other way.

Simplicity is the name of this dinnertime ? game

We’ve all had spaghetti and meatballs ? and it’s not necessarily the sort of thing to get too excited about. But even though it sounds super basic, it typically takes more than a few pots and pans and isn’t really a meal you’d turn to at the dinnertime witching hour. ⏱Until now.

If you make these gluten free spaghetti and meatballs in an Instant Pot or similar electronic pressure cooker (mine is the 6-quart basic IP model!), other than a bowl to make the meatball mixture, everything goes right into the IP liner at the same time. AT THE SAME TIME.

What comes out the other side, after it comes to pressure of course (which typically takes about 20 inactive do-something-else minutes), is the most perfectly saucy al dente spaghetti and tender meatballs cooked to perfection. This meal never ever fails, and it never ever disappoints.

Once you learn to make these tender, flavorful gluten free meatballs and perfectly cooked gf spaghetti in the Instant Pot, you'll never want to make them any other way.

Instant Pot cooking 101/troubleshooting

It’s not uncommon to purchase an Instant Pot electronic pressure cooker (or similar brand) on a great sale that you couldn’t resist, and then let it sit in the box unopened for months or even years. I can’t explain it, but I get it.

A new appliance can seem very overwhelming, especially this one. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but most of the IP recipes you’ll find on the Internet seem to assume you already know how to use it.

So I make no assumptions in this recipe or the accompanying video. If my instructions are too basic for you, you’ll know right away and feel free to skim them. But for the rest of us, let’s learn from my mistakes!

Before my first successful IP voyage, my first Instant Pot trials were a complete failure. At first, I didn’t close the vent by setting it to sealing. Surprise! It never came to pressure. Then, I tried cooking things without enough moisture.

Of course, you would never do that since you’re way smarter than I am. But if you did happen to do that, the pot will eventually start counting down as if it got to pressure but your food will not be cooked. Do not cut the liquid in this recipe. Truuuuust me.

If you’re afraid that something might burn on the bottom of the pot, use the rack that comes with the appliance to elevate the food a bit. That would work in this recipe just fine if you like.

Be sure to place the dried spaghetti in a criss-cross pattern on top of the sauce, as specified in the recipe, to minimize clumping. Despite your absolute best efforts, some of the strands of spaghetti may stick together during cooking, resulting in some clumps. However, unlike boiling spaghetti on the stovetop, all of the spaghetti strands in the clump will be cooked just right.

What else do you make in the Instant Pot?

I purchased an Instant Pot in 2017, and I’m proud to say that I put it to the test almost immediately. My first successful recipe was a shredded salsa chicken that everyone in my family loved so much that I served it at least once a week for months.

We were all sick of it inside of 2 months. I really did just love the ease of making that chicken with some enchilada sauce and calling it dinner with a few corn tortillas. Sue me!

I moved on making grains like oatmeal and rice in the Instant Pot. That works just fine, but they’re not too much easier than just making it in a pot so it doesn’t happen too often.

As soon as I saw how incredibly easy it is to go from dried beans to creamy, homemade beans with no advanced planning at all, though, I was officially completely hooked. I cook a pound of dried beans every week.

Dried beans in the IP sidebar

If you’re interested, rinse and pick over the pound of beans, and add it to the Instant pot along with 5 cups of water, a few dried bay leaves and some other spices (I like to add dried cumin, smoked Spanish paprika and some chili powder—but no salt or the beans will be hard!).

Set it to cook for 40 minutes on high pressure and allow the steam to release naturally for about 20 minutes, and then manually release the rest. Remove the bay leaves, salt to taste and voila!

Once you learn to make these tender, flavorful gluten free meatballs and perfectly cooked gf spaghetti in the Instant Pot, you'll never want to make them any other way.

What if I don’t have an Instant Pot?

If you don’t have an Instant Pot, you can try making my slow cooker gluten free meatballs recipe, which is also great. If you’d like something grain-free and dairy-free, you can also try our Paleo meatballs recipe.

The meatball mixture in this recipe is made with all dried herbs because dried herbs and spices are the ones that retain the most flavor when cooking in an Instant Pot or slow cooker. But if you’d like to use this same meatball mixture to cook meatballs in the oven or on the stovetop, that would work great, too.

