Easy Gluten Free Almond Cake

Rich and fragrant, this is an easy way to transform your gluten-free cake mix into an elegant dessert — either a Bundt or layer cake.

Cake

• 1 box King Arthur Gluten-Free Yellow Cake Mix
• 1 cup almond flour (see tips, below)
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 4 large eggs
• 2/3 cup milk

Original Glaze (I used Joe Glaze, below)

• 1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, to taste
• 4 to 6 tablespoons milk or cream

Joe Glaze

• 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 4 or so tablespoons milk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F (for a Bundt cake), or 350°F (for round layers). Lightly grease a 12-cup bundt-style pan; three 8" round pans, or two 9" round pans.
2. To make the cake: Mix together the cake mix and almond flour.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and oil together, then beat with the almond extract and half the almond flour/cake mix.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating slowly just until combined after each addition.
5. Add 1/3 of the milk at a time, alternating with 1/3 of the dry mix. Beat until smooth, scraping the bowl after each addition.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
7. Bake the Bundt cake for 50 to 60 minutes; the 9" layers for 34 to 36 minutes, or the 8" layers for 28 to 30 minutes. The cake's crust will be golden brown, and the middle will feel firm when pressed. The internal temperature should be 210°F to 212°F.
8. Remove the cake from the oven, let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn it out of the pan onto a rack.
9. To make the Original Glaze: Whisk together the glaze ingredients; begin with the smallest amount of liquid. Add milk or cream until the glaze is the texture of molasses.
10. Joe Glaze: Beat cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and extracts in mixing bowl (I used a stand mixer, but a handheld should work fine too.) Beat until smooth. Add milk by the tablespoon and beat. Keep adding/beating until glaze is consistency you like.
11. Drizzle/spread over the cooled cake. Sprinkle with sliced or slivered almonds, if desired. Layers can be stacked, filled, and iced with your favorite frosting.
12. Yield: 1 cake, about 16 servings.

Tips from our bakers

• If you don't have almond flour, grind 2/3 cup blanched almonds with half the mix in your blender or food processor until powdery, then combine with the rest of the cake mix.
• For an extra-special celebration cake, our test bakers loved the towering look of the triple-decker 8" round layers.

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/easy-gluten-free-almond-cake-recipe

Cranberry Orange Bars

Similar to Starbucks Cranberry Bliss bars, but orangier! I found a number of online recipes and put together the parts I liked best. Basic recipe mostly comes from here with a few modest changes.

BARS
◦ 1 cup butter ( 2 sticks, very soft)
◦ 2/3 cup brown sugar
◦ 1/3 cup granulated sugar
◦ 3 large eggs
◦ grated zest from 1 orange
◦ 2 cups flour
◦ 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
◦ 1 teaspoon ground ginger
◦ 3/4 cup craisins ( dried cranberries)
◦ 3/4 cup white chocolate chips 

FROSTING
◦ 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
◦ 2 tablespoons butter, softened
◦ 3 cups confectioners' sugar
◦ 1-2 or more teaspoons orange juice from zested orange

TOPPING
◦ 1/3 cup craisins
◦ 1/3 cup white chocolate chips 

Directions 
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (325 for a glass or dark pan). Prepare a 9x13 by lining it with parchment paper and spray with non-stick spray. 
2. BARS: With an electric mixer, beat together softened butter and sugars 3-5 minutes until light; gently blend in eggs and orange zest (don't overbeat eggs). Add the flour, baking powder, and ginger and beat briefly. Add the cranberries and chips, stirring just until incorporated. 
3. Spread thick batter in prepared 9x13 pan. It does level itself out a little bit while baking. Bake 350 for 24-28 minutes until light brown AT EDGES and a skewer tests clean. Don't overbake or your bars will be dry. Let it cool completely. Using overhanging parchment paper, lift from pan onto rack.  I turn it out upside down onto rack, peel off paper, then flip onto big cutting board to frost and cut. 
4. FROSTING: Blend cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add orange juice and confectioners sugar and beat until frosting is fluffy and spreadable (adding more orange juice if needed, but remember its easier to add liquid, than to thicken frosting up after adding too much liquid). Spread evenly over COOLED bars. 
5. GARNISH: Sprinkle Craisins and white chocolate chips over frosted bars. 
6. Allow one hour in frig for the frosting to set before cutting. Cut into 20 large squares (5 cuts by 4 cuts with the knife). Then cut each square in half diagonally to create triangles. It has been my experience that triangles have fewer calories than squares. Or not.

