EcoSalon | Conscious Culture and Fashion » baking

Healthy Winter Sweets: Gluten Free Buckwheat Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

Anna Brones — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:51:13 +0000

A healthier version of a classic batch of cookies.

It’s January. You’re cold, you need comfort food, and wouldn’t it be nice if the kitchen smelled good, too?

If you have been finding yourself in the mood to hunker down with a plate of something sweet and fatty, you’re not alone. As Evelyn Tribole, RD says, “It’s a survival mechanism. You don’t want to kill for a piece of broccoli, but you’d kill for a piece of bread.”

But the better part of you really wants to be craving broccoli, because you know better than to succumb to the urge of eating an entire chocolate cake. Tempting, but there are better options. Like gluten free Buckwheat Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies.

No, you cannot eat an entire plate of them – and you will be tempted – but the sugar content is minimal, they have healthy flours and your kitchen will smell good. Winter problems solved. Start baking.

Buckwheat Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup rice flour
1 cup buckwheat flour
2 cups rolled oats (certified GF if you need them to be)
1 teaspoon xantham gum
1 cup butter
1 egg
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cardamom
1 cup pumpkin puree (organic of course!)
1/4 cup currants
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350F.

Cream butter and sugar. Add in egg and pumpkin.

Mix together flour, xantham gum, baking soda, baking powder and spices.

Combine with pumpkin batter then stir in oats, currants and chocolate chips.

Roll into small balls and place on greased baking sheets.

Bake for 12-15 minutes.

You can always eat broccoli tomorrow.

Image: Anna Brones

Lustables: The Art of Bread Making

Anna Brones — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:55:04 +0000

A beautiful short video that explores the process of baking bread.

There is an artistic process in baking. That process is beautifully captured in this video by Kinfolk, which is a simple exploration on making Dutch Oven Bread. Taking the necessary time to slow down, the process of bread making ends up being a process in much more.

In learning how to make bread for this film we had to get used to how the process drove our day, leaving us only increments of time to do other things. After a few batches we embraced it, getting those little things done that never seemed to find their way into our schedule. Books were read, letters written, house tidied. All which felt just as much a part of the recipe as adding water and kneading dough.

Dutch Oven Bread from Kinfolk on Vimeo.

Look for Lustables daily at EcoSalon. 100% gorgeous green finds, and never sponsored. Submit your favorite to tips@ecosalon.com

Sunday Brunch: Gluten Free Cinnamon Rolls

Anna Brones — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:03:18 +0000

Whip up these delicious gluten-free versions of the traditional cinnamon roll.

Many of us have a Christmas morning tradition, and for one of our favorite food bloggers, Shauna James Ahern of Gluten Free Girl, it’s cinnamon rolls. These rolls happen to be 100% gluten free and are sure to please a hungry holiday crowd. Enjoy!

Ahern: For Christmas, I want cinnamon rolls. To tell the truth, I have made them every Christmas for the past four years. The first year’s were awful: gnarled at the edges, a bit burnt, and dry as insulation. The second were from a mix. The third year…Did I make them the third Christmas? I was eight weeks pregnant, sleeping and sick most of the time. It’s a bit of a blur.

Last year, Danny and I proudly carried in the cinnamon rolls we had created for the first draft of our cookbook. And they were….good. I mean, really good. But they still didn’t match the image I had in my mind of what a good cinnamon roll should be.

I want a soft, pliable dough, one that tastes good on its own. Yes, I love plump golden raisins, brown sugar almost melting, the ooze of cinnamon-scented butter on the edges, and cream cheese frosting. Really, how could you not love cream cheese frosting? Most of all, I want a cinnamon roll that stands up to the rush of Christmas morning, with a few stragglers left until the afternoon when we pick at the caramelized edges to stave off the hunger pains until dinner begins.

I want the cinnamon roll you see above. And I need it to be gluten-free.

A few days ago, I finally baked it.

