Almond Biscotti (Low Carb, Gluten Free)

I love almond biscotti. I learned to make it when I was young (like, middle school?) and somehow never got cut on gratter boxes. I also haven't had one in about 2 years, because traditionally they aren't very low carb.

But I have recently discovered the power of XANTHAN GUM. And yes it sounds like a space alien but it's 'all natural' and more importantly it acts like the protein/binder gluten, which DH can't have and isn't found naturally in any of my low carb flours, especially not my prefered one, almond flour.

The first step is to make almond paste that isn't full of sugar. Fortunately, if you have almond flour, egg whites, and your prefered granulated sweetener of choice (I like Splenda, because I don't have to convert the volume measurement, and erythritol makes my tongue break out, so goodbye Truvia) you can make almond paste! Just throw equal quantities of almond flour and sweetener into a food processor, pulse to combine, then add a couple of egg whites. Start with one and keep adding until it is roughly the consistency of play dough. Voila! Almond paste. If you want marzipan, add more sugar. A nice extra touch is to add about 1/2 tsp of almond extract per cup of almond flour.

After that, it follows standard biscotti procedure. How many it makes depends on how you cut them--if you like your biscotti thick there will be fewer. at about a 3/4 inch slice, I got about 18 large biscotti. They stay slightly moist on the inside. You could leave them in a warm oven, or slice them thinner

YUM

Recipe
 1 batch almond paste (1 cup almond flour, '1 cup' sugar sub, 2 egg whites, 1/2 tsp almond extract)
 4 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces

 1 3/4 cup almond flour + 1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
 1/2 cup sweetener (3 tbsp honey also works, but raises carb count)
 1/2 tsp baking powder
 heavy pinch salt (to taste)
 2 eggs
 1/2 tsp vanilla

Pulse almond paste and butter together in food processor (or stand mixer). Add almond flour, xanthan gum, sweetener, baking powder and salt. Pulse/mix until well blended. Add eggs and vanilla and pulse/mix until mixture is uniform. Form mixture into a large loaf measuring about 6 inches by 18 inches and 1 inch high for large biscotti,or two loaves about 4 inches by 12 inches by an inch for small biscotti, on a baking sheet lined with a silpat or parchment paper. Bake at 350 F about 30 minutes. It should be lightly golden and springy to the touch. Gently transfer to a cutting board and let cool 5 minutes. Use large, sharp knife to cut into even slices, 1/2 inch to 1 inch thick. Lay them cut side down on the baking sheet, bake another 10 minutes. Flip slices gently, and bake another 10 minutes. Cool on tray, then store in a dry place. May soften over time; if that happens, place in a warm oven(even a toaster oven works!) for 10 minutes, and the crunch should be restored.

Shifting Cooking Gears

Cooking has always been about experimenting for me. Going by the recipe is fine for somethings, like candy making or if I know I enjoy this person's particular formulation of the dish, but by and large I like to tweak recipes. Non-baking recipes I'll usually just make up as I go along. Baking recipes are more chemistry dependant and therefore harder to do on the fly.

Lately though, I feel like I am having to reinvent the wheel, knowing what a wheel looks like but having to make it with very limited and somewhat unsuitable materials. It's exhausting trying to do that for every dinner.

Lately I've been having PCOS flare ups, partly just because and partly because there has been some stress in my life, so I've had to switch back to a stricter low-carb/low-GI diet. This would be annoying but par for the course, if we hadn't started a gluten-free diet for DH. He's had 'stomach problems' all his life, which I have been trying to solve for the 3 years we've been married and I've been in charge of procuring his food. Gluten-free was the last on a long list of things we've tried, and so far seems to be the most successful. We'll look into having proper testing done at some point, but since he just took a new job in a new city, the timing is not right for finding a specialist in our current area.

So in short, I am facing the challenge of cooking both low-carb/low-GI (LCLGI) and gluten-free. Lots of LCLGI food is gluten-free because if you aren't using any grain-flours you aren't going to be including gluten. It's also rarely recognizable as analogous to its carb-loaded counterparts, and to a certain extent just requires recognizing that there is no substitute for pasta or bread. Gluten-free foods, of which there are TONS on the market right now all nicely labeled, are rarely LCLGI because they are made with rice starch, tapioca starch, potato starch, etc. Pretty much everything I can't eat. Thus I am faced with the choice to make two different dinners, or to try and find food that lies in the overlap that we both find palatable.

