I have had a few attempts in the past at making gluten free dough balls. I have made a bread dough using gluten free bread flour, however these were rather heavy and heavy. Not quite the Italian dough ball experience I was looking for.
I had used this mix in the past to bake focaccia bread with some success. However I have found that it works well for dough balls as well.
I follow the instructions on the back of the pack, however I don’t use the dried garlic or rosemary. I added 7g of fast acting yeast to the dry mix and then add 300ml of warm water and 30ml of olive oil. Mix until smooth. Leave for two minutes and then mix again vigorously for a further minute.
The end result is a smooth batter.
Then onto baking trays lined with baking parchment add separate desert sized spoonfuls of batter onto the trays.
If possible leave in a warm place for 30 minutes to rise, but I’ve not always needed to do this (sometimes didn’t have the time).
I baked the dough balls in a hot oven, 220°C (200°C fan assisted) for about 15-20 minutes. They should be light, crisp on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside.
Remove from the baking tray and serve hot with garlic butter or olive oil or other dips.
My son found a recipe online for cookies which we tried, though we replaced the standard flours with gluten free variants. These were nice, but they were a little too crisp and a little too sweet. He then adjusted the recipe and the result was tasty chewy gluten free choc chip cookies. What I and my son liked about them was that they were very similar in taste and texture to the fresh (non-gluten) cookies you can buy at supermarkets that he use to enjoy before he went gluten free.
When I was buying cookies from places like Sainsburys I did quite enjoy the raspberry and white chocolate versions. So I was intrigued in Aldi in their store had a pack of raspberry and white chocolate for baking. It was in their specials area, which is a pity as we quite liked the cookies and it might be challenging to find a pack again, hopefully I can find an alternative from another supermarket.
The process is pretty much the same as the process I used on the other cookies.
Ingredients
225g of unsalted butter
125g gluten free bread flour
125g gluten free plain flour
1 egg
1 egg yolk
100g caster sugar
120g light brown sugar
1 pack of raspberry and white chocolate
One teaspoon salt
One teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Two teaspoons of vanilla essence
Melt the butter in a pan and bring to the boil, stirring frequently. The aim is to boil off some of the water off the butter. The recipe said to go ensure the milk solids got a nutty brown. I was a little wary in case of burning the butter, so didn’t probably go far enough. Once the butter melted and had turned slightly brown this was removed from the heat and cooled to room temperature.
Cream the liquid butter with the sugar, vanilla essence. The idea is to mix it until it is light and fluffy. The recipe calls for an electric mixer, ours was broken, so we did it by hand, which was hard work. Beat in the eggs until they are incorporated into the mixture.
Combine the flours, salt and bicarbonate of soda.
Stir in the dry ingredients a third of it at a time until it is incorporated.
Using a wooden spoon fold in the raspberry and white chocolate.
Chill.
Place six small balls, about 2-3cm across, of dough on a baking tray and bake for 6-9 minutes.
This quantity of ingredients will make about eighteen cookies.
After cooking leave on the tray and then after three minutes move to a rack to cool further.
I have a simple recipe for a gluten free loaf cake, but despite usually having no problems, I did recently have a bit of a disaster.
The recipe is quite simple and is based on the weight of two eggs
Ingredients
3 standard eggs
Take the same weight of two of the eggs of soft butter
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in caster sugar
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in self-raising gluten-free flour
Vanilla essence
Cream the sugar and butter until you have a smooth consistency.
Beat the eggs, add some vanilla essence.
Stir the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar with some of the flour, until the mixture is smooth and consistent.
Then fold in the remaining flour until it is combined with the rest of the mixture.
Spoon into a loaf tin and bake in a 180º normal oven or 160º fan oven for 35 minutes or until a metal skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
The main issue I had was I thought it was cooked. I used a metal skewer to see if it was cooked and after inserting into the cake it came out clean. I think that was because it was only about 25 minutes into the cooking time.
However, alas the entire middle of the cake was uncooked, so though it looked okay after coming out of the oven, as it cooled it completely collapsed in on itself.
There was no way to salvage the cake, so I started over and this time cooked it for the right amount of time, so this time it worked.
I’ve been meaning to try and make these for a while now, but kept making other things instead.
125g gluten free plain flour
25g cocoa powder
1 tsp gluten free baking powder
1 large egg
60g caster sugar
2 tbsp vegetable oil
100ml whole milk
50g chocolate chunks
Dark chocolate chips for decoration.
Heat the oven to 180ºC or 160ºC for a fan oven.
In your muffin tin or tray add six muffin cases.
Sieve the flour, cocoa and baking powder into a medium bowl.
In a jug add the egg, sugar, oil and milk, then mix well together
Gradually pour part of the mix into the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Then add some more, repeat until all the ingredients in the jug are combined with the flour, cocoa and baking powder.
Stir in the chocolate chunks.
