Teff Bread Heaven

Another update for my delicious bread recipe! How to go Dairy-free.

Here it is:

Amsuka's Teff Bread for the Bread Machine

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups Tapioca Starch
1 cup Rice Flour (Brown for denser, healthier loaf, white for lighter loaf)
1/2 cup Teff Flour (or Sorghum)**
2 TB Cane Sugar
2 1/2 tsps Xantham gum
2 TB Ground Flax
1 tsp Sea Salt


2 1/2 tsp instant or bread machine yeast

Wet Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups Milk- Warm!***
1 egg- Warm!
2 TB Olive oil
1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar (unpasturized)


**Now bread machines differ, so pay attention to your own machine's basic instructions! My machine (Cuisinart) stipulates adding the wet ingredients first, then layer the dry ingredients over top, finally sprinkling the GF yeast over the dry.**

Here we go!
Warm your milk for 1 minute in your microwave (or on the stovetop). *This is important to activate the yeast!
Place your egg in a cup of hot water to warm. Set aside.


Whisk together the dry ingredients, except for the yeast.

Take your warm milk, add the vinegar, olive oil, and your warm egg. *The egg is warmed so that it doesn't cool off the milk mixture, or cook in the warmed milk mixture!*


Place wet ingredients into the bread pan. Layer the dry ingredients on top. Sprinkle the yeast. Place in bread machine on the gluten free cycle, 2Lb loaf size, and medium crust. remove the mixing paddle when the machine indicates, and re-shape the dough with a spatula- it will be sticky! At this time I also put a generous sprinkling of Poppy or Sesame Seeds over the whole loaf.
This bread is wonderful for sandwiches, toast, everything! Enjoy!

**update- feel free to substitute rice flour for the teff, if you are unable to find it, or if you want a simpler taste. I find the teff gives the bread a sort of Rye-taste, while the rice-tapioca combo is more of a straight forward sandwich bread- still delish!!
Also, if possible, buy your rice (& tapioca) flour in chinatown- it is milled very finely, which results in a nicer texture.
***If you want to go dairy free and use water for milk, you will need to add another egg. Warm the two eggs in warm water at the start.
When you get to the liquid stage of the recipe, break 1 egg into your pyrex measuring cup, then fill with warm water to the 1 1/3 cups mark.  THEN add your second egg and other wet ingredients.

Charlotte's Fudgey Brownies

At the insistent request of my daughter Charlotte, we exercised our baking muscles yesterday, and came up with a brownie recipe I know you all will LOVE!! Here it is:

1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup organic coconut flour (can substitute sorghum flour)
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp ground flax
1/2 tsp salt
1 T cocoa
1/2 cup butter
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Optional (but recommended):
1/3 cup chocolate chips
1/3 cup Skor bar bits

Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8 x 8 square pan.
Whisk together flours, xanthan gum, flax, cocoa, and salt. Set aside.
In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt butter and chocolate squares. Remove from heat, and stir in sugars. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla. Stir in flour mixture, then chocolate chips and skor bits.
Pour into pan and bake 30 minutes.
Cool before cutting.
Serve with cold milk.
Bliss out.

A few notes:
-Coconut flour is a new favorite of mine, and I am experimenting with it a lot. (I get mine from Bulk Barn, and it is not expensive). It adds to the chewiness, yet does not taste coconutty! If you want a coconut taste, add shredded coconut.
Xanthan gum, ground flax, and tapioca flour can also be found at bulk stores, or health food stores.
-If you are baking in your toaster oven, as I do, reduce baking time to 20 minutes and the temperature to 300. Rotate the pan halfway through, and beware that the bottom does not burn!!
-Silicone pans are THE BEST!!

**UPDATED to add cocoa to the dry mix. Just gets better and better...

More Great Products

Nature's Path GF cereals: including "crispy rice" cereal, corn flakes, and my favourite, "Mesa Sunrise", which is a combo of Corn, Flax, and Amaranth flakes.

Rice Crackers, available in most grocery stores, in the regular cracker aisle. Just beware that some of the flavoured (bbq, ranch etc) ones may have wheat/gluten in them, as they are not a labelled "GF" product.
Personally, I like the sesame the best.

hello dollies- revisited!

Remember Hello Dollies? The wonderful cavity-maker layer bars with chocolate chips, graham cracker crust and coconut?
My friend Mary makes me some every Christmas, and they are definitely favorites! Well, yesterday I had the hankering for some cookies, but my oven has been acting up, so I needed a sweet recipe to do in our trusty toaster oven (I love my toaster oven).
I settled on Hello Dollies, but one problem- what to substitute for the graham cracker crumbs? A little searching on the web revealed some great suggestions: substitute gluten free cookies ( any kind); use a flour mixture with butter and sugar... well, I did a bit of a hybrid!
I often use GF cereal in place of breadcrumbs for breading meats, so I usually have some on hand. I also recently picked up some organic coconut flour, which I have been meaning to experiment with.

My Graham Cracker Base Substitution:
1/3 cup coconut flour
1/3 cup crushed cereal ( I used Nature's Path Mesa Sunrise: Flakes of flax, corn, and amaranth.)
(place cereal in small ziplock bag and crush with rolling pin or jar)
1/4 cup tapioca flour
2 Tb brown sugar
3 Tb melted butter

This becomes the base of the bar.
Combine ingredients ( mix dry well before adding butter), and press into bottom of greased 9 x 9 pan. ( I use silicon- highly recommended!!)
The rest is oh so easy!
Ingredients:
1 pkg chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 bag dessicated or shredded coconut
(you can also add white choc chips, Skor bar bits, etc or nuts if you like. I prefer to leave the nuts out)
Simply layer the ingredients over the base . Chocolate chips, coconut, (nuts), condensed milk, and place in pre-heated 325* oven (or toaster oven!)
They will take about 25-30 minutes. If doing in toaster oven, rotate halfway through, and you may need to put some tin foil loosely on top if it gets too brown. Let these cool at least 15- 20 minutes before trying to cut- they will need to set.
Enjoy these outrageously sinful bars! Even my kids who "don't like coconut" LOVED these! Happy baking!

GF Products

VH Soy Sauce: No Wheat!
Rizopia Brown rice pasta: Great texture, delicious!!

Tortilla Update

Made a new batch adding 1/2 cup of finely chopped parsley- really good, and so pretty!
You could add it to the water and put in the blender to make "green" tortillas, but I added the parsley directly to the flour, and then added the warm water. Also, increase the water to 1 1/2 cups, adding extra as needed.
If using a tortilla press (as I do) make sure not to press so thin that the edges become papery, else they will be hard to remove from the plastic ziploc bag (which works best).

I just had to tell someone...

I bought my husband a Rubiks Cube for Christmas- I know, I know, big spender huh?- and proceeded to become obsessed with it myself!

I am happy to announce that:

I SOLVED RUBIKS CUBE!!!!

(the question of course is can I repeat my success?? Time will tell...)

Update: Success has been repeated!! Woo Hoo!

Happy New Year!!

It is 2008- wow.
Getting off to a great start, I made GF tortillas yesterday, using my new tortilla press!
They turned out WONDERFULLY- great flavour, and great consistency.
Here is the link to the recipe I use:
http://www.recipezaar.com/50820

These could also be kicked up a notch by adding fresh herbs, or a hint of cayenne pepper. I kept mine plain to keep the family (ie: the kids) happy!

Filled them with chicken strips, shredded cheddar, lettuce, salsa, sauteed mushrooms and a dash of hot sauce. As I said, wonderfull!!

* see tortilla update for minor changes to recipe!