Try replacing some of the dried herbs with fresh ones, especially on the stovetop. Just use double the amount of fresh that you would use dried.

Once you learn to make these tender, flavorful gluten free meatballs and perfectly cooked gf spaghetti in the Instant Pot, you'll never want to make them any other way.

Ingredients and substitutions

Dairy-free: The shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese in this meatball mixture really makes the entire dish very creamy and flavorful. In fact, the spaghetti and meatballs actually taste like they were made with cream, even though there isn’t any cream in the recipe.

If you’d like to replace the cheese with a nondairy cheese, I’d try shaving any Violife brand block cheese. Daiya brand shredded cheese should also work relatively well. It won’t be the same, though.

Egg-free: Since there is only one egg in this recipe, you can try replacing it with a “chia egg” (1 tablespoon ground white chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel). You will need a binder, though, or you will end up with spaghetti and meat sauce as cooking under high pressure is no joke.

Dried pasta: If you’re looking for brands of gluten free pasta, we’ve covered that pretty extensively. Be sure you’re using spaghetti, nothing thinner like angel hair or flatter like fettuccini, which will stick together like crazy. I haven’t tried this recipe using a short dried pasta, but I’m anxious to give it a shot.

Gluten Free Lemon Bars

By Nicole Hunn | Published: January 16, 2019 | Posted In: Bars, Summer Favorites

A simple lemony shortbread crust with a tart, refreshing lemon custard, these gluten free lemon bars are so easy to make. Perfect for any occasion, from potlucks to bake sales.

Three lemon bars on a white platter

Smooth, creamy and tart classic gluten free lemon bars seem to be beloved by nearly everyone. If you don’t love them, or anything lemon flavored, then this recipe is not going to be for you.

But if you’re a lemon lover (and if you are, then you have to try our lemon pound cake and our lemon meltaway cookies), you are going to love these bars. The crust is the perfect blend of chewy and crunchy, and the custard is lemony cool and fresh.

Overhead image of a square baking pan with raw crust and a spatula

Promise you’ll use freshly squeezed lemon juice

Conventional lemons are available year-round, but we do tend to get the best ones in the dead of winter. A little sunshine for an overall dreary season, I guess! ?Meyer Lemons, which are thought to be a cross between oranges and lemons, aren’t available year-round. They seem to be most plentiful in the middle winter through the very early spring (why do I always want to capitalize ‘spring’ but leave winter as is?)

All this is to say … there is really just no excuse for using bottled lemon juice. I’ll never be able to grow my own lemons, but I’ll bake with them forever and ever because lemon-flavored things are almost as universally loved as chocolate-flavored things.

I vow never to use bottled lemon juice in baking (or otherwise for that matter). Baking and cooking mean applying heat, and heat intensifies flavors. If the flavor isn’t great at the start, just wait until you bake with it.

Overhead image of baked lemon crust in a square pan

Anyway, you’ll need at least one fresh lemon for the lemon zest so your crust, and not just your filling is pucker-worthy. These lemon bars are no joke. You’ll never confuse them with any other flavor. I believe the term is ROBUST. ?

If you’ve ever had lemon curd, which is similar to a lemon pudding or custard, this filling will taste similar. Unlike lemon curd, though, the filling in these bars is baked, not cooked. It will be firm enough to bite into once it’s set in the refrigerator.

Image of 8 squares of lemon bars

How to make these gluten free lemon bars

To make these bars, you will have to place the pan in the oven twice. I promise it’s not a big deal, though.

The crust is a relatively sticky dough that’s made with gluten free flour, confectioners’ sugar (to keep it light), lemon zest, salt, and melted butter. Just press it into the pan with an offset spatula (or even just a spoon) and bake it just until it’s set.

There’s no leavening in the crust, so it won’t rise very much at all. Baking it alone prevents it from getting soggy when you add the filling.

As the crust is cooling, make the filling by whisking eggs, granulated sugar, baking powder and lemon juice. Pour the filling right on top of the blind-baked crust and pop it back in the oven to bake until the filling barely jiggles when it’s shaken from side to side.

