Gluten-Free Carrot Cake

I've been juicing a lot lately with my new Breville Juicer and I've always had such a bad conscience to trow away all the fruit and vegetable pulp, so I thought there must be a way for me to at least use some of it.

So I thought of making a carrot cake, as you'll need shredded carrot for it anyway, might just as well use the pulp right.... So if you are juicing carrots and you want to use your leftovers this is for you.

You will need the following:

200 g butter softened/cubed
100 g finely shredded carrots (or more if you like)
100 g ground almonds
200 g superfine sugar (I like C&H Sugar Products)
100 g sweet rice flour
1 tsp baking powder
5 eggs
1 lemon (finely grated zest)

Grab a large mixing bowl and start out by beating your softened butter until it makes little peaks, then add the sugar and keep beating, mix in a little bit of lemon juice and the lemon zest, then while beating on medium speed add one egg at a time. Once you added all your eggs and everything is nicely combined you will slowly add the shredded carrot and the almond meal.

Make sure to scrape down the edges of your bowl so you get all the buttery taste into your batter.

Then slowly and gently fold in the rice flour (I prefer Koda Farms Mochiko Sweet Rice Four), which has been combined with the baking powder.
 
I do this by hand, as over mixing will make the cake rubbery. Then transfer the batter into a 8" / 20cm spring form pan and bake at 375F/200C for about 60 - 70 Min or until wooden pick comes out clean.

If in doubt it's better to bake gluten-free recipe's a bit longer especially the ones without any gum (guar gum / xanthan gum) in them.

Once your cake is done, let it cool and you can either frost it or do a glaze like I did.

For the white sugar glaze you'll need:

200 g powdered sugar sifted
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp lemon juice

Mix the above ingredients to a very thick syrup (think thick honey), set a little aside and color with a few drops of food coloring or with some cocoa powder (you might have to add a little liquid) so you can draw circles on top of the cake to create the "Spiderweb".

To create a smooth surface for your glaze, take about a spoon of apricot jam or any jelly you like, heat in the microwave and brush on the cake with a pastry brush.

Add the with glaze and smooth with a large knife or spatula and tilting the cake. Before it sets, pipe circles in the reserved colored icing on the cake and with a wooden pick pull lines across the cake, just like you would cut your slices. If you like you can add little Marzipan Carrots too.

Let the frosting 'dry' and enjoy!

Oatmeal Cake with Apples n Honey

Hello my fellow bakers,  I know it's been a while, but we're busy at work and then we are looking for a home to buy, so baking has taken a little bit of a back seat lately. But I figured something out that is super easy to make and tastes delicious.

This cake is super easy to make and doesn't even require you to take out a mixer. All you need is a measuring cup, a bowl and the most basic of ingredients...

1 cup rolled oats or instant oats (I used BetterOats, Instant Oatmeal in Cinnamon Spice)
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar (or sugar substitute)
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk (I use fat free)
butter (or pam for spraying the pan)

Then you add in what you like, depending on taste:

I added:

1 medium size apple diced
2 tablespoons of Honeyville Apple Cinnamon Whipped Honey (dissolved in the milk).




I tasted Honeyville Honey the first time almost a year ago, while on vacation in Durango, CO. We drove by the store and I just stopped by to check it out, even though I usually don't like honey. Honeyville totally changed that! I bought multiple jars of their "Whipped" honey and I was hooked. I didn't have luggage to check on my flight out to California and stuffed the jars in my carry on, forgetting I couldn't take them in the cabin. But I wouldn't be parted with this little jars of liquid gold so I checked my bag and kept my honey. THANK GOD! Unfortunately you won't be able to find this delicious treats in your grocery store, but you can order Honeyville Honeys on their website at www.HoneyvilleColorado.com or by clicking directly on the logo.

OK, after the little detour and my story about how one taste of Honeyville deliciousness changed my opinion about honey, lets get to making the batter:

Mix the oatmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and if you use unflavored oats add in two tablespoons of cinnamon. Once you mixed that well add in the egg and the milk, stir well so everything is well combined. Add the diced or grated apples and bake in a pre-heated 375F oven for about 40 minutes or until a wooden skewer/toothpick comes out clean.

Cool and enjoy! The cake tastes even better if you wrap it in foil and let it sit in the fridge for 2 days as the aroma gets better!


And the result is this:

Variations: Leave out the apple, add in apricots, cocoa powder chocolate chips, sliced almonds, any kind of nuts. The options are endless!

Grandma's "Black" Cake ~ Added Fiber Version

My childhood memory is filled with times when I helped my Grandma bake this cake. I LOVED IT! It is to this day my absolute favorite Chocolate Cake! If I could I would eat it everyday! It has cocoa, it has coffee, it has chocolate chips, how could you not like it!

