MDBD - Gluten Free Cake and Butter Cream Icing

As part of our continued experiment with gluten free baking, Zoey and I made a gluten free cake this weekend. I also experimented with a new butter cream frosting recipe.

Lets start with the cake. Our recipe came from Barefeet in the Kitchen. Now the recipe she posted was called "The Best Gluten Free White Cake"; however my cake did not turn out white. Normally to make a white cake, you only use the egg white and leave out the yolk; however her recipe called for the whole egg. Someone even commented about this in the comments section and the response was that it's supposed to be whole eggs. Apparently she has some magic skill. LOL!

It should also be noted that I once again decided not to you the xanthan gum and instead did the chia seeds. This time I measured out the same amount of chia seeds as the recipe called for in xanthan gum. I then soaked them in double that amount of boiling water for 15 minutes. The result was the gel in the picture below. I then measured out the amount that was called for in the recipe for the xanthan gum. (Hope that makes sense)

This is what was left after I measured out the tsp needed for the recipe

Our Ingredients

 Ingredients

1 1/2 cups brown rice flour
2/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup tapioca starch
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon chia seed (or xanthan gum)
4 eggs
2 cups white sugar
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract

Instructions

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Grease pans (I used a 9 x13 but the original recipe was for a round layered cake)

 Stir together the dry ingredients and set aside. 

Beat the eggs and the sugar together until creamy. 

Add half of the dry ingredients and beat again. 

 Add the buttermilk, butter, vanilla and almond extracts and beat to combine. 

Add the remaining dry ingredients and beat just until combined.
Pour batter into pans. 

Bake in the center of the oven for 35-40 minutes, until the cake is very lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

Remove and let cool

Now to the icing. I have really had very little success when it comes to icing. The only one I've been able to make that I liked was the peanut butter one I made for cupcakes last year. I had pretty much given up on making frosting and was planning on using canned frosting for Zoey's birthday cake. However, last week when I did my test run on Zoey;s cake, I couldn't get the canned icing to stick to itself when I was trying to pipe stars. So I decided to take a shot at the icing recipe used by the person that made the tutorial for decorating Zoey's birthday cake. I figure that it must be able to stick. This was a Youtube video, so the link goes to the video rather than to a blog.

Our Ingredients (I forgot to take the picture until after I'd already put the butter in the bowl)

Ingredients

 5 Cups Powdered Sugar (I did not use all of it)

18 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

3 Tablespoons Whole Milk

Instructions

 Blend butter for 5 minutes

With the beaters going, slowly add in 1/2 of the powdered sugar

Add the vanilla and milk until fully incorporated

Mix in the remaining powdered sugar (I kept tasting it until it was the sweetness I liked)

Once the cake cooled, I went ahead and frosted it (I added food coloring to the frosting). It held up well to the piping, but we'll have to see how it holds up when I frost the actual cake, which is 3 dimensional.

A piece of the frosted cake

As far as the cake goes, Scott and my nephew, Trey, liked it (although Trey changed his mind when he realized it was gluten free. LOL!) I described it as "earthy" and my sister and I both decided that it was because of the almond extract. If I make this cake again I think I will leave that out. 

Tiffany really liked the frosting. Scott thought that it was one of the best icings I've made (I'm not sure if that really says much. LOL!) I thought it was ok. I'm still not in love with it, but I guess it will do.

MDBD - Gluten Free Sugar Cookies

Zoey and I started experimenting last week with some gluten free baking in preparation for her birthday party. We want to make sure everyone who comes to the party can participate. Since there will likely be several kids there who are diagnosed with Autism like Zoey, and gluten free is a common diet for some kids, we wanted to have some gluten free options available.

