GF Cherry Drop Biscuits

Baking I like. Baking for a cause I like even more. My insanely geologically and hygienically gifted artisan-soap-maker-friend hosted a vegan bake sale to benefit Autism Speaks. While I relied on some classics like Banana Bread and Biscotti which are always get omnivore shout-outs, I wanted to make something gluten free for those who eliminate gluten from their children's diet as means to treat autism. I've dabbled in GF baking before with some wins and some serious failures, but overall my results have been above average. So I figured I'd take a chance, and if it didn't work out, at least I'd get something passable to feed the dog for her morning snack (hopefully).

The venture began with a recipe for gluten free scones. Translating recipes into vegan recipes is one of my greatest pleasures, but there are risks. In this instance, I didn't have cream or even a good vegan equivalent on hand (like soy creamer or coconut cream). So I used "buttermilk" by mixing up some almond milk and cider vinegar. I have made buttermilk scones before, but not with this recipe. Turns out, that thick cream was needed to keep the dough together. When I substituted with something much thinner, I was basically left with a batter. If you've ever made scones, you know that you're supposed to get a dough, something you can work in your hands. This was pourable - crap!

I didn't have scones anymore. BUT the batter still held together and had plenty of leavening in it, so I knew it would at least rise in the oven. Scoop by scoop, I dotted my baking sheet with dollops of what I had hoped would turn into fluffy biscuits. Ten minutes later - success! I had fluffy biscuits. Two minutes of cool time and one bite later - double success! I had fluffy and delicious biscuits. Autism sure had something to say about that.

GF Cherry Drop Biscuits
Makes: 12 biscuits
Total time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

3/4 scant c. almond milk
1 tsp. cider vinegar

1 1/4 c. rice flour
1/2 c. tapioca starch
1/2 c. cornstarch
1/3 c. sugar
1 T. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4+ tsp. xantham gum
6 T. Earth Balance
1/4 c. apple sauce
2 tsp. orange zest
1 c. cherries, chopped (fresh or thawed from frozen)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425*F. Coat two baking sheet with cooking spray.

Combine almond milk and vinegar in a small mixing bowl. Whisk together and set aside.  In a medium bowl, mix the next 8 ingredients together. Drop in the Earth Balance one tablespoon at a time and use a pastry cutter or two knives to cut it into the flour. Keep mincing until flour is crumbly and no big pieces of EB remain.

Add the almond milk mixture and applesauce into the dry mixture and stir until just incorporated, trying not to work the batter too much. Fold in cherries and zest. Drop about 3 tablespoons of batter at a time on the baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the outer edges start to turn golden brown (don't wait to see a lot of gold here or they won't be fluffy!). Transfer biscuits carefully to cooling racks. When cool enough to handle, EAT.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

How do I express my love for peanut butter? I must have it everyday. I’ll spread on bread, corn thins, rice cakes, tortillas, ice cream, chocolate bars, celery, peanut butter…I must have it everyday. A day without peanut butter is a day you probably don’t want to talk to me. A day beginning with peanut butter is the day you want me as your best friend. Is it bad that even after I had a piece of chocolate after lunch yesterday, I still made enough room to have a couple of corn thins (they’re like rice cakes, but made with corn) with some peanut butter and cinnamon sugar walnuts on top? That’s right, I had more than one. I like other nut and seed butters: cashew, almond, and sunflower seed. And the peanut is hardly my favorite nut compare to: walnuts, cashews, and almonds. But for whatever reason, I find all other butters, regardless of their deliciousness or health benefits, inferior to the power of peanut butter.

For a 50th birthday party with a fellow believer in “a spoonful of peanut butter helps the medicine go down” who happens to also have an infatuation with M&Ms, a perfect hybrid cookie was in order. There are more healing powers in the chocolate-peanut butter combo than modern medicine can offer. That might be a bold statement, but I have found no better cure for cramps. Having never made peanut butter cookies before, I felt I had to do a lot of research, especially since I am partial to softer cookies despite peanut butter varieties having a crunchier reputation. Of course there is a happy place in between, and working with dense, fat-filled peanut butter, I figured the moisture content wouldn’t be a problem if I found a good recipe.