I have been baking cinnamon rolls non-stop for the past few weeks. I learned so much from every batch, from the botched to the beautiful, that none of it has been a waste. But somewhere in the last few days, I started growing close-throated at the idea of another cinnamon roll. Time to bake something else. My dear friend, Tita, a close confidante for the past 18 years, knows her food. Tita’s the one who gave me the cornbread recipe we love. When I told her stories of making cinnamon rolls that begin by heating oil and milk, she made a face. “I’ve never done that. All you need is a white bread dough.”

It had never occurred to me that a cinnamon roll dough is a white bread dough. (I’ve been studying cinnamon roll recipes like they are the Torah. I swear no one mentioned this.)

I may be a gluten-free girl, but the white bread dough doesn’t intimidate me. I pulled out the scale and measured out the ratio of flours to liquids to eggs. I chose almond flour for its high protein content and slightly sweet taste. (Corn flour shows up in all the Italian gluten-free delicacies we ate on our honeymoon.) And I pulled out potato starch, tapioca flour, and sweet rice flour, for the starchiness. I turned to Little Bean, babbling and banging the whisk on the countertop beside me, and said, “Let’s begin.”

I knew it under my hands as I mixed and rolled. This was the one.

Now, my cinnamon rolls may not be the ones you like best. That’s okay. There’s not a single creative expression that will win universal approval. That’s not why we do this.

Years ago, before I moved to New York, my partner, a painter, and I talked about why we do what we do, this crazy passion and need to put things on blank canvases. He said something that has always stayed with me: “I just make the paintings I wish I could look at. You should write the books you want to read.”

That’s what I’m always doing, when I write, whether it’s letters or books. I’m just sitting here trying to write what I wish I could read.

And now I’ve created the cinnamon rolls I wished I could eat.

If you enjoy them too, that’s all the better.

Merry Christmas.

Gluten-Free Cinnamon Rolls

You’ll see that I have given the flour measurements here in ounces. I bake by weight, with a trusty scale, spooning out flours to exactly four ounces. It makes baking more precise, which is vital to gluten-free baking. It also, however, makes it liberating. Once you figure out the ratios, you don’t need someone else’s recipes. You can make it up on the spot.

That’s my hope, that enough of you start baking by weight that you won’t even need to look at my recipes. We can just have conversations instead.

I know that some of you will ask about substitutions. I don’t know. If you can’t eat almonds, or have an allergy to corn, or have just run out of potato starch, you can substitute other flours, if you use the same weight as the original. I’ve used brown rice flour, sorghum, teff, and arrowroot powder successfully here too. The ratio is what really matters. Now, personally, I probably wouldn’t use any of the bean flours in cinnamon rolls, or mesquite, or anything that smacks of healthy eating. It’s a cinnamon roll. Let it be starchy and doughy for one day.

(I’ve put the flours into cups, which I measured after I baked these. Keep in mind that how you measure a cup may be different than how I do it here.)

These cinnamon rolls can be dairy-free, as well as gluten-free. In fact, the rolls you see here were made with goat’s milk powder, so if you need to avoid cow’s milk, this is your recipe. You could substitute soy milk powder or rice milk powder, if you can find it.

Other than that, I really don’t know. I’m pretty darned happy with these cinnamon rolls. They’re gluten-free. That’s how I need to eat. If there are ingredients here you can’t eat, then it’s your turn to adapt this recipe and make these the best cinnamon rolls for your kitchen.

