Churros (not gluten free)

Several years ago, back before I went gluten free, we vacationed in California and had out first taste of the mighty pastry known as churros. For anyone not familiar, these are fried dough sticks sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, and sometimes served with chocolate sauce.

Available at nearly every concession stand we walked past at various attractions during that vacation, churros weren't so easy to find back home. Not long after that trip, we decided to try and make our own, with the help of a recipe printed out from the Food Network website. By the way, I know that particular recipe has some horrible reviews, but it seems to do well enough for us. If anyone has a better recipe, please share it in the comments.


We've since made churros a few times over the years, most recently being this past weekend. They came out really well, and it's a process that gets easier each time. We don't ever bother with the chocolate dipping sauce, but that recipe is also on the Food Network website.

Churros
Vegetable oil, for frying
1 cup water
4 ounces butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup all purpose flour
3 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

I went ahead and put the cinnamon in with the sugar since it all gets mixed together anyway. Oh, and I accidentally bought extra large eggs the last time I went grocery shopping, so that's what we used. Nobody complained, so I'm assuming it didn't make a noticeable difference. You'll want to go ahead and let the oil start heating up while you make the dough. Pour about 1 1/2 inches of oil into a deep pan and use a thermometer so you can keep the temperature at 360 degrees.

 

Put the water, butter, and salt into a saucepan and bring to a rolling boil. Add the flour and stir vigorously for 1 minute over low heat, until the mixture forms a ball. Remove from heat. Beat the eggs well and then slowly add them to the butter and flour mixture while continuing to stir.

  

Set up a piping bag (or 2) with a large star tip. We used tip #1B, which is a very large drop flower. Fill the bags--no more than 2/3 full--with the churro dough and squeeze long strips of dough into the hot oil.

  

Fry for a couple of minutes on each side until the churros are golden brown. To help keep the oil at a consistent temperature, I don't recommend frying more than 2-3 at a time. Once cooked, remove the churros from the oil and place them on a cooling rack that's over paper towels. This allows the churros to cool as well as drains off any excess oil.

  

Mix the cinnamon and sugar together until thoroughly combined, then place on a plate. Once the churros are cool enough to comfortably handle, dredge them in the cinnamon sugar or sprinkle it on top.

  

Place them back on the wire rack to finish cooling, or serve them up on a plate and watch them disappear.

  

Now I just need to find a good gluten-free churro recipe so I can enjoy them. Any and all recommendations are welcome.

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Mud Pie: Gluten-Free Chocolate Tart Topped With Almond Pastry Cream

Have I mentioned how much I love the Whole Foods recipe iPhone app? My most recent experiment was based on the Apricot Tart in Quinoa-Almond Crust recipe I found on there, which is also available on the website.

I had some leftover quinoa flour I needed to use up, so this seemed like a good recipe to try. Of course, I was missing a few of the key ingredients, namely evaporated cane juice and apricots, so instead I made some ganache with coconut milk and dark chocolate for the tart filling and used the pastry cream as a topping. I'm always in the mood for chocolate.

It worked out pretty well, except I used Rapadura to make the pastry cream in lieu of evaporated cane juice, and it gave the pastry cream a horrible greenish-brown mud color. So I called it a mud pie. I don't have step-by-step photos for this recipe because I made the ganache and pastry cream after dark, ad you guys already know about the lighting issues in my kitchen. Plus, how the heck am I supposed to take pictures while making pastry cream? That stuff requires both hands and due attention. Anyway, here is the recipe as I made it.

For the crust:
1 cup quinoa flour
1/2 cup almond flour (I used Honeyville)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into small pieces
1 egg yolk

Place quinoa flour, almond flour, sugar, xanthan gum, and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Add butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, 8 to 10 seconds.

 

At which point, mine looked like the photo on the left, so I processed it  a few more seconds, until it looked like the picture on the right.

  

Add egg yolk and pulse until dough holds together, without being wet or sticky. That's what the recipe says, anyway, but mine stayed a little sticky.

  

Flatten dough into a disk on a sheet of wax paper, then wrap it up and let it chill for at least an hour.

 

When well chilled, roll dough into a 12-inch round on a lightly floured surface (I used what little quinoa flour I had left for this). The dough was still a bit sticky and tricky to work with, and I had trouble with it falling apart as I tried to put it in my 9-inch loose-bottomed tart pan, so I ended up pressing it in the pan. It then needs to chill for another 30 minutes before baking at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, or until bottom is dry and tart shell is golden brown. The recipe says to prick the bottom with a fork, which I did, but I didn't use any pie weights. Allow crust to cool completely before adding filling.