Another story of infidelity….how do I manage to stray from recipes so easily? I can’t commit. I know everyone has faults, I’m not exempt. And sometimes it’s not so much a fault as it is a certain lacking. I found a great recipe that needed some minor adjustments, and I am only recently becoming comfortable with making my own tweaks while baking. Baking is fickle and one gram off could put 30 cookies in the garbage. So I tread carefully. This outcome was very successful. I’ve already made them twice and have requests for more at work. I have found that you can’t skimp on the margarine- the taste won’t be affected, but the cookie will fall apart easily. This cookie dough isn’t one that can be spooned onto the cookies sheet – you have to clump it together with your hands and shape them like patties. Stir in the chocolate chips before you clump the dough together or you’ll be kneading it for a while to get them incorporated.

Soft and crisp at the same time with chocolate surprises in every bite. Spreading an extra teaspoon of peanut butter on top of a freshly baked cookie like I did is optional but a highly recommended enhancement.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes about 36 small cookies
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

1 ¾ c. Unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ tsp. Baking soda
¾ tsp. Salt

1 c. Brown sugar
¾ c. Smooth peanut butter
½ c. Earth or Smart Balance
2-3 T. Almond or soy milk
2 T. Vanilla Extract

1 c. Chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 375ºF.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In another bowl, beat the sugar, peanut butter and margarine together until smooth. Add almond/soy milk and vanilla and blend until well mixed. Add flour mixture and work with hands when it becomes too thick for your blender. Fold in chocolate chip, pressing firmly into dough.

Using 1 ½-2 tablespoons of dough per cookie, form dough into small discs. Press in 2 directions with the back of a fork for a crisscross pattern. Place on cookie sheet and bake in oven 7-8 minutes or until just golden on the edges. Be careful not to over bake. Remove from oven and let cool on pan to finish cooking. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Blueberry Bran Muffins with Streusel Topping

Good morning sunshine! That’s what Monday morning said to me as I prepared a “Welcome” batch of muffins for a new co-worker. Having just come home from an early morning run, I was on a roll. Run, walk the dog, bake, get ready for work….I know, over-achiever. But it feels good to be productive, especially when Monday mornings tend to be dull at best and foreboding at worst. Whenever I get back from a run, I’ve either got crispy vegetables or healthy grains on my mind depending on the time of day. At 6 am I was definitely thinking grains.

Blueberry muffins are my favorite and bran muffins are a close second. I used to hate blueberries (a sore admission on my part), but I would eat a blueberry muffin in a heart beat. Blueberries are just starting to come around as a regular grocery item, so I had a few containers on hand. I had already planned to make muffins for the occasion and had picked out a recipe after an extensive online search. As I reached for the flour, what did I see? Flax, bran and nuts, oh my! Of course I wasn’t just going to follow a recipe, duh. I wanted some chew to my muffins and a sweet crunch on top. So I laced these babies with bran and used coconut oil for that magic je ne sais quoi.

The crunch was the important part. I have not had much success with typical streusel toppings consisting of just flour and sugar – they tend to get clumpy and not crunchy. Oat-based toppings are better, but my favorite features nuts. The kind of nut hardly matters, just mix it with sugar and I’m good. In this case I couldn’t decide between walnuts and pecans so I used both with fabulous results. It must have been this special edge that sparked the comment, “You’ve outdone yourself.” Gracias.

These muffins were incredibly moist and, as such, need much care when removed from the pan. Even with a generous amount of cooking spray, they need a good knife-around-the-edge careful lifting TLC. They fall apart easily, but it works out if you’d like to spread a dab of Earth balance in the middle. Delicious, moist, crunchy, semi-sweet and perfect for a healthy indulgence.

Blueberry Bran Muffins with Streusel Topping
Makes 12 medium muffins
Prep time: 5 minute
Cook time: 25 minutes

Ingredients

1 ¼ c. Whole-wheat pastry flour
¼ c. Oat bran
¼ c. Wheat bran
¼ c. Flaxseed meal
1 tsp. Baking powder
1 tsp. Baking soda
½ tsp. Salt

¾ c. Almond milk
2/3 c. Sugar
¼ c. Applesauce
¼ c. Coconut oil
2 tsp. Vanilla
1 c. Blueberries, fresh or frozen

¼ c. Pecan/Walnut mix, coarsely ground
2 T. Sugar
½ tsp. Cinnamon

Directions

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Coat a muffin pan with cooking spray and set aside.