Out first venture into gluten free was a sugar cookie recipe I found at Rolling Out Dough. I made a modification and didn't use xanthan gum, which is a very common ingredient in gluten free baking because it acts as a binding agent. However, I read that some people can't tolerate xanthan gum, so I looked for an alternative. The alternative I ended up using was chia seeds. I realized when baking today that I did the substitution wrong. You are supposed to soak the chia seeds in double the amount of boiling water for 15 minutes to make a gel; however, the post I was using as a guide didn't mention that, so I just used ground chia seeds. I'm not sure what difference it would have made.

Gluten Free Sugar Cookies

Our Ingredients

 Ingredients

 2 Cups All Purpose Gluten Free Flour

3/4 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Salt

1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar

4 TBS Powdered Sugar

8 TBS Unsalted Butter (room temp)

1 tsp Chia Seeds (or 1 tsp Xanthan gum)

1 Large Egg, Beaten

1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350

Mix all the dry ingredients and blend until well combined

Add egg, butter, and vanilla and stir until dough is well blended and thick

This is how mine looked before I started to mold it into a ball with my hands

Take a large amount of dough and shape dough into a ball 

Roll out your dough onto parchment paper and roll until 1/3 of an inch thick

Use cookie cutter to cut out dough

Sprinkle with baking sugar (if not frosting them)

Bake for 9-11 minutes until set

Allow to cool on baking rack

I didn't remember to take a picture of the finished product and I really wish I would have because my cookies turned out different than the picture due to the chia. Mine had black specs in them. 

Original source photo

At first I was really not a fan of these cookies. I couldn't get over the texture and they were very crumbly. However, as they cooled they seemed to hold together better and the texture improved some. They reminded me more of shortbread cookies than sugar cookies. Scott was a fan of these cookies and wanted me to make more, so I think it was a success.

2 cups all purpose gluten free flour (I recommend XO Baking Co Gluten Free All Purpose Flour Blend, Jules Gluten Free, or Glutino Gluten Free Pantry All-Purpose Flour)

3/4 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup fine granulated sugar

4 tablespoons powdered sugar (confectioners sugar)

8 tablespoons unsalted butter (this should be at room temperature)

1 teaspoon xanthan gum- If your flour blend already contains xanthan or guar gum then do not add.

1 large egg, beaten (this should be at room temperature)

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

- See more at: http://www.rollingoutdough.com/easy-gluten-free-sugar-cookies/#sthash.OZjIzOHe.dpuf

xanthan gum

xanthan gum

xanthan gum

MDBD - Zoey's YouTube Audition

We had MDBD today, but I won't be posting a recipe for it today. We made a box cake, that I experimented with using a "hack" from Pinterest. I also tried a simple recipe for frosting using a box of instant pudding and cool whip. I'm just trying some things out in preparation for Zoey's birthday party. Normally, I wouldn't even make a post for today; however, Zoey was so freaking adorable I just had to share.

Last weekend I was watching some YouTube tutorials to try and learn how to make Zoey's birthday cake and Zoey wanted to watch with me. Once I was finished, she wanted to continue to watch, so Scott hooked her up on the Kindle with the YouTube show Nerdy Nummies. We knew about Nerdy Nummies from watching an episode of Table Top (a board game show) that Ro (the host of Nerdie Nummies) was on. Well, Zoey has been hooked since then. She will sit on the couch with the Kindle and watch episodes of Nerdie Nummies while I am cooking dinner or cleaning around the house. They are short videos, so they work well for "you can watch one episode of your baking show before we go to bed". She even asked me if Ro could come back with us for MDBD.

I didn't realize just how into this show Zoey was until today when I got everything set up for MDBD and called her into the kitchen. After climbing into her learning tower, Zoey immediately launched into a monologue about what we would need for today's MDBD. This is how Ro starts her show each time. She also does the same hand movement and says "Let's get started" that they do on Nerdy Nummies. It was so cute that I just had to try and get it on video. Of course, once I turned the camera on Zoey clammed up a little bit and needed some prompting. Either way, still adorable in my book.

Below are the two videos I took. The first is before we made the cake and the second one is for the frosting.