Of course, some things don't really change. Meat is gluten-free and low-carb. Vegetables, pace potatoes, ditto. But there is something so fundamental to having some kind of starchy thing, and that's mostly where the problem lies. DH can have rice, but I can't. There are both low-GI and gluten-free pastas on the market, but of course they occupy opposite ends of the spectrum. I can have rye or spelt bread in small amounts, but he can't. I can make risotto with rice for him and risotto with barley for me, but that seems absurd. The best LCLGI and gluten-free recipes feature coconut flour, which has a noticeable taste for me that I don't always want. Most of the recipes I've come up with use almond flour which is unavoidably gritty, or oat flour which is gritty and whole-wheat tasting unless you really work to hide it.

 Cookbooks are typically one or the other, and if they are both they are typically one of the crazier diet fads, like paleo. While that is the closest to what we are eating, I just can't say we are going paleo. The whole diet is based on bad or non-existent science, cheese is something I rely on, and I can't get over the absurdity whenever I see a paleo recipe call for things bananas or brussel sprouts. Those yellow bananas you get in the grocery store have existed for less than 200 years, and look nothing like a paleolithic banana. Brussel sprouts only popped into existence in the 1300s. Coconut flour also did not exist in paleolithic times.

In short, food posts are probably going to be a little less "here's a recipe I made up last week" and more musing on what works and doesn't work as I try to reformulate, replace and otherwise revamp my repertoire of foods in the coming months. A journaling of success and failures so I hopefully don't have to repeat the latter too often. Also most likely they will be shorter interludes as I work on my Basic Physics series. And if you happen to follow me on Twitter (@PhysicsGal1701), now you know what all the food posting is about.

Cheers!

The Versatility of the Pound Cake

Desserts are a bit of an odd thing in our house. Dear Husband and I love them, but sporadically. We have gone weeks without eating a proper dessert. A chocolate square here and there, but nothing that could be called dessert. Partly it's because there's only two people who "don't eat very much"* so if I make a whole cake, we either get sick of it or have to throw half of it away. So I've started trying three different strategies: 1) ice cream 2) things that can be easily doled out, such as cookies 3) 1-2 person desserts.

In the last category, pound cake of all things is a shocking easy and useful base. A pound cake is defined not by a particular recipe, but particular ratio of ingredients. An equal amount by weight of eggs, butter, sugar, flour and a dash of flavoring. Which practically means any multiple of 2 oz (the weight of an egg) can be made into a cake. A two-ounce cake turns out to be the perfect amount of batter to make 2 small cakes  or a largish 1 serving cake.

And it is versatile. Besides the basic cake, which is itself delicious, you can use the batter to make caramel cakes, peach caramel cakes, upside down cakes, marble cakes, short cakes, mini trifles, pretty much any cake-based dessert. So long as you have softened butter, you can have cake in about 30 minutes.

You need more? Double it, triple it. More than a pound per ingredient, you might want to just make two batches.

Delicious versatility.



*Heard from every relative and friend who has seen us eat not at Thanksgiving

Easter Preparations

Holy Saturday has always been a kind of prep-day for me. Growing up, there was church decorating and food to be made and choir folders to organize. And that hasn't really changed now that I've grown up and married and established a household of my own, minus the church prep and add some house cleaning.

Saturday is our usual house-cleaning day anyway. Things like dishes and laundry get done as needed during the week, besides the obvious post-cooking counter cleaning. But Saturday morning is cleaning time. Dear Husband cleans the bathrooms while I make breakfast. I sweep the floors and clear away any clutter that has accumulated during the week. Any outdoor cleaning that needs to be done gets done then. Vacuuming gets done if the vacuum cleaner cooperates.

Today we did CLEANING. Dust the baseboards, scrub all the floors cleaning. The house smells like lavender and almonds.

And of course I did food preparing for tomorrow. For one, I made sure I had everything. I got a leg of lamb roast to cook for dinner, which requires nothing more than salt, pepper and some rosemary before I throw it in the oven tomorrow. The potatoes and asparagus can't really be prepped today, but they don't take much time anyway. I made deviled eggs, which are a must in my book and my only regret is that I didn't have enough forethought to make them earlier in the week and partially pickled them in pickled beet juice, which turns then a pretty purple-y pink.