1 1/2 cups water
3 tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons active-dry yeast
4 ounces almond flour (1 1/4 cup)
4 ounces corn flour (3/4 cup)
4 ounces sweet rice flour (3/4 cup)
4 ounces potato starch (2/3 cup)
4 ounces tapioca flour (1 cup)
1 tablespoon xanthan gum
1 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup milk powder (we used goat milk powder in this batch)
2 large eggs, at room temperature

Filling for Cinnamon Rolls

4 ounces unsalted butter (1 stick or 8 tablespoons)
2/3 cup brown sugar
4 teaspoons cinnamon
3 tablespoons agave nectar (or maple syrup)
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup walnuts

Cream Cheese Frosting

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
4 tablespoons cream cheese, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar

Activating the yeast. Bring 1 cup of the water to 115°. This is a good temperature for yeast — not too hot, not too cold. If you want to be particular about it, you can use a thermometer to measure the temperature. I like to turn on the tap water and run it over my wrist. When the water feels like the temperature of my skin (with no cold splashes or hot pockets), it’s ready. Mix the water, yeast, and sugar in a medium-sized bowl. Set it aside to rise, about 15 minutes.

Mixing the dry ingredients. Combine the almond flour, corn flour, sweet rice flour, potato starch, tapioca flour, xanthan gum, and salt together. Whisk them together in a food processor, or in a stand mixer, or with a whisk. Combining them into one flour will help the final cinnamon rolls to be light, rather than dense and lumpy. Add the brown sugar and milk powder. Stir to combine.

Finishing the dough. Bring the remaining 1/2 cup of water to 110°. If you have a stand mixer, move the dry ingredients into the bowl of the stand mixer. (If not, you can make this dough with a hand mixer or by hand.) Turn the mixer on medium-low speed and add the yeasty water, then the eggs, 1 at a time, mixing in between. Mix for a few minutes until the dough comes together. If the dough feels a bit too dry, add the remaining water. (I always seem to need it.) The dough should be soft and a bit shaggy but not soggy. It will NOT be as firm as you expect a gluten dough to be. Instead, you are aiming for pliable and a bit spongy, like a cookie dough.

Yeast doughs will vary in behavior depending on the weather. These measurements are a guide. If you find you need another splash of water to make the dough feel right, then go ahead. If the dough feels too wet (like you need to wipe your hands after touching it), then add a touch more potato starch. Start to trust your instincts.

Letting the dough rise. Move the dough to a large greased bowl. Cover with a clean tea towel and set the bowl in a warm place in the kitchen. Allow it to rise until it has doubled in size, about 1 hour. The dough will have become a bit more pliable, a little more like gluten dough, at this point.

Rolling out the dough. Grab a Silpat (or piece of parchment paper) and lay it on a large baking sheet. Move 1/2 of the dough onto the Silpat and cover it entirely with plastic wrap. Slowly, roll out the dough to the edge of the baking sheet. (You’re rolling out its width, first.) I try to make the dough the width of the rolling pin. Next, spin around the baking sheet and roll out the dough lengthwise. You probably won’t take it as far as the edge. Simply roll it out to about 1/2-inch thick. Take off the plastic wrap.

Making the filling. Melt the butter on the stove, on low heat. Put half the brown sugar, cinnamon, agave nectar, golden raisins, and walnuts onto the rolled-out dough. Drizzle 1/4 of the melted butter on top.

Rolling the dough. Here’s the important part: go slowly. Grab the Silpat on the edge farthest from you and pull it up gently. The edge of the dough should start to roll away from the Silpat and toward the dough. If not, then nudge it with your fingers. Make tight rolls, moving slowly and patting the dough gently as you go. Roll the dough, then press it down with the Silpat, then roll some more, with the dough falling toward you, going slowly. If the filling oozes out as you reach the end, that’s okay. It’s a sign you’re going to have good cinnamon rolls.

(Nothing of this should be about being perfect, anyway.)

Cutting the dough into rolls. Go grab your dental floss. Yes, your dental floss. Cut a long piece of it, longer than two hand widths apart. Slide the piece under the log of dough, then bring the two edges together to cross over the top. By doing this, you should be slicing a piece off the log. This makes for lovely, neat pieces, instead of jagged hunks. Make your way down the log of dough with the dental floss. You should end up with about 8 pieces, with ragged end bits as well.