As the filling is baking, if you peek in the oven (not advisable, but if you can’t help it) before the last 7 or 8 minutes, you’ll think that the bars will never actually set. It will seem almost like a liquid for most of the baking time. As long as you haven’t changed the recipe and your oven is at the proper temperature, it will set.

A single lemon bar on a small square plate

Ingredients and substitutions

There are dairy, eggs, and two types of sugar in these decadent lemon bars. I don’t regret any one of those ingredients, but if you can’t have one of them, here’s what I’m thinking:

Dairy

The only source of dairy in these bars is the butter in the crust. That’s good news if you’re dairy-free. The crust should still turn out if you replace the butter with half Earth Balance buttery sticks and half Spectrum brand nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening.

You can also use Melt Vegan Butter or Miyoko’s Kitchen Vegan Butter in place of the butter entirely. Watch the salt, though, since butter replacements tend to be quite salty (unlike shortening, which contains no salt).

Eggs

There are 4 eggs in this recipe. I’m afraid I don’t believe that you can replace all 4 of them with an egg substitute and achieve anything like the texture of these smooth, creamy custardy bars. So sorry!

Sugar

The confectioners’ sugar should be able to be replaced with Swerve brand powdered sugar replacement. That tends to work quite well. You can try replacing the granulated sugar with Swerve brand granulated sugar substitute or Lankato monkfruit granulated sweetener.

Sugar replacements tend to be drying, though, so you may have to add some moisture to the filling. Try another tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Lemons

Since you’ve already promised to use freshly squeezed citrus in this recipe, we don’t have to revisit that point. If you’d prefer a lime-flavored bar, try my key lime pie bars. They’re similar in texture, and simply amazing.

Gluten free flour blends

I do specify my gum-free gluten free flour blend for this recipe, which is made with a mix of mostly superfine white rice flour, with potato starch and tapioca flour/starch. There is no xanthan gum in this recipe.

I’ve found that it makes for an almost chewy, gummy filling. It’s not nearly as important for the crust as it is for the filling.

You do need a scale to make the blend, but if you must purchase a blend to use, I’d try using Cup4Cup. It contains xanthan gum, but much less and is a very light, starchy blend.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies | Just Like GF Do-Si-Dos

By Nicole Hunn | Published: January 11, 2019 | Posted In: Cookies, Desserts

These crispy but tender peanut butter oatmeal cookies with a sweet, creamy peanut butter filling taste just like Do-Si-Dos Girl Scout Cookies—but they’re gluten free. Some matters you just have to take into your own hands!

Girl Scout Cookies Are Delicious

When I was in my 20s and working in an office, if I ever heard that someone had a little girl at home who was selling Girl Scout Cookies but I didn’t get a chance to place an order, I wasn’t just mad. I remember being devastated.

Given the chance, I’d buy at least 2 if not 3 or 4 boxes of Thin Mints and at least one box of Do-Si-Dos peanut butter sandwiches. The Thin Mints went directly into the freezer. And you could only have one if you asked. Nicely. Fast forward a bunch of years and a gluten free son. ?

If you’d like to support a sweet little Girl Scout in your neighborhood, of course, you should buy their original cookies. The “regular” non-gluten free Girl Scout cookies have truly superior taste and texture. (I remember trying Nabisco Grasshopper cookies hoping they’d be just like Thin Mints. No such luck.)

But if you’re gluten free and you want to support the Girl Scouts of America, I’d suggest buying their regular cookies and gifting them to someone who can eat them. Their gluten free varieties are fine—but they’re simply not anywhere near as good as the original.

Plus, they only make basic gluten free cookies like chocolate chippers. No GF Thin Mints or Do-Si-Dos.

How to make these peanut butter oatmeal cookies

Do-Si-Dos (also called Peanut Butter Sandwiches, depending upon your Girl Scout Cookie bakery) are crispy peanut butter oatmeal cookies with a peanut butter filling. They’re not really crunchy, just crispy.

Baking with peanut butter tends to make cookies very crunchy, like these classic peanut butter crosshatch cookies. But these peanut butter oatmeal cookies have oats and more butter than crunchy cookies (plus a bit more peanut butter), so they’re tender and crispy.

