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gluten free brownies with nutella

Ratio Rally : Hazelnut Brownies

The Gluten-Free Ratio Rally is a gluten-free blog event started by Shauna of Gluten-Free Girl. Each month a group of food bloggers gets together and bakes a gluten-free treat by starting with a basic ratio (that stands in traditional baking) and using that ratio as a starting point to create their own baked masterpieces. All of my contributions to the rally can be found here. You can follow the rally on twitter with the hashtag #gfreerally.

Welcome to The Gluten Free Ratio Rally, Brownie Edition.  Read more

gluten free birthday cake batter cookies

Gluten-free cake batter cookies and a blogaversary!

Ok, fine, yesterday was my blogaversary, but I forgot. I was so busy making an crepe cake (which is totally awesome and part of this month’s Gluten-Free Ratio Rally, so stay tuned).

I can’t believe that I have been writing a gluten-free baking blog for a year. It surprises me when I think about it. When I started, I really thought my only reader was going to be my mom, because mammacakes thinks I am awesome at everything. The fact that this blog has led to a TV appearance, an expo talk and a conference speaking gig, I’ll say it is a little bit bigger than I expected it to get.

Today, I also have a giveaway from Rudi’s and Frannycakes to celebrate!

Frannycakes & Rudi's Blogaversary giveaway

So, by commenting below or tweeting this post to @frannycakesblog and marking it with the #giveaway hashtag.

***GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED. THE WINNERS WILL BE NOTIFIED BY EMAIL. Comments are now closed on this post.***

Prizes from frannycakes are: a frannycakes t-shirt and a keep calm and bake on t-shirt are up for grabs and Rudi’s has a swag bag with coupons for 2 loaves of bread and some other goodies for you!

Disclaimer: I am providing the shirts, and Rudi’s is graciously providing the bread and Rudi’s swag. There will be 3 winners. I can only ship to the US (sorry!). You get one entry for commenting below and another if you tweet this post and mention @frannycakesblog and use the #giveaway hashtag.

gluten free birthday cake batter cookies

And now for the cookies. (FYI, it always makes me happy when chef friends ask me how you do things and these cookies got that question). Birthday cake in cookie form. It doesn’t get any better than this. These are inspired by several different recipes that I saw on interest (do you follow me there? I share gluten-free recipes from around the internet as well as inspiration from the regular gluten-filled blogs to help spark your creativity).

Gluten-free cake batter cookies
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Recipe Type: Dessert
Author: Mary Fran Wiley
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 15 mins
Total time: 25 mins
Serves: 48
These cookies will not work with a Betty Crocker Gluten-free cake mix unless you reduce all the other ingredients by 1/3. If you want chocolate cake cookies, you could use a King Arthur Flour Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake Mix. I used an entire jar of sprinkles, and would have used more if I had them. Sprinkles are love.
Ingredients
  • 1 recipe (or standard sized) [url href=”http://frannycakes.com/recipes/gluten-free-yellow-cake-mix/”]gluten-free yellow cake mix[/url]
  • 1/2 tsp xantham gum (see note)
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 cup Earth Balance Buttery Sticks or butter softened
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 3/4 cup large sprinkles
  • 1/2 cup allergen friendly mini-chocolate chips
Instructions
  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine cake mix, xantham gum (if using) and baking powder. Once evenly mixed, add the eggs, buttery stick or butter and vanilla. Beat on medium til smooth like cookie dough, stopping a couple times to scrape down the sides.
  2. Stir in the sprinkles and chocolate chips. Chill for 20 minutes.
  3. About 5 minutes before you remove the dough from the fridge, pre-heat your oven to 375.
  4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and arrange tablespoon-sized balls of dough about 2 inches apart. (these do spread!)
  5. Bake for 11-15 minutes. The edges should be starting to turn golden and the interiors should have puffed up nicely. Let cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Repeat with additional dough, making sure to pop it in the fridge while you are waiting for the previous tray to bake.
Notes

If the flour blend you used to make your cake mix has xantham gum, expandex or guar gum in it, you might be able to skip it here. I just like the added insurance it gives me.

