Kinako Ice Cream and Macarons

I made kinako ice cream and then had to make kinako macarons to accompany the ice cream. Kinako is roasted soy bean flour that is used in Japanese desserts as well as some Korean desserts. I found the recipe from this blog, http://icecreamdaily.blogspot.com/2013/05/day-9-black-sesame-kinako.html. I just substituted the black sesame to kinako.

The macarons were made by following this recipe http://www.chow.com/recipes/28339-french-chocolate-macarons-with-chocolate-ganache. I just substituted the cocoa powder for the kinako. As an ice cream sandwich, this combination is so much better than a ganache for the filling of a macaron- totally delicious!

Yummy Brownies

These are easy to make gluten-free brownies.

Ingredients
 6 tbps. butter
 8 oz. semisweet chocolate
 3/4 cup sugar
 2 large eggs at room temperature
 1 tbps. cocoa powder
 3 tbps. corn starch
 1 cup chopped nuts


Preheat oven 350, grease 8" square pan, bake for ~ 30 minutes.

1. Melt butter and chocolate in microwave.
2. Put chocolate mixture into mixer and add sugar, mix well.
    Add eggs one at a time.
3. Sift together cocoa powder and corn starch, then add to mixture.
    Beat well so that batter is smooth, about 2 minutes.
4. Mix in nuts and then pour into greased pan.

Enjoy!
 

Macarons and the Learning Curve

Yes, as in French Macarons. I made a batch of chocolate and a batch of vanilla, two different recipes. The chocolate recipe turned out to be the best recipe to follow since no liquid food color or liquid vanilla was added.

There is a fine line in folding the meringue into the dry ingredients. If macaronage isn't done correctly the macarons don't have the right consistency. Not enough mixing results in the outer surface not having that smooth even look, which is the result above with my chocolate batch. Over mixing makes the meringue mixture too wet with a baked result of hollowness and cracking. Under baking will cause hollowness too since the inside doesn't get a chance to fully cook. Even though the outside of my vanilla batch is brown, the inside was under cooked and hallow. I macaronage the vanilla batch to what looked like the right texture, but with the liquid vanilla added that made for more moisture in the batter. Lowering the oven temperature and longer baking time most likely was what I should have done with the vanilla batch.

Rapping of the tray on the counter before cooking is a must to dislodge any air bubbles that could rise up to cause cracking of the shell.

I made one more batch of the chocolate since I felt that I had the hang of the macaronage technique. The top has that smoothness and the bottom has the classic feet. Looks good!

Since I'm not a fan of the buttercream bases, I filled all batches with mascarpone that had been mixed with 1/4 cup of powdered sugar and 2 tbls of Hershey's 100% cacao since.

Maraschino-Marzipan Kisses

These elegant cookies are so easy to make. The recipe is from Blackbird Bakery Gluten-Free cookbook. I was so surprised as to how easily it is to make marzipan from just almond flour, sugar, almond extract, and egg whites.

The centers of these delicious cookies are maraschino cherries.

The Chocolate Chip Challenge

Making a tasty gluten-free chocolate chip was one of my first goals when I found the time to bake for myself after the Christmas Holidays this past year. When I googled recipes, the first recipe that came up was the one from Land O'Lakes. Back in January, I made that recipe, and I posted the results on my quilting blog since I hadn't started this blog. Those cookies were yummy and had the texture that I liked in a chocolate chip cookie. Here is a photo of that first batch.

A month later, I was craving chocolate chip cookies again. So, I made another batch using the same recipe which baked into a flat mess with chips as the peaks. I was so disappointed since they were not the same consistency. Plus, they had turned into a crumbly mess the next day.

A month later, I decided to borrow numerous gluten-free cookbooks from the library. While reading, I bookmarked the chocolate chip cookie recipes that I would try. Well, I made a batch of Hasselbeck's recipe (left cookie), and I made Karen Morgan's recipe (right cookie).

Both of the cookies tasted good, but the texture and consistency that I liked was Karen Morgan's recipe from her Blackbird Bakery Gluten-Free cookbook, a soft cakey cookie loaded with chocolate chips.

Two nights ago while skimming through Shauna James Ahern & Daniel Ahern's cookbook Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, I came across baking tips on page 201. The one tip that interested me the most was the information about not to over cream the butter and sugars for gluten-free cookies . I read that paragraph again to reflect on what they were informing the reader. Ahern states to just mix until combined to prevent spreading. Wow, that was the cause of my flat cookies! Now I knew what I had done wrong. That was what I had done with the Land O'Lakes recipe on the second baking and same with the Hasselbeck's recipe, I had over creamed the butter and sugars.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

That's right, no flour in this recipe. I found numerous recipes like this on the internet. This recipe is so simple to make and tastes so peanut buttery...yummy!

1 cup of creamy peanut butter
1 cup of sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder

Mix all ingredients.
Spoon 1 teaspoon of mixture onto un-greased baking sheet, flatten mounds with the tines of fork coated in sugar to make cross-hatch pattern.
Bake 350 degree F  for 10 minutes. Cool before transferring to cooling racks.
Makes around 24 large cookies or 36 small cookies.

Simply Perfect!