For the cookies, you’ll start by melting the peanut butter and butter in either a saucepan or the microwave. Then set it aside to cool briefly. Then just mix together the dry ingredients (gf flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugars, oats), with the wet ingredients (melted peanut butter and butter mixture, vanilla and egg).

When a recipe says to “mix,” you should mix by hand. If a handheld or stand mixer is appropriate, the recipe should state that clearly. Most baking recipes should not be overmixed, even in gluten free recipes.

I like these cookies to be crisp-tender, because it’s much more enjoyable to bite into a cookie with that texture when it has a creamy filling. For even crispier cookies that tend to break when you bite into them, more like our chocolate wafer cookies, press the raw disks flatter than shown in the photo.

When I make these cookies, which are like a cross between crosshatch peanut butter cookies and our thick and chewy gluten free oatmeal cookies, I generally like to fill about half of them with filling and keep the rest of the cookies separate and unfilled.

Do-Si-Dos are all filled with this simple peanut butter filling, made here with basically just butter, peanut butter, vanilla and some confectioners’ sugar. But you can make the cookies ahead of time and store them in the freezer and fill them soon before serving. You can also just serve them alone.

Ingredients and substitutions

Dairy-free: The cookies and the filling in this recipe have dairy in them in the form of butter. I recommend trying to replace the butter in the cookies with half (by weight) Earth Balance buttery sticks and half nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening (I like Spectrum brand best). That should provide the proper moisture balance and the proper taste.

For the butter in the filling, you can try replacing it with all Spectrum nonhydgrogenated vegetable shortening. The cream can easily be replaced with coconut cream or just a smaller volume of unsweetened almond milk (or your favorite nondairy milk).

Egg-free: The cookies in this recipe only call for one egg in the entire recipe. For that reason, I’m pretty confident that you can replace it with one “chia egg” (1 tablespoon ground white chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel).

Oats: If you can’t have oats for any reason, try replacing the oats in this recipe with beaten rice. There’s more information on the blog about the products that I recommend using to replace oats in baking.

Peanut-free: No-stir smooth almond butter is a perfect replacement for the peanut butter, in equal amounts, in this recipe. I recommend using Barney Butter brand, which doesn’t require stirring to integrate the oil into the peanut butter.

Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies

By Nicole Hunn | Published: January 9, 2019 | Posted In: Cookies, Desserts, Paleo

Perfect Paleo chocolate chip cookies made with almond flour and tapioca flour or coconut flour, are thick, soft and chewy, but not too sweet. Such a satisfying treat!

A platter with Paleo chocolate chip cookies on it

The case for Paleo baking flours

Since everything Paleo is gluten free, if you’re baking gluten free, you should try some Paleo recipes. It could open up a whole new world of baking for you. The most common Paleo baking flour is almond flour, which is what forms the base of these soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies.

Maybe you’re not convinced yet that it’s worth shelling out the money for more gluten free flours. More flours! Don’t we already have enough? Well, yes … and no.

Blanched almond flour and coconut flour are really healthy, don’t trigger carb cravings, and a little coconut flour goes a long, long way. Tapioca starch (also called tapioca flour) is a really great alternative, at times, to baking with coconut flour and can help achieve the right crisp in Paleo baking recipes like crunchy Paleo crackers.

Just so you know there’s no judgment here if you’d rather stick with an all purpose gluten free flour blend, I recommend trying my soft batch gluten free chocolate chip cookies. They taste like they just came out of the oven—even when they didn’t.

Baking with almond flour

You must use almond flour (or a very convincing substitute, which I discuss below in the “Ingredients and substitutions section”) to make these thick and chewy cookies.

You do have a choice, though, in whether you pair your finely ground blanched almond flour with a bit of coconut flour or a bit of tapioca starch. Coconut flour is a healthier alternative, but tapioca starch makes a cookie with the better crisp-outside, chewy-inside texture. The choice is yours.

The photo above is for cookies made with tapioca starch. Look carefully and you can see the crisp edges and chewy center. They’re perfect, truly.

If you’re new to baking with almond flour, there are few tips to success. Almond meal is not the same as almond flour as it’s much more coarsely ground, and the almonds still have their skins on (so you’ll see flecks of dark brown).