Grandma's "Black" Cake

So to make it a bit more healthy I replaced some of the flour with wheat germ. You CANNOT taste the difference. It's still chocolaty, tasty deliciousness!

Here is what you need:

2 eggs separated

100 g butter, soft in pieces

200 g flour

50 g wheat germ

2 tsp baking powder

300 g powdered sugar

5 tbsp cocoa (dark)

2 tbsp ground coffee

125 ml Latte (half strong coffee, half milk)

2 tbsp Rum (if you like)

Start by separating the eggs, reserve the yolks and whip the egg whites until firm and stiff peaks form. Set aside.

Combine the flour, the baking powder and the wheat germ in a bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl start beating the butter with the egg yolk and the sugar until creamy and soft, then alternating add the latte and the flour mixture in small batches while continuing to mix. Do this until all the flour and latte is used up. Once that is done add the rum, the cocoa powder and the ground coffee, keep stirring until everything is combined well.

Once you have done this you can add in some chocolate chips or slivered almonds for added texture. Then using a spatula fold in the whipped egg whites.

Fill in a prepared loaf pan and bake in a preheated 180 C/ 350F oven for about 45 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean.

Let Cool and ENJOY!!! 

Gluten Free Lime'n'Blackberry Cake / Recipe

Like I promised, I made my Lime'n'Blackberry Cake again to make sure the recipe works. And boy did it work, the second time around the cake came out just as nice as the first time and I even left out the Xanthan Gum. I read up on the "Gums" and apparently they make a lot of people feel sick.

So no gums in cakes for me!


Here is what you need for this deliciously moist cake:

2 Limes or 1 big Lemon, finely grated zest and juice
200 g soft unsalted Butter (or unsalted margarine)
200 g fine Sugar
4 large Eggs
200 g Flour Mixture (50 g Oat, 50 g Quinoa, 100 g Rice)
1 Tsp Baking Powder
1 container Blackberries (any berries really)
3 Tbsp powdered Sugar
Lemon/Lime juice


In a mixing bowl cream the soft butter until you see it forming little peaks, mix in the sugar, add the lime/lemon zest and juice and then mix in the eggs one by one.

Combine the baking powder with the flour mixture and using a rubber spatula fold it into the butter/egg mixture. Do NOT use a mixer for this, your cake will come out rubbery.

Then place half of the batter into a buttered loaf pan, take the blackberries and add about half of them to the batter. Cover with the remaining batter and then add the rest of the blackberries pushing them into the batter a little.

Place in a pre-heated 350 F oven and bake for 75 minutes or until wooden pick comes out clean. Cover the cake with Foil after about 60 minutes so it doesn't get too dark.

Let cake cool slightly. In the meantime, make a glaze with some powdered sugar and lemon/lime juice (it should have a thick syrupy consistency). Poke little holes in the cake and brush with the glaze while still warm. This way, the cake will absorb some of the syrup and that will add to the nice lemony aroma.

Cool completely and ENJOY!

Tip: you can make this cake with any berries you like, or any other small fruit like cherries!

Gluten Free Lime'n'blackberry Cake

Gluten Free "Linzer Cookies" or "Spitzbuben" aka at least in our family as "Riesner Krapferl"

I was in a baking mood today and as a child I always loved baking and eating cookies with my mom and grandma. I can remember the days when we went to visit with grandma in Austria over Christmas and there were always at least 5 different kinds of cookies for us to eat. There has not been a year where grandma didn't have cookies for us.

Grandma no longer bakes, because of her bad sight, but she handed down some of her recipes to me, so I could make them. I decided to adapt my favorite, the "Riesner Krapferl" which in other parts are called Linzer Cookies or "Spitzbuben", to a Gluten-Free version.


Here is what you need:

250 g / 7.5 oz Butter / softened
100 g / 3 oz Powdered Sugar
320 g / 9.5 oz of Sweet Rice Flour (Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour from Koda Farms)
1/4 tsp Xanthan Gum
2 Packets of Vanilla Sugar
1 sprinkle of Salt

Cream the butter with the sugar, salt, vanilla sugar and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Mix the sweet rice flour with the xanthan gum, then quickly combine the buttermix and the flour so you get a nice cohesive dough, form into a ball, cover with plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough to about 4 mm thickness and with a cookie cutter, cut out enough bottom and top cookies. Bake in the preheated 325 F oven for about 8 minutes or until light golden.

Mix some powdered sugar with vanilla sugar and set aside.

Once the cookies are cooled, fill cookies with raspberry, apricot or whichever jelly you like. Dust with vanilla/sugar mixture and ENJOY!