Mix dry ingredients together in a medium mixing bowl. Blend wet ingredients together in a separate bowl and slowly add to dry. Stir mixture until no clumps are left. Add another 1-2 tablespoons of flour is mixture is too wet.

Mix nuts, sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Pour batter into muffin pan and top each muffin evenly with streusel topping. Bake for 25 minutes or until inserting a toothpick in the center comes out clean.

Orange-Scented Cornmeal Cookies with Cranberry Icing

I facilitate a quarterly meeting with over a dozen people who take the time out of their day and remove themselves from a very busy operation to serve on a panel for an employee recognition program I run. Of course, I treat this meeting as though I were hosting a get together at my home; I bring in baked goods and set up a nice spread so they feel comfortable. Half of them fly in from the east coast on a 5+ hour plane ride for one day’s work, so the least I can do it make some homemade eats instead of leaving them with corporate coffee and Biscoff cookies (ok Biscoff cookies are really good, but they are still airplane food).

With a variety of personalities and tastes, I try to make several things across the board instead of aiming for just one general taste. You might think everyone likes oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, but you never know (some very disturbed people don't). The last time this panel came, I made scones and chocolate-dipped biscotti which were  very well-received. So this time I went with the “Everything” cookie – everything including chocolate chips, pecans, oatmeal, and coconut - for the sweet portion. I also made vegan Sour Cream Streusel Coffee Cake, less sweet than the cookies but also very popular. Then for the not so sweet but great-with-coffee option, I chose Cornmeal Cookies. I found a general recipe on Epicurious.com that I just tweaked to make more flavorful and, oh yeah, vegan.

The texture of these was fantastic, with a soft shortbread give but a pleasant cornmeal crunch. The pink icing was popular not only because of its color, but because it added a faint sweetness without being overbearing. Adding a very sour juice with powdered sugar was a good strategy. The orange barely present, I may tweak the measurements a bit, but give it a shot and see what you think! I’m a lazy cookie baker and don’t like high hassle dough, which is why I almost always make drop cookies. Despite having to chill the dough and then go at it what a rolling pin, these were super easy to make. Perfect for dipping in coffee or tea.

Orange-Scented Cornmeal Cookies with Cranberry Icing
Makes about 30 cookies
Prep time: 40 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes plus cooling

Ingredients

For the Cookies
1 c. Unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ c. Cornmeal (not corn grits or polenta)
½ tsp Salt
¼ tsp. Baking soda
7 T. Vegan margarine, room temperature
½ c. Sugar
¼ c. Applesauce
1 T. Orange Juice, freshly squeezed
1 tsp. Orange Zest
½ tsp. Vanilla extract

For the Icing
1 ½ c. Powdered sugar, sifted
2-3 T. Cranberry juice blend

Directions

Whisk together flour, cornmeal, salt and baking soda in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, beat margarine and sugar together until fluffy, scraping down mixture from the sides of the bowl. Beat in applesauce, orange juice, zest and vanilla. Reducing the speed, slowly add in dry ingredients, about ¾ cup at a time until just incorporated. Form dough into a ball and chill wrapped in plastic for 30 min.

Preheat oven to 350˚F.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough with a floured rolling pin into a large square, about 8 inches on each side. Make about 10 vertical slices in dough (about ¾ inch wide) and cut dough crosswise in thirds. Transfer to a cookie sheet about 15 minutes or until the bottoms are golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack and cool, 30-45 minutes.

To make the icing, sift the powdered sugar into a mixing bowl and whisk in 2 T of cranberry juice. Add more for a thinner consistency. Using a spoon or spatula, drizzle icing over cooled cookies in any fashion of you preference. Let icing set while cookies are on cooling rack. Transfer to platter or container, separating layers with parchment or wax paper.