I never bake with almond meal. It not only has a different mouthfeel, but it doesn’t behave the same in baking as almond flour. I always use finely ground blanched almond flour when I bake with Paleo flours.

I recommend using Honeyville blanched almond flour and the blanched almond flour from nuts.com. They’re both very finely ground, and can be purchased for the best price online.

Almond flour has a tendency to burn during baking, so I usually bake it in a 325°F oven, no higher. If you bake these cookies at a higher temperature, the bottoms will likely turn a bit black but it shouldn’t affect the taste too much.

Paleo chocolate chip cookies baked on a tray

Adding coconut flour to almond flour

The photos just above and below this section are made using almond flour and coconut flour. The other ingredients in these cookies remain the same for both varieties. When using coconut flour, though, you’ll see that the recipe calls for a bit more almond flour.

When you add even a small amount of coconut flour to these cookies, it creates quite a lot of structure and helps to give them that familiar “chew.” Coconut flour is commonly used in Paleo baking as it’s packed with fiber, low in calorie and creates structure very well.

Raw disks of Paleo chocolate chip cookies

Coconut flour tends to behave in a very strange, unique way in baking. It absorbs a significant amount of moisture, so it will make crumbly baked goods if its moisture needs aren’t satisfied by the other ingredients in the recipe.

The most common moisture source in most coconut flour recipes is eggs—often by the half dozen. Although the addition of so many eggs does prevent baked goods from being crumbly, it also tends to make them taste, well, like an omelet.

When making these cookies with coconut flour, you’ll also find that they don’t spread as much as the tapioca flour variety. It helps to press the balls of dough into flat disks before baking, so the cookies don’t end up too thick.

A stack of Paleo chocolate chip cookies with one broken on top

Adding tapioca starch to almond flour

Tapioca starch is “Paleo-legal,” but it’s still a starch. It can’t compare to the nutritional value of coconut flour, but it is significantly easier to bake with than coconut flour.

In fact, it’s so easy to bake with that I’ve used it as the only flour in certain recipes like our soft tapioca flour wraps. Like coconut flour, it rarely has a one for one substitute in baking, as it’s unique in its power to provide stretch and crispness to baked goods.

A tray with raw balls of Paleo chocolate chip cookies

Other than its unique stretching capabilities, tapioca flour (also interchangeably called tapioca starch) can help provide crispness to baked goods. This recipe only calls for one-half cup (60 grams) of tapioca starch, but if you were to use a greater amount of tapioca starch you could even make truly crispy and crunchy Paleo chocolate chip cookies.

More and more, I have been hearing from readers who either need to replace tapioca starch in their diets, or are allergic to coconut in all its forms. As long as you’re not unable to have both tapioca starch and coconut flour, you can make one variety or another of these favorite chocolate chip cookies.

Paleo chocolate chip cookies baked on tray

Ingredients and substitutions

Making this recipe is as easy as combining the dry ingredients in a bowl, whisking them, then adding the wet ingredients and mixing. If you have other food intolerances and allergies or are just hungry for more information about the ingredients in this recipe, here is everything I can tell you about the recipe components:

Almond flour: Almond flour can often usually be replaced successfully with raw cashew flour. If you need to make these almond flour chocolate chip cookies nut-free, you can try replacing the almond flour with sunflower seed flour. They may take on a greenish tint, though, as the baking soda will activate the chlorophyll in the sunflower seeds, but it’s harmless.

Egg-free: You can try using a “chia egg” (1 tablespoon ground chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel) for each of the eggs you’re replacing, but I’m honestly not sure how that would work in this recipe!

Coconut flour: See the discussion above about baking with coconut flour, and how you can avoid it in this recipe by using the almond flour/tapioca starch variety.

Coconut oil: In place of coconut oil, you can try using Spectrum nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening, or Melt brand VeganButter. Both should work great.

Sugar-free: You may be able to replace the coconut palm sugar in this recipe with Swerve brand granulated sugar replacement, but pay careful attention to the texture of the dough as Swerve tends to be drying. You cannot replace the granulated sugar with a liquid one, like maple syrup or honey. Instead, try this recipe for almond flour cookies.