(Sometimes I bake the ragged ends separately, as little cinnamon swirls. Sometimes I just throw them in.)

Preparing to rise the rolls again. Pour 2 tablespoons of the melted butter into the bottom of a pie pan. Place the sliced rolls into the buttered pan, tightening the rolls if they have begun to unravel. Set them aside to rise.

Repeat this process with the other half of the dough and remaining filling.

Allow the rolls to rise for 1 more hour. Gluten-free doughs do not rise as high as gluten doughs do on the second rise, but they do puff out nicely. It’s worth it.

Baking the rolls. Preheat the oven to 350°. When the oven has come to temperature, slide in both pans. Bake until the rolls fill firm to the touch when you press on both sides of one, but still with some give, about 25 minutes.

Allow the rolls to cool for about 10 minutes, then invert them onto a plate.

Frosting the rolls. Put the butter and cream cheese into a food processor. Whirl them up. While that is mixing, pour in the vanilla extract. Add the powdered sugar in handfuls, looking at the texture of the frosting between batches. It usually takes about 2 cups for frosting to be thick and rich in our food processor, but you may like a different texture. This is only a guide.

Frost the rolls when they have reached room temperature.

Go at it.

Makes about 16 cinnamon rolls.

Sunday Brunch is an ongoing series featuring brunch recipes from some of our favorite food blogs around the web. New recipes every Sunday, so that you’re ensured a gourmet weekend. Bon appetit!

Foodie Underground: It’s Up to the Rest of Us

Anna Brones — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:43:50 +0000

Trashy magazines. You know the ones I’m talking about – the ones with the glossy photos of all the throw away fashion that a conscious fashion lover should certainly never invest in, and all the celebrity gossip that takes up way more brain space than you should ever give to such a vacuous topic. But they’re a guilty pleasure of mine, only purchased when traveling for business. There’s nothing like making the person sitting in the airplane seat next to you think you’re a celebrity, fashion obsessed twit.

So there I was, from Portland to Sacramento headed to the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival, an event focused on inspiring people to do better for our planet, flipping through the latest issue of In Style. Sigh. Things were going as expected. Flashy stilettos. Flip. Au naturel makeup tips. Flip. Silky blouses that need to be in your closet. Flip. Dessert night with your lady friends menu. Flip. Wait, what was on that menu? In my brainwashed magazine perusing, I had glanced over a colorful page that didn’t grab my attention until a few seconds later. I flipped back. “Sugar Rush!” the article was called, with a huge photo of snack mix made with – what is that? Cap’n Crunch?

The entire article was devoted to “desserts” made with breakfast cereals. Pardon me while I get sick. Inventive combinations are what foodies thrive for, but $5 boxed cereal crammed full of high fructose corn syrup? Is this the latest in food trends? We’ve already seen deep fried snickers bars and Krispy Kreme hamburgers, but I was hoping that with the rise in popularity of organics, antioxidants and super foods, we would be moving away from trashy, classless, so-bad-for-you-it’s-out-of-control and onto something just slightly better.

I wouldn’t have been offended if this was a fun, DIY article on silly but fun foods, but these “mouthwatering desserts” (if you can call Crunch Berry Snack Mix and Cocoa Pebble Crunch cake mouthwatering) were concocted by an acclaimed NYC pastry chef. In an era of skyrocketing obesity, heart disease and diabetes, I believe it’s the duty of the leaders of our food industry to be pointing us in the right direction.

No, not everyone needs to serve organic quinoa spring rolls with brewer’s yeast and pumpkin seeds sprinkled on top, but if the chefs and bakers that are at the top of their game in their country continue to promote foods that are rich in chemically processed ingredients, what kind of progress are we going to make?

Which is why it’s up to the rest of us.