The one at 11 o'clock had an abnormally large air pocket.

I even figured out how to do that cool swirly rosette thing with a piping bag!

I also finished the lamb cake. What is a lamb cake, you ask? It is a cake baked in a mold that looks like a lamb. If you are an excellent cake-pan preparer you could probably dust it with powdered sugar and serve right from the pan. But, I am not an excellent cake pan prepper, and my family traditionally has it covered with coconut icing, which is a tradition I am happy to continue.

This cake goaded me last year to learn the art of the 'crumb coat'. Instead of trying to ice it perfectly in one go, you use a thin layer of icing to stick down any crumbs (and hold on any ears that may or may not have been a little stuck to the pan), let that dry for a few minutes, and then finish icing with a thicker layer that gets to be all pretty and even and crumb-free. As a finishing touch, I coated it with coconut using the old press-and-stick method. The eyes, nose and impertinent tongue are jelly beans, and the grass is coconut tossed with some green food coloring. I serve it with strawberries, which is delicious but my sister calls 'macabre'.

Now, other than quiet contemplation, I am ready for Easter.

Have a blessed Paschal Triduum!

Homemade Mallowmars

Mallowmars, if you have never heard or tasted one, is a chocolate dipped, marshmallow-topped cookie that is about the size of a girl scout cookie, and can only be found in colder weather in many of the United States. Incidentally, there are a million variations on this cookie and no one knows who invented it.

Growing up in New Jersey, we couldn't always find them, so they were (and are) are a real treat. So when I wanted to make something nice for my mother, I thought I would make homemade mallowmars, because if I'm going to do something, I may as well do it in the most labor intensive way possible, yes? Or it's because it allows me to make cookies, candy and chocolate dip something all for one purpose.

Making these things is time consuming, but not 'difficult' in the way that making a baked alaska is difficult. It takes a lot of steps, but no one step is tricky.

Step 1: make the cookie base. I used a half batch of the "Joy of Cooking" sugar cookie dough, using an 1.5 inch cookie cutter, and it yielded a 100 bases.

You want to have extras, for testing at every step and to allow for failure (cookie cracks, flips over in the marshmallow stage, chocolate coating doesn't cover evenly). I had about a 10% loss  from start to finish, but your results may vary depending on the number of people who insist on taste testing and your ability to handle things with fingers covered in culinary superglue.

Step 2: Pipe on marshmallow. This requires some hand strength, or ingenuity. Preferably both. This is the biggest 'cookie down!' part, because if the cookie lands marshmallow side down, (as you can see happened to two in this picture) there's no hope for that one. I use Alton Brown's recipe, which has never failed me. Actually, I don't think I've ever had a recipe of his fail.

Step 3: After letting the marshmallow set for  4 hours, melt some chocolate. I like Ghiradelli 60% cacao chocolate chips, because they melt the best to give a not too thick, even coating and keep the temper the best. I melt them in a double boiler, because it yields the smoothest result.

Step 4: Dip the cookies in the chocolate, let sit overnight to set. Enjoy!

They may not be as pretty as the ones that come out of a box, but they taste a whole lot better. And totally worth the effort. 

Comtesse au Chocolat

Yesterday, I set out to make Julia Child's "Marquis au Chocolat" cake. It looked insanely delicious, even in black and white, and everything she demonstrated seemed well within my capabilities, even if not quite as adroitly as she.

Everything was going swimmingly. I made the chocolate spongecake, safely de-panned it and cooled it without disaster. Then I listened more carefully to her instructions for the first layer of icing, and realized that I did not have NEARLY enough butter to finish the recipe. The first layer of butter cream called for half a pound alone.

So I decided to improvise, and I whipped up a batch of think ganache, at about 3.5 parts heavy cream to 5 parts semi-sweet chocolate. After it cooled and thickened a bit, I smoothed it over the cake.

It is decadent. It is delicious. It is chocolatey and satisfying in a small slice. It is shiney.

It's a single layer, which I actually think I like better than the taller cakes I'm used to. And the icing is not thick, but what it lacks in bulk it makes up for in lusciousness.

Yes, it gleams that much in real life. Over all it's kind of like a cake, a brownie, and a truffle in one package. It hits all the right notes, without being over the top like some 'death by chocolate' cakes.