Chocolate chips: Feel free to use whatever chips you like, or whatever other mix-ins in their place, like chopped nuts. Don’t eliminate the mix-in entirely, though, as it helps provide the cookies with some structure during baking.

Low Carb Keto Pizza Recipe

By Nicole Hunn | Published: January 4, 2019 | Posted In: Breads, Pizza

This keto pizza recipe is the perfect easy way to add some low carb eating to your life. It even has that perfect thin crust pizza “chew.”

This keto pizza recipe is the perfect easy way to add some low carb eating to your life. It even has that perfect thin crust pizza "chew."

Diets scare me

I had a pretty complicated relationship with food for a good part of my life. Nothing too concerning, but it wasn’t exactly ideal. I have two girls and I’ve worked hard to raise them to eat when they’re hungry, stop when they’re full. Sometimes, we eat our feelings. Most of the time, we do not.

I like the concept of Weight Watchers since nothing is totally off-limits. I think it’s wise to try to avoid dogmatic restrictions. So I’m not about to start a keto diet anytime soon (or ever). Or a strict Paleo diet for that matter.

This keto pizza recipe is the perfect easy way to add some low carb eating to your life. It even has that perfect thin crust pizza "chew."

The value of keto recipes

The keto diet is based upon being in ketosis, where the body feeds off of fat rather than glucose. I don’t know much of the details, and I’m mostly just looking to dabble and learn.

I really think there’s a lot to be learned from the inventive recipes that tend to come out of each new diet craze. I certainly have learned a ton from the Paleo diet. And I love being able to send you in that direction when you email me to say you have to be gluten free but can’t eat rice! ?

This keto pizza recipe is the perfect easy way to add some low carb eating to your life. It even has that perfect thin crust pizza "chew."

Okay, so how many carbs in this keto pizza?

I calculated the approximate nutritional information for this recipe using Cronometer (you can find the information at the end of the recipe), and the “net carb” count appears to be just under 3 grams per slice of pizza (without any toppings, since that will vary).

I’m not exactly sure how many carbs are in a typical slice of pizza or even a slice of my beloved Paleo pizza, but I’m sure it’s a whole lot more than that. That recipe has almond flour, but also plenty of higher carbohydrate tapioca flour.

This keto pizza recipe is the perfect easy way to add some low carb eating to your life. It even has that perfect thin crust pizza "chew."

Tips for making this keto pizza recipe a success

There are a lot of recipes floating around the Internet for “Fathead pizza,” which is basically a combination of shredded and melted cheese, cream cheese, almond flour, and egg. I based this keto pizza recipe off of what I believe is the original, from Cooky’s Creations.

I did first make the recipe as written, and it worked quite well as it’s a tried and true recipe, and seemingly led to something of a revolution. Recipes like this one from Cooky prove that there is still room for true innovation in recipe creation.

This keto pizza recipe is the perfect easy way to add some low carb eating to your life. It even has that perfect thin crust pizza "chew."

But I did ultimately make some changes that didn’t add any carbs but did make the recipe taste more like, well, the pizza I know and love. As originally written, the recipe tasted a bit oily to me (and to my family).

I resisted the strong urge to add tapioca starch, which is a staple of all gluten free baking (and even Paleo baking) since it provides so much structure and chew. Instead, I added some coconut flour, which really helped to absorb some of the oil from the cheese and almond flour.

I’ve tried melting the cream cheese and shredded cheese in this recipe in the microwave, but I find that it’s much harder to combine all of the ingredients that way. Be sure to use very low heat on the stovetop, and turn off the heat the moment you see the ingredients begin to brown.

The more you knead the dough, the easier it will be to handle. Don’t be afraid to roll it out and gather it back together multiple times before you’re satisfied with its texture.

You can’t store the raw dough for later use since the melted cheese will solidify in the refrigerator, and the eggs in the raw dough will prevent you from warming it in the microwave to roll it out. But you can roll it out, parbake it and let it cool completely then wrap it tightly and freeze it for later use.

This keto pizza recipe is the perfect easy way to add some low carb eating to your life. It even has that perfect thin crust pizza "chew."

