Wheat Free Chex Mix and Eggless Nog!!

On with the holiday traditions! Since around Thanksgiving, I had been craving a salty snack, but it didn't occur to me that it was Chex Mix until we were grocery shopping the week before Christmas. Usually there's an endcap of sale Chex to remind me, but there never was this year.

Turns out it was an easy one to convert, though you may have to do a tiny bit more work if you are completely gluten-free, as the corn Chex has barley in it. I never really liked the wheat Chex anyways. But Rice Chex is advertising that it's gluten-free! See www.chex.com for more details.

Here is my family's cereal-snack mix recipe, now wheat-free. It's a little spicier than the recipe on the box, and not as intense and salty as the pre-made kind.

Wheat Free Cereal Snack Mix
(I hear one can't call it "Chex Mix" since that name's trademarked, but I assure you my recipe book doesn't read "cereal snack mix".)

1 box Rice Chex
1 box Corn Chex or GF alternative
1 box GF O-shaped oat cereal (we used a generic organic called "Natural Directions")
1 bag GF pretzels (we used Ener-G Wyld pretzels, but even better are the Glutino pretzels, I like those better than wheat pretzels!)
1 10 oz can mixed nuts
about 8 oz peanuts
a couple of handfuls of raw pecans

2 sticks butter
1/2 C vegetable oil
4 T Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp Tabasco
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp celery seed
1 tsp garlic powder

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Mix the top group of ingredients in a gigantic roasting pan or a couple of big EZ-foil pans. Melt the butter, add the oil and the rest of the spice ingredients and mix well. Pour into a glass measuring cup and drizzle a little over the top of the cereals, mix it up, drizzle some more, mix some more, until it's all on the cereal and the cereal all has a light coating of the butter/spice mixture. Bake for 3 hours, stirring every half hour. Keeps for a couple of weeks in a tightly closed jar.

Bonus recipe:
Eggless Nog
Put 1 banana in your blender jar. Fill to the 1 C mark with whole milk. Add 1/4-1/2 tsp vanilla and a few grinds or shakes of nutmeg. Blend until creamy. Yum! This was for my little one, but it would also be good with rum or whiskey. Previously I tried whipping cream and then mixing it with milk and nutmeg, but the whipped cream kind of floated to the top. No banana flavor, though.

Wheat-free, egg-free Pfefernuts (pfeffernusse, pepper nuts, pfefferneuse, whatever)

More holiday traditions- this time, my husband's side of the family. I've been making these little nutty cookies for a couple of years at his request, and since he washes all the dishes, who am I to refuse? They are a little addictive. Since we're (well, they are) wheat-free now, I had to adapt...

Just from looking at the original recipe, I ascertained that the only thing keeping these cookies from being rocks was the eggs. Hmm. So I scoured the Internet for an egg-free version, using "vegan" as my convenient search term, and I discovered that an egg-free pfeffernusse recipe was included in a book called, "My Sweet Vegan" but no one was kind enough or copyright-brazen enough to reprint it. In my search, though, I discovered that these mysterious pfeffernusse are as traditional at Christmas for Germans as dios is for Hungarians, and that like dios, the recipes definitely vary. No others I found were tiny like the recipe from my mother in law, though all were very similar. Interestingly, our recipe does not call for pepper. Maybe someday I'll try that.

I ended up just doing a straight substitution into her recipe with Bob's Red Mill GF flour for the flour and egg replacer and water for the eggs, and you know what? They're great. Light and crisp- possibly nicer than the wheat version! I mixed up a small batch of those, too, so we'll get to do a taste-test, unless they all get eaten first. I baked the wheat-free, egg-free version tonight.

Pfefernuts
(this makes A LOT. I made 1/3 of the recipe and filled two one-quart containers)

Cream together:
3 C sugar
1 1/2 C butter
1 C sour cream
3 T egg replacer and 3 T water, mixed first (originally 3 eggs)

Add and mix:
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp each: mace, anise oil, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, allspice

Add:
6 C Bob's Red Mill All Purpose GF flour to make stiff dough (originally 10 C flour)

Refrigerate overnight (or longer). Make into rolls as round as a penny. Cut into thin slices (or blobs) . Bake in 350 degree oven on a parchment-lined baking sheet until brown. Yum! Eat by the handful!

Perfect!

This dios was the best I've made in years. The pic's a little blurry, but it was delicious! I froze half so I'll still have some on Christmas. Oh, and in case you're wondering, it's DEE-osh. Something about God- you know, Christmas and all.

Wheat Dios (see previous post for wheat-free egg-free)

So here's my recipe for dios, Hungarian Christmas bread. I'm told it is traditionally made with either poppyseed or walnut filling; my family has only ever made it with walnuts. My mom wrote this recipe down after watching my Italian grandma on my dad's side make it for her Hungarian husband, my grandpa. It is a living recipe, and although it has history, I have adapted it over time as well and I no longer know exactly who contributed what portion.