This is kinda what it would look like if you can wait to cut into it.

This recipe is definitely a keeper. Since it is not quite the Marquis au Chocolat, but would certainly satisfy any woman's chocolate cravings, I'm dubbing it the Comtesse au Chocolat. It seems fitting.

Cake~Julia Child's "Marquis au Chocolat" sponge cake recipe
Icing~ 180 g heavy cream, heated to simmer and poured over 260 g semi-sweet chocolate chips. Stir until melted, cool until the consistency of thin whipped cream, and ice cake.

Enjoy!

~AMPH

Christmas Cookies: Gingerbread People

Now that finals are done, and the fall semester has come to a conclusion, it's time to bake Christmas cookies!

Cookies? Do I get to lick the bowl? PLEASE?!

Every year for as long as I can remember, Christmas has involved the mass production of cookies in my family. For one thing, they are delicious tradition! For another, my mother used them as end of the year 'thank you' gifts to the various people and business we interacted with through the year. Church people, the dentist, doctors, car mechanic, if we knew them and liked them, they got a plate of at least 5 different Christmas cookies. I aim to continue the tradition.

Apple Butter Muffins

When I woke up this morning, I wanted muffins. It happens, especially on the weekends. As I puttered around making coffee, I decided that what I really wanted was applesauce muffins, like my mom used to make. But I didn't have apple sauce, and I didn't have her recipe, which I couldn't use anyway since it would use white flour. Time to be inventive.

I didn't feel like dealing with the fussiness of my totally-from-scratch muffin recipe. I decided to gamble on retrofitting the muffin recipe out of my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, and use some apples-only apple butter I had in the fridge as both the apple sauce and the sugar.

This is what it produced:

Hello, delicious

It produced a muffin that did not collapse. That had the texture of a muffin. That had the taste of an applesauce muffin, without any sugar or artificial sweetner. That browned nicely.

Most importantly, it produced a muffin that my husband continued to eat through out the day to the point when I had to ask him to leave me some for breakfast tomorrow. I made a dozen. There are 2 1/2 left. Most were eaten by my husband who hate healthy hippie food. THAT, my dear readers, is called success. 

Apple Butter Muffins

1 2/3 cup fine oat flour

1/3 cup almond flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

2 large eggs

1/2 cup unsweetened apple butter

1 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Sift together dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate small bowl, beat eggs. Add apple butter, milk and vanilla extract and whisk to combine. Form a well in the dry goods,  pour the wet into the dry and whisk thoroughly to combine (overbeating is less a concern with oat flour). The batter is going to be thin. Ladle into greased or lined muffin tins, and let sit a minimum of 20 minutes (you can easily make this the night before, and just pop into the oven when you get up). Bake in a 350 F oven for 30-40 minutes, until muffins are springy to the touch and a toothpick comes out cleanly. Let sit 10 minutes before eating.

Pumpkin Bread Failure

My mom's pumpkin bread has achieved as near to legendary status as is possible for non immortal baked goods. It was a staple growing up for breakfasts, snacks, lunch boxes, everything. It arrived on a regular basis in my college care packages, sustaining me through many papers, problem sets and exams.

Sadly, my mom's pumpkin bread is something I can no longer eat. So I wanted to reverse engineer one I could. It shouldn't be too hard right? I got muffins down on basically my first try, surely I could make pumpkin bread.

It started off well enough. Using my mom's recipe as a guide, I tried to make substitutions and adjustments based off of what I knew from making muffins. More liquid and leavening. Long rest to allow the flour to soak up the liquid. Extra eggs for stability.  It smelled right. It was the right color, and after resting in the fridge for a couple of hours it was the right consistency. It even looked ok while it was baking. I pulled it out when a skewer came out clean.

But it was a failure. It fell apart when I took it out of the pan. As it cooled, it wasn't cakey. It was mushy. Almost slimey. it was as though I had created some horrible hybrid of cake and pudding and unlike plum pudding or bread pudding, it was disgusting (it didn't help that I scaled back the sweetening a little too aggressively).

The sweetness thing is easy enough to correct. But I'm not sure what to do with this slime. The cake was done. It was as set as could be, but it was slimey. I think I may have to start from scratch, and keep only my mom's spice ratios.

Sometimes, experimental baking is very disappointing.