Spoon the mixture evenly into the muffin cases and bake for 20-25 mins until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Scatter a few dark chocolate chips on top of the muffins.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the muffin tray for 15 minutes and then remove from the tray.
Not 100% sure about the blue muffin cases, but you’re not going to eat them are you?
My son found a recipe online for choc chip cookies which we tried, though we replaced the standard flours with gluten free variants. These were nice, but they were a little too crisp and a little too sweet.
He then adjusted the recipe and the result was tasty chewy gluten free choc chip cookies. What I and my son liked about them was that they were very similar in taste and texture to the fresh (non-gluten) cookies you can buy at supermarkets that he use to enjoy before he went gluten free.
Ingredients
225g of unsalted butter
125g gluten free bread flour
125g gluten free plain flour
1 egg
1 egg yolk
100g caster sugar
120g light brown sugar
85g plain chocolate chips
130g plain chocolate chunks or chopped chocolate bar
One teaspoon salt
One teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Two teaspoons of vanilla essence
The adjustments we made to the original recipe was to increase the amount of flour, reduce the amount of sugar and swap the dark brown sugar for light brown sugar.
Melt the butter in a pan and bring to the boil, stirring frequently. The aim is to boil off some of the water off the butter. The recipe said to go ensure the milk solids got a nutty brown. I was a little wary in case of burning the butter, so didn’t probably go far enough. Once the butter melted and had turned slightly brown this was removed from the heat and cooled to room temperature.
Cream the liquid butter with the sugar, vanilla essence. The idea is to mix it until it is light and fluffy. The recipe calls for an electric mixer, ours was broken, so we did it by hand, which was hard work. Beat in the eggs until they are incorporated into the mixture.
Combine the flours, salt and bicarbonate of soda.
Stir in the dry ingredients a third of it at a time until it is incorporated.
Using a wooden spoon fold in the chocolate chips and chunks.
Chill.
Place six small balls, about 2-3cm across, of dough on a baking tray and bake for 6-9 minutes.
This quantity of ingredients will make about eighteen cookies.
After cooking leave on the tray and then after three minutes move to a rack to cool further.
Though I do make my own cakes I sometimes use mixes, both for convenience, but also sometimes to try something new.
One pack we recently used, and really enjoyed was Betty Crocker Gluten Free Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake Mix.
Despite what you see on the box, you don’t get the icing, so you need to buy that as an extra.
As well as the mix you also need:
125ml vegetable oil
250ml water
4 medium free range eggs
There are three steps:
Mix the eggs, oil, water and cake mix gently together and whisk (by hand or electric mixer) for 2-3 minutes until smooth and creamy.
Pour the cake mixture evenly into two greased cake tins.
Bake in the centre of the oven for between 23-28 minutes or until a rounded knife inserted fully into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Once cool you can smother the cake with chocolate fudge icing.
It was rather good, and to be honest you wouldn’t know it was gluten free as it had the taste, texture and smell of a chocolate fudge cake even without the icing.
Take the same weight of two of the eggs of soft butter
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in caster sugar
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in self-raising gluten-free flour
Vanilla essence
Yellow food colouring
Red food colouring
Green food colouring
Cream the sugar and butter until you have a smooth consistency.
Beat the eggs, add some vanilla essence. I then added a little yellow food colouring to brighten the cake mixture.
Stir the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar with some of the flour, until the mixture is smooth and consistent.
Then fold in the remaining flour until it is combined with the rest of the mixture.
Spoon a third the mixture into one side of a loaf tin. Then separate the remaining mixture into two portions.
With one of the portions, add some red food colouring to the mixture and stir it carefully until you have a nice consistent coloured mixture. With the other portion use green food colouring.
You can of course use whatever colours you like.
Spoon these cake mixture portions into the loaf tin.
I then used a knife to gently swirl the three coloured mixtures together, you’re trying to achieve a swirly effect, not to combine the mix.
The bake the cake in a 180º normal oven or 160º fan oven for 30-35 minutes or until a metal skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Take the same weight of two of the eggs of soft butter
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in caster sugar
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in self-raising gluten-free flour
Vanilla essence
Yellow food colouring
Red food colouring
Cream the sugar and butter until you have a smooth consistency.
Beat the eggs, add some vanilla essence. I then added a little yellow food colouring to brighten the cake mixture.
Stir the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar with some of the flour, until the mixture is smooth and consistent.
Then fold in the remaining flour until it is combined with the rest of the mixture.
Spoon half the mixture into one side of a loaf tin. Then in the mixing bowl add some red food colouring to the remaining mixture and stir it carefully until you have a nice consistent coloured mixture. Spoon the rest of the cake mixture into the loaf tin.
I do use loaf tin liners in my loaf tin. Makes getting the cake out of the tin much easier.
I then used a knife to gently swirl the two coloured mixtures together, you’re trying to achieve a swirly effect, not to combine the mix.
The bake the cake in a 180º normal oven or 160º fan oven for 30-35 minutes or until a metal skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