Dios

Mix and set aside:
1 T yeast
1/4 C lukewarm water

Stir together, cool to lukewarm, & put in mixer bowl:
1 C scalded milk
1/4 C butter
1/2 C sugar
1 tsp salt

Add:
2 beaten eggs
2 C flour (roughly 1:4 whole wheat to white flour)
yeast mixture

and mix with paddle attachemnt to make batter. Switch to dough hook, and add
2 1/2 C flour (same ratio) to make a soft dough. Knead until satiny (really). let rise covered until doubled.

While dough is rising, make the filling:
3/4 lb raw walnuts, ground in a meat grinder (best), pulsed in a blender or food processor (areful not ot make walntut butter), or crushed with a rolling pin in a bag.
1 grated orange rind
2 beaten eggs
1/2 C sugar
a handful or two of raisins
orange juice ot moisten (about the juice from the zested orange)

Punch down, divide in 2 or 3 and roll out about 1/4" thick. Spread on the filling, leaving a litle margin around 3 sides, roll up, moisten & pinch to SEAL WELL, let rise again. Bake at 350 degrees about 35 minutes, till richly browned and hollow-sounding.

Wheat-free, Egg-free Dios (Hungarian Christmas bread)

So it's our first wheat-free, egg-free Christmas, and I couldn't bear the thought of going without dios for the holidays. I never haven't had dios for breakfast every morning the week up to and after Christmas, and I knew if I was going to make the wheat version, I'd have to figure out a wheat and egg free version for Esther and Phil. And I did! What a lovely success it was! I'll post the wheat-egg-free recipe here first, with photos, and follow it with my version of my mother's version of my dad's mother's version of dios. Enjoy, fellow Hungarians!

Wheat-free, Egg-free Dios
adapted from the "Cinnamon Swirl Bread" in Bette Hagman's The Gluten-Free Gourmaet Bakes Bread.


First, make the filling by mixing he following:
3/8 lb raw walnuts (6 oz, this is half the recipe I made, but I did wheat and wheatless at the same time), ground in a meat grinder (best) or pulsed in a blender (carful not to make walnut butter) or crushed in a bag with a rolling pin
the zest of 1/2 organic orange
the juice of 1/2 orange
1/4 C sugar
1 T egg replacer
a small handful of raisins

If it isn't moist enough to stick together, you can add a little more orange juice, but it shouldn't be too wet. Set aside.

Whisk together the dry ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer or a large mixing bowl:

2 C Four Flour Bean Mix*
1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
2T plus 1 tsp egg replacer
1 tsp unflavored gelatin
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 C sugar
2 T almond meal
2 1/2 tsp dry yeast

*Four Flour Bean Mix = 1 part tapioca flour, 1 part cornstarch, 1/3 part sorghum flour and 2/3 part Garbanzo/Fava Flour, Bob's Red Mill is fine or Hagman has her preferred brand

Scald (bring just to boiling, remove any skin that forms & discard) 1 C milk and add
3 T butter
1 T vanilla
let cool

Separately, mix 1/4 C water and 1/2 tsp vinegar

Put your bowl in the mixer with the paddle attachment. Turn the mixer to the lowest setting and slowly pour in the milk/butter mixture, then the water/vinegar & mix until well blended, like a batter. Add more water if it's too thick. Turn mixer to high and beat for 3 1/2 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare 3 mini loaf pans by lining with parchment paper.

When the dough is finished, it will be sticky and look like this -->






Now scoop approximately 1/9 of the batter into each of the three mini pans- just enough to spread it in a layer on the bottom



Then scoop about 1/6 of the filing out and roughly crumble it over the layer of dough. Pat it as flat as possible with a spatula. Repeat the dough layer on top, then another filling layer, finishing with a dough layer. Smooth the dough on top! Your final loaf will have the same basic shape you give it here! Make sure all the filling is covered, as well.



Let the loaves rise until approximately doubled, about an hour or more if your house is cold.










Fully risen loaf












Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for about half an hour, covering loosely with foil after about 10 minutes. The loaf should be a nice golden brown when it's done.






Let the loaves cool completely before cutting them! I was especially impressed by the fine crumb and soft texture of this bread, just as it should be. And the flavor is terrific! It's not the traditional swirl of dios, but it will do. Next post, I'll put the wheat recipe up, but my gluten free girl is demanding my attention!

I just saw that IKEA has a clay covered baking dish much like the Romertopf I used to cook that lovely loaf of Thanksgiving bread. Here's the link: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80087711. They also have an enamelware dutch oven that would work. The original no-knead bread calls to be cooked in a dutch oven, but I didn't have one so I used my Romertopf instead.