You can find Koda Farms "Mochiko" Sweet Rice Flour in Asian Grocery Stores or online from my Things to Buy section. Check out Koda Farms website at www.kodafarms.com for their long history in producing superior rice products. Their entire facility is dedicated to rice products and free of any gluten whatsoever!

Gluten Free Apple Almond Cake

Here is a great cake for apple and almond lovers, perfect to use all the fresh apples we have now and most of all, it's Gluten Free and very easy to make.

This is what you will need:

• 50 g / 1.75 oz Butter
• 175 g / 6.1 oz Sugar, fine
• 2 medium Eggs
• 250 g / 8.75 oz Almonds, ground
• 250 g / 8.75 oz Applesauce
• 1 medium Orange, finely grated zest
• 100 g / 3.5 oz  Rice or Quinoa Flour 
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 4 medium Apples
• 2 tsp Sugar

Preheat your oven to 325 F / 180 C and prepare a 10 inch / 22 cm spring form pan.

Get all your ingredients together and lets get started. Cream the soft butter, mix in the sugar and the eggs until light and creamy, then add the ground almonds the apple sauce and the orange zest. Sift the rice flour and the baking powder together and fold into the mixture with a spatula.

Peel the apples, cut them in half and remove the core, cut them in fine slice, but keep together. Then pour the batter into the prepared spring form pan and layer the cut apples onto the batter, so they make a nice pattern. Sprinkle with a little bit of sugar.

Bake the cake on the middle rack of the preheated oven for about 60 minutes or until a wooden pick comes out clean. Once the cake comes out of the oven, brush the apples with some warm apricot jelly, that will keep the cake looking shiny and it tastes great.

Tip: This cake can be made with pears as well and you could use hazelnuts instead of almonds. I have used the below flours and they worked great.

Linzertorte "Gluten-Free" made with Rice and Quinoa Flour

I love sweets and "Linzertorte" is one of my favorites, it's nutty, sweet and not difficult to make. Lately I've been trying to remake some of the goodies that are very typical for my Austrian and Swiss heritage and "Linzertorte" is definitely one of them. And it is obviously named after the capital of Upper Austria, LINZ!

Here is what you need:

150 g butter or margarine  
150 g sugar
1 sprinkle salt

1 egg

1/4 tsp Cinnamon
150 g ground almonds
75 g rice flour
75 g quinoa flour

your favorite jam or fruit preserve (I like apricot, but the original recipe asks for raspberry)

If you are not GF, you can just use regular all purpose flour.

9 inch spring form pan


In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter until small peaks form, mix in the sugar and salt, then add the egg and mix until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Mix all other ingredients, then slowly mix with the butter and sugar mixture until you have a nice soft dough. Then cool in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Roll 1/3rd of the dough onto the bottom of the spring form pan. The from the second 3rd form a roll and place on the edge of the form to create a rim. Roll the rest of the dough onto a piece of parchment paper and into 2-3 mm plate and chill.

While the remaining dough is chilling in the fridge, generously cover the crust with your favorite jam. Cut out little shapes from the remaining dough and decorate. Then brush with egg and put on the ring of the spring form pan.

Bake in the middle of the pre-heated 400 degree oven for about 35 minutes. Remove let cool and enjoy with a nice cup of coffee!


Tip: If you can, and don't need the "Linzertorte" right away, wrap tightly in aluminum foil or plastic wrap and let rest for a few days or so in the fridge. I'll be even better as it gets a bit soft.

Cherry Cake

As you all know by now, I always love to cook and bake with whatever I find in my fridge. So over the weekend I got some nice ripe cherries and I remembered a cake my Grandmother used to make. She'd make a basic pound cake and drop cherries into it. We'd call it the "SpuckKuchen" loosely translated that would be "Spitcake", because she never pitted the cherries and you'd spit out a mouth full of cherry pits after a slice of cake. LOVELY!

Anyway, I thought I thought I'll do something like that but to spare everyone biting in a pit or having to swallow cherry pits as not to be rude, I removed the pits beforehand. Below you'll find what you need for this cake.


100g Butter
100g Sugar
125g Flour
2 medium Eggs
1/2tsp Baking Powder
1 medium Lemon
sprinkle Salt
100g Cherries, pitted
Serves: 8 -10
Preparation Time: 30
Cooking Time: 35
Oven Temperature: 180C/350F


Step 1: Cream Butter with Sugar, Eggs and Lemon
In a bowl whisk the soft butter until you can see little peaks form, mix in the sugar and a sprinkle of salt, add the eggs, one after the other until the mixture is lighter in color and fluffy, add the finely grated zest of the lemon and 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice.