The more we continue to promote sweet potato fries instead of Doritos, fried brussel sprouts instead of Ore-Ida tater tots and carrot beet cake instead of fried twinkies, the more food progress we’ll get to experience. Because, in case you needed a reminder, better food is better for us and our planet. And that doesn’t include Cap’n Crunch.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground. Each week, Anna will be taking a look at something new and different that’s taking place in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to culinary avant garde.

Image: Minette Layne

Bye Bye, Bleached: Healthier Cooking with Unbleached Flour

Heather Brubaker — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:00:52 +0000

As soon as I learned that I could buy unbleached flour, I stopped buying bleached. Why would anyone want to bleach flour anyway? The word “bleach” used in association with food alone just intuitively seemed wrong. Then the other day a friend of mine asked me the difference, and I realized I couldn’t exactly say.

Clearly, I’m not an avid baker. (I mostly fall into the savory camp.) Any dedicated baker knows that different flours produce different results in baking. The methods used in processing (and the types of wheat used) affect the chemical and structural properties of the flour, which in turn affect the volume and texture of whatever you’re baking.

In a nutshell? Bleached flour works better for cakes, pancakes, waffles, cookies and pie crust. Unbleached flour works best for yeast breads, cream puffs and popovers. For a foodie or passionate cook looking to bake cake with the perfect texture and crumb, bleached flour (also cake flour which is bleached) could be imperative.

How exactly does flour get bleached, I wondered? Apparently, it’s gassed with chlorine oxide during processing. Egads! That’s an appetite buzz-kill! Yet, after doing a bit more research, it seems there aren’t any conclusive studies that prove that eating bleached flour is actually harmful or at least not in the quantities that can be reasonably consumed by any human being.

Still, science has its limits. And most of us know that wheat bread is healthier than white bread, for example, as the nutrients in flour are mostly removed through the refining process to make bleached flour. As the old, Italian saying goes, “the whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead.” Anyone focused on a healthy lifestyle knows to avoid as much processed food as possible.

Yet I have a feeling that if you’re planning on baking a cake, health may not be first and foremost on your mind.

Image: isabel*la

Ecosalon Recipes: Seasonal Fruit Galette

Vanessa Barrington — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:00:50 +0000

This is the season for outdoor eating and impromptu get togethers. It’s also the season for stone fruit – peaches, apricots, plums, cherries, and nectarines.

Here’s a gorgeous dessert to take to a cook-out or barbecue. It’s quick and easy to put together, simple enough to showcase the fruit without overpowering it and the dough is easy to work with – even for those who are inexperienced with pie crust. The only secret to a flaky crust is to keep the ingredients as cold as possible and don’t mix the dough too much. Make this with whatever stone fruit looks best at the market. You can use one type or several.

You’ll need:

3 tablespoons yogurt
1/3 cup ice water
1 cup flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon sugar, plus about 1 tablespoon additional for sprinkling on top
1/2 teaspoon salt
7 Tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces and chilled
About 2 large peaches or nectarines, or 4 to 5 plums, or many cherries, or a mixture (pitted and sliced)

To make:

Stir together yogurt and water and keep in the freezer while you mix the other ingredients.

Mix together flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt. Add butter and work in quickly with a pastry blender, leaving some pieces of butter the size of small peas.

Sprinkle the ice water/yogurt mixture over the flour-butter mixture gradually, mixing it in with a fork. Be careful not to over mix. The dough can still be crumbly, but should stick together when pinched. You may not need to use all the yogurt-water mixture.

Gather the dough into a ball, wrap and refrigerate for two hours.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. F.

Roll out dough to a quarter inch thickness and transfer to a baking sheet. Top the dough with sliced fruit, working in a spiral from the inside out, leaving a border of about 2 inches all along the edge of the dough. Fold the edges of the dough inward to encase the fruit, and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 400 degrees until the crust is brown and flaky and the fruit soft, bubbling and fragrant, about 15 to 20 minutes. Enjoy!

We recommend using local, organic ingredients whenever possible.

Image: bensonkua