Pineapple-Zucchini Bread with Streusel Topping

Pineapple-Zucchini Bread with Streusel Topping

Makes 2 loaves

Based on original recipe from:

November/December 2007 Grit Magazine

http://www.grit.com/Food/Pineapple-Zucchini-Bread.aspx

by Joanne Wright Schulte

3 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup salad oil

2 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups coarsely shredded, unpeeled zucchini

1 can (8 1/4 ounces) crushed pineapple, well drained

3 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 cup finely chopped walnuts

1 cup raisins

Streusel (see below)

Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease two 9-inch loaf pans; set aside.

I grate my zucchini in a food processor. If I'm using end-of-season giant zucchinis, I cut the seeds out before grating.

In mixing bowl, beat eggs until frothy. Beat in sugar, oil and vanilla. Continue beating until mixture is thick and foamy. Stir in zucchini and pineapple.

In second bowl (I just dump it on top of wet stuff I just put together, cuz I'm too damn lazy to wash a second bowl), stir together flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisins and nuts. Add to zucchini mixture and stir just until all flour is moistened. Spoon batter into prepared pans. Bake 50 to 60 minutes. Yields 2 loaves. Enjoy!

So, I've been making my loaves with cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top and really like that, so I decided a streusel topping is the next logical step:

for the streusel:

2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
6 Tbsp rolled oats


1 cup chopped walnuts


6 Tbsp cold butter, cut in small pieces

1/2 to 1 tsp or so cinnamon

To make the streusel topping mix the flour, brown sugar, oats, and walnuts together in a small bowl.
Add the cold butter and mix with your fingers, breaking apart the butter and incorporating it until the mixture has no more dry flour, and has a crumbly texture.



Sprinkle the streusel topping evenly over the batter.

Mom's Tourtière Pie

Nothing says winter holidays for me like homemade Tourtière Pie. The filling is pretty much the same as gorton, which my mom used to stuff the turkey with, and which no decent after Thanksgiving sandwich was without: turkey, gorton, and cranberry sauce in a sandwich. At least for me. Since she is apparently too busy to make pies for me and ship them across the country, I've had to learn to fend for myself. So here it is. This makes enough for 2 pies. Great right from the oven, or cold from the refrigerator. Always great with cranberry sauce.

Mom's Tourtière Pie

oven: 375°

1 onion diced

1 stalk celery, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

3 cups water

2 lbs ground pork

1 lb ground beef

1/4 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp cinnamon

pinch of thyme

1 tsp salt

1 bay leaf

3 or 4 medium potatoes, diced and boiled separately
crusts for 2 pies, top and bottom

Saute onions and celery in a touch of oil until onions just start to brown around the edges. Add garlic and sauté for a minute. Add remaining ingredients except potatoes breaking up the meat and bring to boil then simmer for about 3 hours, adding a little more water as necessary while cooking. Drain and save liquid.  Add diced cooked potatoes to pork mixture. Use a potato masher to break them up a little and blend into pork, but you should still see potato bits. Add a little of the saved liquid to the mix to help hold together if needed. (If you let the liquid sit a bit, you can separate the juices from the fat.)  Put into two uncooked pie crusts.  Top it and cook as a regular pie making sure to vent crust, about 45 minutes at 375 degrees.  Makes two  pies, with maybe some extra. Or not. Depends on the size of your pie pans I guess.

Note: I use Pillsbury crusts and brush the top with beaten egg to "shine" it up.