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Gluten-free espresso brownies with mocha frosting

Espresso Brownies

I had an out-of-office project meeting with a client for my new job, and on the way my boss asked me if I had ever considered opening a bakery. (I use my co-workers as taste-testers for the blog, maybe this is an abuse of people I know, but to date no one has complained about the continual stream of baked goodies in the office).  It’s not my fault that I have an hour and a half commute each way to work during which I read food magazines and think about flavor combinations that I want to try. Or that I read cookbooks cover to cover the way some people read novels.

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gluten free iced double chocolate chunk ginger chip cookies

Chocolate & spice cookies

gluten free iced double chocolate chunk ginger chip cookies

I have been having an incredibly busy couple of weeks. Have you missed me? Life has been topsy turvy, I launched 2 website redesigns at my day job, have a third one launching this week. I am probably going to be having surgery on Thursday (if everything goes according to plan). Needless to say, October has been one heck of a crazy month.

I also realized that the month is mostly over, and I haven’t baked much at all this month. There has been so much going on that I hadn’t been able to just stop and take a few hours to create a recipe and bake something. And I really needed to bake something. And I had no idea what to bake. So I did what any baking-obsessed girl would do. I pulled out 2 things from my cabinet and hoped that I could make a dessert that would be delicious. Thank goodness it worked.

Lately, I have been obsessed with ginger. There were brown butter ginger doughnuts, bourbon ginger peach pie, ginger pumpkin doughnuts. I had been buying these awesome ginger chips (chocolate chip sized bits of candied ginger) until they stopped carrying them at Williams-Sonoma. I had to settle for regular crystallized ginger & chopped it myself. and I finally got my hands on some of those new Enjoy Life Mega Chocolate Chunks. So clearly I had to make ginger & chocolate cookies. I am in love with the texture of these. They are soft but not crumbly. They are wonderfully delicate with just a touch of chew.  I want to start a campaign to get Enjoy Life to add these cookies to the package. They are that good.

Iced Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Ginger Chips
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Recipe Type: Dessert
Author: Mary Fran Wiley
Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 7 mins
Total time: 27 mins
Serves: 60
Chocolate & ginger make a delightful pair and in these cookies, they dissolve in your mouth.
Ingredients
  • 385 grams (3¼ cups) gluten free all purpose flour*
  • 1½ teaspoons xantham gum**
  • 55 grams (6 tablespoons) cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 tablespoon baking soda
  • 170 grams (1½ sticks) butter or Earth Balance Buttery Sticks, softened
  • 215 grams (1 cup firmly packed) dark brown sugar
  • 1 large egg***
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 100 grams crystallized ginger, chopped
  • 100 grams (1/3 package) Enjoy Life Mega Chocolate Chunks
  • 170 grams (1½ cups) confectioners sugar, sifted
  • 1 tablespoon milk****
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Instructions
  1. Sift together flour, xantham gum (if using), cocoa, cloves, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
  2. In the bowl of a stand mixer (this recipe won’t work with a hand mixer – the dough is too stiff) cream together brown sugar and butter.
  3. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the egg. Beat to combine.
  4. Pour in the vanilla, scrape down the sides and beat again.
  5. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in 3 even groups, scraping down the sides between additions.
  6. Mix in the ginger & chocolate chunks and stir until they are evenly distributed.
  7. Separate the dough into thirds, put them into seperate ziploc baggies and chill the dough for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 days.
  8. When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  9. Grease or line your cookie sheets with parchment paper.
  10. Divide the dough (it will be pretty stiff) into balls the size of ping-pong balls (about 2 tablespoons of dough) and as you put them on the cookie sheet, smoosh them so they are about 3/8 of an inch thick. Leave about an inch of space between the smooshed dough.
  11. Bake for 6-8 minutes.
  12. Once your cookies are baked, combine the sifted powdered sugar, milk and lemon juice together. Dip the still warm cookies into the glaze and set on a cooling rack (put news paper or a cookie sheet under the rack to collect drips). If the icing is too thick, add more lemon juice or milk ½ teaspoon at a time to achieve your desired consistencey.
Notes

*I used Williams-Sonoma Cup for Cup flour blend, but I also highly recommend the Jules Nearly Normal flour for people who can’t have dairy (I also use this blend fairly regularly). You can also use this all-purpose blend from No Gluten, No Problem.