Ingredients and substitutions

If you’re looking to make substitutions in this super simple recipe, it’s going to be a heartbreaker. I wish I had better news, but this low-carb pizza recipe is made with little more than cheese, almond flour, and eggs. Replacing them is kind of like replacing the gluten in wheat flour. But I’ll give it a shot, because I love you:

Dairy-free: My oldest child ate dairy-free for over a year, and I tried making cheese-heavy recipes like zucchini pizza with dairy-free cheese and it was really rough. Even when I settled on a favorite brand of dairy-free cheese (Violife brand is the best, but it can be hard to find; Daiya brand has come a long way and is a close second), the results were very disappointing.

Dairy-free cheese simply doesn’t melt the same way as conventional cheese. And when you use this much of it, it doesn’t have the same “chew.” I also have never been able to find a dairy-free cream cheese that is a proper substitute for conventional cream cheese, I’m afraid.

But good news! I do have a different sort of dairy-free low carb pizza recipe that I love and I think you will, too. If you’re not hooked on low-carb, there’s always my yeast-free gluten free pizza recipe, which is a perennial favorite on the blog. And there’s always our basic gluten free pizza dough, which never disappoints.

Nut-free: The almond flour in this recipe can probably be replaced with finely ground sunflower seed flour, but the recipe may turn green as the chlorophyll in the sunflower seeds reacts with the baking powder.

When it comes to baking with almond flour, remember that not all almond flours are created equal. You must use finely ground, blanched almond flour in this recipe.Blanched almond flour is simply almond flour made from almonds that have had their skins removed. I only recommend using Honeyville brand or superfine almond flour from Nuts.com.

Almond flour is not a cheap ingredient, so store it in the freezer for longer shelf life. Be sure to allow it to come to room temperature before using it in baking, as it will clump when it’s cold. Almond meal is a much coarser ground and will not work.

Egg-free: Since there is only one egg per pizza crust in this recipe, you can try replacing each egg with a “chia egg” (1 tablespoon ground white chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel). But keep in mind that if you are also making other substitutions, you’re getting further and further away from the original recipe. Experiment at your own risk!

The Perfect Paleo Donuts

By Nicole Hunn | Published: January 2, 2019 | Posted In: Breakfast & Brunch, Donuts, Paleo

Super satisfying Paleo donuts are the right way to start your day eating grain-free. The perfect breakfast or after school snack!

Glazed Paleo donuts sitting on top of a metal rack

I really like the low-carb, high-energy-ness of Paleo baked goods for early morning school breakfasts. And my kids love this stuff.

These plain Paleo donuts and moist and tender, and just sweet enough. They’re packed with all the good fat you need to keep you going all morning long.

I have a tendency to step up the Paleo baking in January, and most of it is for make-ahead breakfasts like these donuts and my Paleo breakfast cookies. Almond flour baking leads to really filling treats like these bakery style almond flour muffins, and that’s what makes it perfect for school breakfasts.

Raw Paleo donut batter in a muffin tin

How to make a Paleo donut glaze

I originally posted this recipe in 2013, and I had made a perfectly simple honey glaze that looked and tasted great. I have been unable to recreate the exact same glaze ever since.

I believe heating some honey with a bit of water mixed with arrowroot powder would make a great glaze, but I haven’t gotten the proportions quite right just yet. In most of the photos here, the glaze you see is a really simple one.

To make the lighter-colored glaze, simply grind coconut palm sugar in a blender or food processor with about 1 tablespoon arrowroot per cup of sugar until it has nearly the consistency of confectioners’ sugar.

Place the ground sugar in a small bowl and add water by the half-teaspoonful, stirring until you have a very thickly pourable glaze. Dip the tops of the cooled donuts in the glaze and allow them to sit until the glaze is set.

The coconut sugar glaze has a strong flavor, as the sugar itself is quite flavorful. If you don’t like the taste of coconut sugar, you won’t like the glaze!

The donuts really don’t need the glaze though. They’re perfect without it. For nine other gluten free donuts recipes, come on over!

Paleo donuts on a wire rack, some with glaze

What are the best donut pans?

I feel like I’ve bought every sort of donut pan there is, and most have been awful. The biggest problem I’ve had is that the center of each well has a very short raised center.