While it's cooling, you can make the ganache and pastry cream. The ganache is easy, just melt a bag of dark chocolate chips, I used Ghirardelli 60%, add a can of coconut milk, and stir until smooth. Let it chill in the refrigerator, and it will thicken up nicely.

The pastry cream is a little more involved, but well worth the effort. I used:
1 cup almond milk
1/4 cup Rapadura
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon butter

Over medium heat, stir almond milk and 2 tablespoons of the Rapadura in a small saucepan until it starts to simmer. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks, remaining Rapadura, and cornstarch until pale yellow. Slowly add half of almond milk to egg-yolks, whisking constantly. This tempers the egg yolks so they won't curdle. Pour everything back into the saucepan. Still working over medium heat, bring the mixture to a boil while whisking constantly. Once the mixture comes to a boil, continue whisking vigorously until it thickens, about 1 minute. Remove pan from heat and stir in almond extract and butter. Allow it to cool completely. Like I said, my pastry cream isn't the most appetizing color, so I think next time I may try making this recipe with maple syrup instead of the Rapadura.

When everything is cooked, baked, and cooled--in my case the following morning so I could have enough light to take photos--then fillings can be added to the tart crust. Since the chocolate was a lot thicker and heavier than the pastry cream, I spread that on the shell first, then added the pastry cream as a topping. Yum.

  

Here are more photos of the crust and filling once the tart had chilled for a while after the final assembly. Apart from the odd color of the pastry cream, I'm really happy with how this recipe came out. The crust is more like a cookie base than a flaky pastry, as one would expect with a fruit tart, which this was intended to be. The pastry cream is light and sweet, very similar in consistency to pudding, and the chocolate is awesome.

  

I won't lie, the quinoa flour does leave a bit of its flavor behind. It's not so much an aftertaste as more of a flavor undertone, but if you didn't know the quinoa flour was in there you might not even notice it. I'm glad I tried this recipe, as I think the crust could be used with a variety of sweet fillings. I may try it again with a different flour and see how it does.

Seasonal Sweets

I ended up making some gluten-free stuff after all. I tried substituting Arrowhead Mills All-Purpose Gluten-Free Baking Mixfor the regular flour in three different conventional recipes.

I attempted a gluten-free coconut cake, and it was a total fail. The cake sunk and was so dry it just crumbled apart. But at least I had plenty of cake crumbs to use in the trifles. The turnovers I made came out okay, and are certainly edible, but their texture is off. The cornbread, which I only made so I could have gluten-free cornbread dressing to eat with my turkey, turned out the best. I only have pictures of the turnovers, though.

After using an entire box of the Arrowhead Mills gluten-free baking mix, I'm not really all that crazy about it. I was surprised by how fine and powdery it is, and everything I made with it came out with a grainy texture. That didn't matter so much in the case of the cornbread, which has a rather coarse texture anyway. I suppose this mix might work better in muffins and cookies. I have another box, so I may try making some of the recipes printed on the back, and hopefully I'll like it better.

I saw this turnover pastry recipe in a magazine while I was waiting somewhere. I didn't take loads of photos, but I'm still going to share it. They actually tasted fine, their texture was just too grainy. I added seedless raspberry jam to some, Nutella to a few, and mince pie filling to the rest. The raspberry jam was too thin and oozed out of the seams a bit, and the Nutella really firmed up after being baked, but I got a great result with the mince pie filling.

Turnover Pastry:

1 cup flour (I used Arrowhead Mills Gluten-Free Baking Mix)
1/2 tsp salt
6 tablespoons butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
6 tbsp cream cheese, chilled and cut into small pieces
2 tbsp ice water
1 egg, beaten
filling of choice

In a food processor, pulse flour and salt. Add butter and cream cheese and pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle with ice water and pulse until dough forms a ball. Flatten into disk, wrap and chill 30 minutes.

Preheat oven 425. Flour dough and roll out 1/8" thick (made with gluten-free flour, this is another dough that needs to be floured and not rolled out between pieces of wax paper). Use a 4" round cutter to cut 10 disks (I got 12). Brush egg around rim, spoon 2 tsp filling into center and fold over. Crimp edges with a fork to seal.

Place turnovers on a parchment-lined baking sheet, brush tops with egg, and cut 2 small slits to vent. Bake 15 minutes, until golden.