Gluten free baking, easy peasy!
So two weeks ago I did some baking for a friend who is gluten intolerant, she is not full on Celliacs ill but she is what they call on cusp and all gluten makes her ill.
So since she is being a doll and helping a large group of us in my Cancan dance troupe: http://www.cancanbijou.com/ create amazing new petticoats I wanted to bring a sweet treat for her.
Now curd has no gluten in it so that was safe and meyer lemon/tangelo curd turned out wonderfully.
I used this recipes with one substitution which I will share later..
http://simplygluten-free.com/blog/2010/08/gluten-free-strawberries-cream-cupcakes.html
I chose this recipe because I actually already had two egg whites left over from the curd recipe so that meant I could use them and not waste any food. I also chose it because all I wanted was a simple vanilla cupcake, not chocolate or anything else more complex since I had already decided to use the curd as a filling. I used the Bob,s Red Mill GF flour mixture and xanthum gum. but King Arthur and several other companies also have a mix plus you can also make your own mix if you are really that interested.
Since this recipe called for strawberry puree but I did not want that to mix that with the curd I just used 1/2 cup of light sour cream and removed the puree. I want to try this recipe again with fat free sour cream to see how it affects the taste compared to the light.
One thing I noticed about the gluten free cupcakes their texture is more like a nice light cornbread every so slightly grainy and denser than a regular cupcake but it was still sweet and delicious.
To fill the cupcakes I used a large funnel to poke holes in each cupcake. Since the cake was denser and stickier like cornbread I did have to do some scraping off on the outside and poking out the cake dough from the center of the funnel before I did each one but it still went quickly and smoothly. It took about 1/4 pint of curd to fill all 11 cupcakes, I ate one plain to see how they tasted before filling so I would suggest you have a half pint for filling and if you do the drizzle I did.
For the frosting I used my got-to stabilized whipped cream recipe (half pint of whipped cream, sugar and plain gelatin so the whipped cream does not liquify.) Because I was trying to make sure there was no gluten anywhere near this food I used bakers sugar instead of my usual powdered sugar, even though almost all powdered sugar is fine since they use cornstarch which has no gluten in it there is always the possibility that if the sugar is made in plant that does use gluten for other products some can be in the sugar so I as I really wanted to just avoid the possibility I used the super fine bakers sugar which worked perfectly. I put the whipped cream in a ziplock bag cut on corner open and piped each cupcake with about 1-2 inches of frosting like a soft serve ice cream cone. Then I drizzled some more curd over each frosted cupcake.
Here is a great link for several ways to make the stabilized whipped cream topping/frosting:
http://www.wikihow.com/Stabilize-Whipped-Cream
Everyone was thrilled with how the cupcakes turned out they were light and and citrus taste of the curd and lightly sweet whipped topping really paired well together. My friend who is gluten intolerant was thrilled. And several of us talked about having a GF bake off using the various different GF flour mixes you can buy just to see if the texture changed with each brand.
So since she is being a doll and helping a large group of us in my Cancan dance troupe: http://www.cancanbijou.com/ create amazing new petticoats I wanted to bring a sweet treat for her.
Now curd has no gluten in it so that was safe and meyer lemon/tangelo curd turned out wonderfully.
I used this recipes with one substitution which I will share later..
http://simplygluten-free.com/blog/2010/08/gluten-free-strawberries-cream-cupcakes.html
I chose this recipe because I actually already had two egg whites left over from the curd recipe so that meant I could use them and not waste any food. I also chose it because all I wanted was a simple vanilla cupcake, not chocolate or anything else more complex since I had already decided to use the curd as a filling. I used the Bob,s Red Mill GF flour mixture and xanthum gum. but King Arthur and several other companies also have a mix plus you can also make your own mix if you are really that interested.
Since this recipe called for strawberry puree but I did not want that to mix that with the curd I just used 1/2 cup of light sour cream and removed the puree. I want to try this recipe again with fat free sour cream to see how it affects the taste compared to the light.
One thing I noticed about the gluten free cupcakes their texture is more like a nice light cornbread every so slightly grainy and denser than a regular cupcake but it was still sweet and delicious.To fill the cupcakes I used a large funnel to poke holes in each cupcake. Since the cake was denser and stickier like cornbread I did have to do some scraping off on the outside and poking out the cake dough from the center of the funnel before I did each one but it still went quickly and smoothly. It took about 1/4 pint of curd to fill all 11 cupcakes, I ate one plain to see how they tasted before filling so I would suggest you have a half pint for filling and if you do the drizzle I did.
For the frosting I used my got-to stabilized whipped cream recipe (half pint of whipped cream, sugar and plain gelatin so the whipped cream does not liquify.) Because I was trying to make sure there was no gluten anywhere near this food I used bakers sugar instead of my usual powdered sugar, even though almost all powdered sugar is fine since they use cornstarch which has no gluten in it there is always the possibility that if the sugar is made in plant that does use gluten for other products some can be in the sugar so I as I really wanted to just avoid the possibility I used the super fine bakers sugar which worked perfectly. I put the whipped cream in a ziplock bag cut on corner open and piped each cupcake with about 1-2 inches of frosting like a soft serve ice cream cone. Then I drizzled some more curd over each frosted cupcake.
Here is a great link for several ways to make the stabilized whipped cream topping/frosting:
http://www.wikihow.com/Stabilize-Whipped-Cream
Everyone was thrilled with how the cupcakes turned out they were light and and citrus taste of the curd and lightly sweet whipped topping really paired well together. My friend who is gluten intolerant was thrilled. And several of us talked about having a GF bake off using the various different GF flour mixes you can buy just to see if the texture changed with each brand.
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