Homemade Yogurt

My new toy is a yogurt maker. I asked for this as a Christmas gift after deciding that I want to make my own yogurt. I consume yogurt daily in my morning smoothies. Since I like to use Greek yogurt in my smoothies, it is much cheaper to make my own yogurt.

About a mouth ago while researching how to make yogurt, I came across the SCD website and information on Elaine Gottschall. In reading her book, Breaking the Vicious Cycle, I discovered the benefits of incubating the milk for 24 hours to produce a yogurt free of lactose. All of the medical information on benefits to eating lactose free yogurt can be read on the SCD site or in her book.

One can make yogurt within 4-6 hours, but I figure if I'm going to make my own yogurt then I would go the extra hours to produce a yogurt that is lactose free and healthier to the gut.

This yogurt is so yummy! It hasn't gone through the process of straining the whey, and the yogurt already tastes much better than the Greek yogurts found at the grocery stores. The taste is still sour, but has a sweeter flavor than found in the commercial yogurts.

Well, all of the yogurt research also lead me to new information and sites on how to make mascarpone, http://realfoodrealdeals.com/2013/04/17/homemade-mascarpone; and at the same website, how to make ricotta cheese and ghee. I was curious on how to make mozzarella. Mozzarella is also a very easy process. But for now, my next project will be making homemade frozen yogurt.
 

The Yule Mouse

My Yule Log or Buche de Noel cake had a mouse popping its head out of the log this year all thanks to the creativity of my daughter. I used my favorite gluten-free chocolate sponge cake recipe, http://glutenfreecooking.about.com/od/seasonalandholiday/r/gfbuchedenoel.htm, for the cake. The icing was mascarpone, some powdered sugar, and chocolate.

One trick that I do to prevent cracking in the cake when rolling the cake into the log shape is to roll up the cake while warm in a cloth towel that is covered with a coating of powdered sugar. Let the cake cool before filling, then unroll cooled cake, fill with soften ice cream or favorite filling, and roll up cake. If any cracks do form, they can easily be covered with icing.

Betty Crocker to the Rescue

The Betty Crocker's gluten free cake mixes are so tasty!

This marble cake was made with Betty Crocker's gluten free yellow cake and gluten free chocolate cake mixes. The cake was decorated with chocolate mascarpone icing, English toffee bits, and white truffles.

One would never know that the cake is gluten free.

Apple Pies

...are so yummy!  I have always enjoyed working with a flour dough to make pies crusts for scrumptious pies.  In late summer, my one and only apple tree produces apples that only taste good after the apples have been cooked. Every summer, I use the best of the apples that drop to the ground to make apple pies.

This summer I tried a couple of gluten free dough recipes. This one was my favorite since it was the easiest to work with in forming a pie shell. It's the gluten free Land O'Lakes pie shell recipe. I just double the recipe.

This pie was given the thumbs up by husband and son.

Nectarine Tart

I found this recipe in a non gluten-free cookbook. I just substituted the 1/4 cup flour with my rice flour blend to make it gluten free. I substituted peaches for nectarines in my last cake -still very yummy!

Tart
90 grams butter (3/4 of a stick of butter)
1/2  superfine sugar (or regular sugar)
2 eggs
1 cup almond meal
1/4 flour or gluten free flour blend
1/2 tsp baking powder, but I used 1 tsp with the GF blend.

2-3 nectarines (or peaches or apricots) slice.

Oven 320 degree Fahrenheit 

Mix butter and sugar.
Add eggs and blend well.
Add almond meal, GF flour, and baking powder, and mix well.
Spread into 9x9 pan. Top with fruit slices.

Bake 40 mins. to 1 hour or until tester comes out clean.
Cool in refrigerator for a couple of hours.
Serve with cooled orange syrup.


Orange syrup
1/2 cup orange juice
1/8 cup orange liqueur
1/4 cup superfine sugar

Boil for 15-25 minutes then cool.
Pour just a little bit of the cold syrup over slice of cake.

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!
 

Gluten Free Apple Cake

This cake is yummy and pretty!

I have lots of apples from my apple tree this year. I made two apple pies with some of the apples, and I gave away a couple of bags full of apples. Well, I wanted to make an apple cake this weekend, but I had a difficult time finding a gluten free apple cake recipe from other folks' blogs that looked good enough to try. I tried one cake that had buckwheat and brown rice, but that wasn't very good-nor did it look anything like the posted picture. I then saw this gal's post: http://coryographies.blogspot.com/2012/12/recipe-gluten-free-apple-almond-cake.html. I thought could this be true; it looks too prefect. So, I tried her recipe.

Ingredients:
3 chopped apples (I used 4 apples since my apples were small-medium)
Juice of 1 lemon
300g golden caster sugar
8 eggs
325g ground almonds
sliced almonds for top

Directions:
In a pan, cook apples with lemon juice and a bit of the sugar.  Mash them when they are soft enough, but leave them a bit lumpy for texture.

In another bowl mix the eggs, and then add the ground almonds, rest of the sugar and lemon juice, and the apple mash.

Grease a spring form pan and pour in the mixture, sprinkling the sliced almonds on top.

Bake 350 degree oven for 40-60 minutes or until done. At 30 minutes cover top of cake with foil.

Yes, it looks just like the gal's cake. Yes, the cake is easy to make and delicious!