When the raised center is too short, the only way to make a donut with an actual hole that goes all the way through the donut is to fill the well no more than halfway through. And then it looks more like a ring than a donut.

The only donut pans that I like are the nonstick ones made by Wilton, like this 6-cavity nonstick donut pan(affiliate link—feel free to shop around). They also make mini pans with 12 wells.

I’ve actually rid my kitchen of any and all other donut pans since they seem to bake only heartache. For even more discussion about donut pans, see my recipe for gluten free apple cider donuts.

A Paleo donut on a plate with a bite taken

What about the electric donut maker?

I love my electric donut maker. I have the Babycakes donut maker, and I got mine at Kohl’s year ago (with a coupon! on sale!). But I seem to have misplaced it.

And it’s not like I live in a huge house where that makes any sense. I’m beginning to suspect that I gave it away. I have a tendency to do that since I love “tidying up.”

If I were to buy it again, I would buy this Babycakes multi-treat baker (affiliate link, but shop around for sure) since it’s oddly less expensive than the just-donut-maker. Plus, you can use it to make miniature cupcakes, donuts or cake pops.

Although I haven’t made cake pops since my blog posts looked like this. But now, of course, I feel that I must make cake pops. I’ll edit this if (okay, when) I buy that little machine.

Miniature Paleo donut with glaze on a wire rack

Ingredients and substitutions

Since these donuts are Paleo, they’re already grain-free and dairy-free. They do contain some additional allergens, so here is all the ingredient information I can provide:

Almond flour: As in any Paleo recipe I write, the only almond flour that will work as described in the recipe is a finely ground, blanched almond flour. Blanched almonds are simply almonds that have had their skins removed.

I have had great success with both Honeyville brand and Nuts.com finely ground blanched almond flour. Almond meal is a much coarser ground, and will not yield good results. I’m afraid I can’t recommend any of the Bob’s Red Mill brand almond flour or almond meal products.

If you need to be nut-free, you can try replacing the almond flour with finely ground sunflower seed flour, but the donuts will likely turn green due to the reaction between the sunflower seeds and the baking soda in the recipe. It won’t affect the flavor, though.

Eggs: Since there are two eggs in this recipe, you can replacing each of them with a “chia egg” (one tablespoon finely ground white chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel). It’s not a perfect substitute, but it’s the one I like best.

Coconut flour: The two tablespoons of coconut flour in this donut recipe really help give the baked donuts structure. I have made these donuts with a full cup of almond flour (120 g) and no coconut flour. The recipe works but the donuts are considerably more fragile once baked.

Maple syrup: Be sure you’re using real maple syrup in this recipe, not imitation syrup, which is really just high fructose corn syrup. The 1/4 cup maple syrup can be replaced with 3 tablespoons (63 g) additional honey.

Archives for January 2019

What is a white cake & how do you make it?

A note about the egg whites

The crumb coat

How about that frosting?

Ingredients and substitutions

A quick note about sifting flours

What makes these almost flourless cookies so special

How to make these simple peanut butter oatmeal cookies

The “original recipe” for these cookies

Ingredients and substitutions

Simplicity is the name of this dinnertime ? game

Instant Pot cooking 101/troubleshooting

What else do you make in the Instant Pot?

Dried beans in the IP sidebar

What if I don’t have an Instant Pot?

Ingredients and substitutions

Promise you’ll use freshly squeezed lemon juice

How to make these gluten free lemon bars

Ingredients and substitutions

Dairy

Eggs

Sugar

Lemons

Gluten free flour blends

Girl Scout Cookies Are Delicious

How to make these peanut butter oatmeal cookies

Ingredients and substitutions

The case for Paleo baking flours

Baking with almond flour

Adding coconut flour to almond flour

Adding tapioca starch to almond flour

Ingredients and substitutions

Diets scare me

The value of keto recipes

Okay, so how many carbs in this keto pizza?

Tips for making this keto pizza recipe a success

Ingredients and substitutions

How to make a Paleo donut glaze

What are the best donut pans?

What about the electric donut maker?

Ingredients and substitutions

Never Miss a Recipe

Popular Posts