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.

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-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!

The Go-To wheat-free egg-free dessert: Fruit crisp

Fill your 8x8 square pan not quite full with fruit of your choice: I like 1/2 apples and 1/2 fresh or frozen mixed berries. In a small bowl, mix together 1/3 C sugar, 1/4 tapioca flour, a tiny pinch of salt, and a teaspoon or more cinnamon. Other spices like nutmeg and cloves and ginger are also good. Sprinkle this mixture over the fruit and toss to mix. In the now-empty small bowl, mix 1 C oats, 1/3 C brown sugar, another tsp or so cinnamon, 1/3 C rice flour, another tiny pinch of salt, and then add 1/4 C (half a stick) melted butter. Mix the butter around till it moistens everything a little. Sprinkle this mixture on top of the fruit mixture, and bake at 350 degrees until bubbling and thick- an hour or more if your berries are frozen when you start, more like 40 minutes if there's only fresh berries & no apples. Let cool somewhat before eating or it will still be runny. Delicious with unsweetened whipped fresh cream!

Amazing and Easy GF Chocolate Cake

All right. Here's the wheat & egg free version, and I'll follow up with the wheat & egg substitutions, because it's easy & great (and bonus, it's low-fat! but high sugar. It is cake, after all.).

1 C. Water
1/2 C unsweetened cocoa, I prefer Dutched
1 T. butter
1 C. sugar
1/3 C. brown rice flour
2/3 C. Bob's Red Mill GF All Purpose Baking Flour
1 T. starch-based egg replacer plus 1/4 C water
1/2 t. salt
1 t. vanilla
a couple of drops of almond extract
1 t. baking SODA
1 T. vinegar (really)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, and grease and line with parchment paper an 8x8 square or an 8" round cake pan, or line cupcake tins with papers. You must do this now, as you will not have time to do it after you mix up the batter.

Mix the cocoa & water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add each ingredient one at a time, EXCEPT the vinegar, stirring after each addition. Whisk until it is lump-free, then add the vinegar, stir just a couple of times (it won't be all the way mixed but that's OK) and QUICKLY pour into pans and stick in the oven. The batter will be quite liquidy. Bake 40-45 minutes (cake pan) or 20-30 minutes for cupcakes, until the top is rounded & not soft to the touch. If you remember the elementary-school baking soda and vinegar volcano, you'll know why you have to do these last steps quickly.

I like to just dust the tops with powdered sugar, or frost them. It's also good if you leave out the almond extract and use a teaspoon or so of instant espresso.

For the wheat version, substitute an egg for the egg replace & water, and 1 C white or whole wheat pastry flour or a combination thereof for the Bob's & rice flour.

Blueberry Muffins

For all of you who live not on an island in Southeast Alaska, blueberries are probably long gone. But our berries go well into September, because our summers are typically temperate and rainy (much like our winters). I'm sure this recipe would be delicious with frozen berries, but the fresh ones were pretty great this morning. Phil (husband) is out of town, and what I really wanted for breakfast was a doughnut, but I knew it would be too hard to get away with it with just me and Esther, so I made muffins instead- which truly were as good as wheat-egg ones!

Blueberry-Banana Muffins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Whisk together:
1 C Bob's Red Mill All Purpose GF Baking Flour (I'll post on this sometime)
1/2 C brown rice flour
1 tsp xanthan gum
scant 1/4 tsp salt
1 T baking powder
1 T starch-based egg replacer (found the recipe on the Internet, you could use Ener-G)
1/2 C sugar

In a 2-C measure,
mash 1 very ripe banana and mix with
1/4 C melted butter
3/4-1 C milk
1 tsp vanilla

Mix the wet into the dry until just combined, adding more milk if it seems thick.
Fold in quickly, 1 C or so fresh blueberries

Spoon into paper lined muffin/cupcake tins. It made 12 regular muffins and 7 mini-muffins.
Bake until they're done on top. Sorry, bad advice, but I didn't time it. It was probably 20-30 minutes, I took the mini ones out before the bigger ones, and they were a lovely brown on top.

Remove from muffin tins immediately and cool on a wire rack. Really. Well, we ate them hot with butter (mmmm) but they really stuck to the paper liners that way. I was wondering if they make silicone-impregnated baking cups, like parchment paper, they might not stick so much. The paper-peeling went much better once they were cool.

Next time I'll probably try 2 bananas, because these were not very banana-y, but I wanted to avoid the density that sometimes comes with too much banana.