**If your blend already has xantham gum (or Expandex, guar gum, etc,) you can omit this.
*** If you can’t have eggs, dissolve 1 tablespoon ground flax with 3 tablespoons warm water.
****Feel free to use any kind of “milk”. I use the So Delicious unsweetened coconut milk, but you can substitute with what you prefer (Soy, almond, hemp, dairy, etc.)

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gluten free toffee chocolate chip cookies

Cookies!

gluten free toffee chocolate chip cookies

I am sitting in the Westin where the Gluten & Allergen Free Expo  is in Dallas and all I can think about is the bag of these cookies that I left on my kitchen table when I left.  (I know, cookie abuse).

I would love to paint you a picture of the comedy of errors that was our 8 hour adventure to Dallas. There were cancelled flights, gate changes and airline rebookings galore. There was one little box of dried fruit and gluten-free airline snacks were few and far between.  I am about to melt into bed from exauhstion.

But, I digress, this isn’t a post about air travel woes.

I love chocolate chip cookies. In college, I had the recipe for toll house cookies memorized. I could whip up a batch half asleep when I wanted to do something nice for my roommates before I left for the day or at 3 in the morning as sustenance to get a study group through a marathon final exam study session. I am not even sure if I measured most of the time because I knew the recipe so well.

I have made so many failed batches of gluten free chocolate chip cookies that I was certain that I was never going to eat a good one again.

But man, I had a craving for some cookies. As much as I love pumpkin, I needed a break from pumpkin-themed baked goods. I wanted a good, old-fashioned chocolate chip cookie. And, since I know a thing or two about chocolate chip cookies, I wanted to elevate these beyond the ones that you learned to make in junior high. They have a soft, chewy center with crispy golden edges where the sugars caramelized. The secret to the dynamite flavor? Semi-sweet chocolate chips (I beg you not to use milk chocolate! They will be too sweet) and toffee bits. The toffee bits melt slightly into the cookies and add a surprise layer of caramel goodness.

Oh, and there is no creaming til light and fluffy, no letting your butter soften and no pre-heating the oven. Just go with me here. And don’t deviate from the recipe. At least the first time. You will be happy you listened to me.

Cookies!
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Recipe Type: Cookie
Author: Mary Fran Wiley
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 15 mins
Total time: 25 mins
Serves: 36
Cookies are something that I don’t make very often. They aren’t the prettiest of baked goods, but there is something magical about the chocolate chip variety. And these are just a step above your run of the mill chocolate chip cookies.
Ingredients
  • 250g (2 cups) gluten free all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons xantham gum (if your blend doesn’t have it)
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • teaspoon salt
  • 170g (1½ sticks)unsalted butter, cold
  • 200g (1 cup lightly packed) brown sugar
  • 100g (½ cup) granulated sugar
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 200g chocolate chips
  • 100g heath chips
Instructions
  1. Sift together your flour (or flours), xantham gum (if using), baking powder and salt.
  2. Grate the butter on a box grater or microplane into the bowl of a stand mixer.
  3. Cream together the sugars and butter untill the mixture resembles sand. You don’t want to get to the light and fluffy stage.
  4. Add the vanilla, egg & yolk. Stir to combine.
  5. Add the flour in 2 parts. Scrape down the bowl and mix completely before adding more flour.
  6. Stir in heath bits and chocolate chips.
  7. Scoop 2 teaspoon portions onto a greased cookie sheet at least 2 inches apart.
  8. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and pop your cookie sheet in the freezer for 15-20 minutes while your oven heats up.
  9. Put the cold cookie sheet in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes. Let cool on the tray for about 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack. Maes about 3 dozen cookies…if you don’t eat half the dough yourself.
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