Easy Food Processor Buttermilk Biscuits

All I wanted was an easy recipe to whip up in the food processor for Buttermilk Biscuits. I know that they are super easy to make by hand, but I have to justify to myself the cost of the new food processor I got for myself. I took a basic recipe I found online and made some changes and it worked out pretty good.

Easy Food Processor Buttermilk Biscuits

3 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 tablespoon sugar
1.5 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup cold butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 - 1 1/4 cup buttermilk, give or take
1 - 2 tablespoons butter melted

Preheat oven to 400°.

In food processor, combine dry ingredients - pulse 2-3 times. Place butter in bowl and pulse another 2-3 times or until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. You should see some larger than pea-sized bits of butter but thats ok- its better not to over-process at this point.  Turn processor on and stream in buttermilk. Stream slowly and watch until a sticky dough forms and starts to pull away from the bowl. You don't want to overmix and totally incorporate the butter- you should still have little tiny chunks floating around in there. I think I had the processor on at this point for maybe 6-8 seconds.

Turn dough out onto well-floured surface. Gently fold the dough over itself 3 or 5 times to create layers. Roll dough out to 3/4-inch thick. Cut with a 3-inch biscuit cutter. Transfer dough rounds to a sheet pan. Gather scraps and repeat. You can make a dimple in the center to help the top rise evenly. Brush with melted butter. Bake for 15 minutes in a preheated 400 degree oven until golden brown. Makes 10-12 or so depending on how big you cut them.

Note: I don't use a cutter. I simply roll out to a square shape and cut into squares. Thats just how lazy I am.

Frog Eye Salad

When I used to spend Christmas Day feasting with my husband Steve's family, one of the extended family members always made Frog Eye Salad. Its fruity, sweet, fluffy, and just like dessert. Kids generally love it too. I've been making it the last few years for pot-lucks, etc, and finally decided to get the recipe up here as I'm making it for the family Thanksgiving get-together.

FROG EYE SALAD

1 (4-serving size) pkg. vanilla instant pudding mix
1 3/4 cups milk
1/2 of a 16 oz box acini de pepe
1 cup thawed Cool Whip
1 (15 oz) can pineapple chunks, drained
1 (16 oz) can fruit cocktail, drained
1 (11 oz) can mandarin oranges, drained
1 jar Maraschino cherries without stems, drained


Mix pudding with 1 3/4 cups milk. Set aside. 
Cook acini de pepe. Drain and cool. 
Mix pudding and 1 cup Cool Whip together. 
Mix in the fruit and cherries, then the acini de pepe. 
Refrigerate; serve chilled. Refrigerate leftovers, if there are any.


NOTE: This makes a good sized bowl.

Buttermilk Zucchini Pineapple Bread

Had some left over buttermilk and a zucchini that I needed to use up soon, so what to do? Search for a recipe that uses them both. I didn't find exactly what I wanted so I took the best parts of other recipes and made my own Franken-zucchini bread. Actually came out very good and everyone I gave a piece to said it was moist and tasty- but maybe they were lying to protect my delicate feelings?


This recipe only makes one loaf (unlike most zucchini bread recipes), which is ideal for us.


Buttermilk Zucchini Pineapple Bread


Preheat oven to 350°. GENEROUSLY grease 9x5 loaf pan.


1/3 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup coarsely grated zucchini
1 8.25oz can crushed pineapple, drained
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2+ cup walnuts
1/2+ cup raisins


In large bowl beat butter and sugars together until combined. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each egg. With spoon mix in zucchini, pineapple,  buttermilk, and vanilla until combined.


Add flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon to batter, stirring until just combined, then stir in nuts and raisins.


Pour batter in prepared pan and bake for 60 minutes or until done.


My notes:

• Really fills the loaf pan up, but doesn't rise too much so it stayed in the pan.
• I put a plus sign next to the walnuts and raisins as I didn't really measure- just dumped them in until I felt like there was enough.
• Even though I thought I had greased the pan thoroughly, it still stuck in the middle a little. Maybe I didn't grease it up enough there, or maybe I waited too long to remove it from the pan. I'll pay more attention next time.