Step 2: Add Flour
Sift the flour and mix it well with the baking powder. Add the flour little by little to the creamed butter mixture with a rubber or silicone spatula (mixing it in with a mixer will make it rubbery).

Step 3:
Prepare two 11 cm / 4.5 inch spring form pans or one 9 inch pan 

Fill half of the batter evenly into the two pans, then add half of the cherries, maybe pushing them down in the batter a little bit. Add the remaining batter on top and add the rest of the cherries.

Bake in the lower half of the pre-heated oven for about 35 minutes, or until wood pick comes out clean.

Let cool and enjoy!

Cherry Cake

Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake

Well, I love cheesecake, but most of the time, they are really heavy and I wanted to make something a little lighter for summer. I had some strawberries in my fridge and needed to do something with them. So before I even thought of the cheesecake, I'd decided I wanted to make a strawberry sauce.

That strawberry sauce or coulis, I then used in the cheesecake, to create little pockets of fruity deliciousness in the cheesecake and, I must say, it made it look pretty too.

So, here's what you need to make this delicious and pretty easy dessert.

For the coulis:

2 cups of strawberries, cut in pieces
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups water

Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil, cook for about 10 minutes until the strawberries are really soft and almost fall apart. Remove from the heat and put in a blender or use an immersion blender to blend for a smooth consistency. Strain through a sieve to get the seeds out and then put back into the pan, keep simmering until its thick and syrupy in it's consistency, cool.


For the crust:

1 1/4 cups Graham Cracker Crumbs
1/2 cup Sugar
5 Tbs Butter or Margarine melted

Mix the above ingredients in a bowl so everything is well combined, press the mixture in a 9 inch spring form so it is well covered and push up about 1/4 inch on the side, then bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 5 minutes (this will make the crust a bit crunchier). After 5 minutes take out of the oven and cool.

For the filling:

16 oz Cream Cheese or light Cream Cheese
1/2 cup Sugar
1 cup boiling Water
2 Tbs Vanilla Extract (I also added the seeds of 1/2 vanilla bean)
1 Lemon, Zest only (finely grated)
1 envelope Gelatine

In a mixing bowl, mix the cream cheese, lemon zest and vanilla. Bring one cup of water to a boil and stir in the sugar and gelatine until it is fully dissolved, about 3- 5 minutes. Then slowly blend the gelatine mixture with the cream cheese.

Pour half of the cream cheese mixture on the cooled crust, then with a spoon drop little pools of strawberry coulis on top of it, so there is a bit all over the mixture, cover with the rest of the cream cheese. drop some more coulis on top and then take a knife and just move it through the coulis drops, so you create a nice marble effect on the cheesecake.

Once you are finished, cover your cheesecake and cool in the fridge for about 2-3 hours.

Then enjoy! Let me know what you think!

Inside Out Peppermint Patty CupCake

So, finally yesterday I got around to making the cupcakes I've been talking about. Somehow I got derailed every evening and just didn't get to it, may it have been Movie Night, Dinner or just working late.

I decided, to do something a little bit different and, because I like "After Eight" mints and "York Peppermint Patties", I felt I could incorporate those flavors in a cupcake. To work I went with just a basic batter recipe.

Here is what you need to make 12 delicious "Inside Out Peppermint Patty" Cupcakes,



For the batter:
125 g butter (unsalted), soft and cut in small cubes)
125 g flour (sifted)
125 g sugar
125 ml milk coffee (latte)
2 Eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 Tbs coffee (ground)
2 Tbs cocoa powder
1/2 cup mini dark chocolate chips
Splash of Amaretto or Rum




In a medium size bowl, whip the butter until it is soft and creamy, slowly add the sugar and the egg, while continuing to mix on high speed (you can use a hand mixer or a stand mixer). Then start mixing in flour and milk coffee, little by little, so the batter gets nice and smooth, once all that is added, add in the cocoa powder, the ground coffee and a couple splashes of Rum or Amaretto. Finally mix in the dark mini chocolate chips.


Fill the batter in the prepared cupcake pan. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 25 minutes. Cool on a rack. While the cupcakes cool down you can prepare your frosting. I used a ready made "Pillsbury" Vanilla Frosting for this, but you can make your own. I just didn't have time to do it this time.


For the Frosting:
1 tub Vanilla Frosting
1 Tbs Peppermint extract


Mix the vanilla frosting well with the peppermint extract, so you have a nice creamy texture. Fill it in a pastry bag. Take a skewer and poke a little whole in the bottom of each cupcake, then pipe some of the frosting inside each cupcake. Change out your nozzle to a star nozzle and pipe remaining frosting on the cupcakes.
Decorate cupcakes with a mint leave and half and "After Eight". You could also just use chocolate sprinkles or thinly shaved dark chocolate.


Enjoy!