My Kind of Weekend

(Warning: this is a long post since it contains two full recipes)

The holiday weekend has been absolutely wonderful. It was jam-packed full of projects and anyone who knows me knows that is just the way I like it. We did a lot of laying around, unfortunately a lot of cleaning up after sick dogs and a partly potty trained toddler, and best of all I spent a ton of time in the kitchen. Now that may not be every ones idea of a great weekend but when I have the time, there are few places I would rather be. Eric’s recent need to go gluten free has driven me to new creative heights and I have been quite upset when a new experiment went bad. Luckily this weekend was smooth sailing as I tried out a few new recipes that are bound to join our family favorites.

This weekend’s project line up:

Gluten Free Cinnamon Rolls
Gluten Free Buttermilk Bread
Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Barber family recipe Strawberry Icebox Cake
Custom designed vellum wrapped votives
Apple Pie Popscicles

Gluten Free Cinnamon Rolls
Serves 8 or 9

INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons shortening
1/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup of milk, room temperature
1 packet yeast (about 1 tablespoon)
1 egg
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup potato starch
1 cup corn starch (I used tapioca starch successfully)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/2 teaspoons xantham gum
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

TO SPRINKLE ON BOARD COVERED WITH PLASTIC WRAP
1 – 2 tablespoons sugar

FILLING (*see Ellen’s note at end of post)
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon
1/3 cup chopped nuts – optional

GLAZE
¾ cup powdered or confectionary sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
milk to thicken (I used soymilk)

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In medium bowl, combine shortening and sugar. Mix well. Measure warm milk and add yeast to milk. Whisk well to fully dissolve (**see Ellen’s note).

Add milk/yeast to sugar mixture. Add remaining ingredients. Mix very well, being sure to remove all lumps. Dough will be quite soft (***see Ellen’s note).

Take a piece of plastic wrap and lay it out so it covers a 13 1/2″ x 13 1/2″ square. Sprinkle sugar on the wrap. Lay ball of dough on top of that. Then pull out another sheet of wrap and gently lay over the dough. Pat the dough down into a roughly squarish pancake. Lift the top wrap up and then reposition it. Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough in between the two layers of wrap. Occasionally you’ll have to lift and reposition the wrap because it gets “stuck” under the edges. You might have to occasionally flip the whole thing over. Make sure that when you’re done you’ve got ABOUT a 13 1/2″ x 13 1/2″ square of dough.

Remove top piece of wrap. Combine filling ingredients. Spread evenly across dough’s surface. (Original recipe poster suggested leaving about a 1 1/2″ sugar free edge because when you roll the dough all the sugar shifts and fills this in; otherwise all the sugar spills out).Use the bottom piece of wrap to lift the edge of the dough and start to roll it up forming a long cylinder. Start with the sugary edge, which will be the center of your roll and roll toward the sugarless edge. Cut off or trim up the irregular ends of your “log”. Then cut into 8 or 9 slices of similar size, about 1 1/2″ wide. Place rolls into a greased round glass pie pan.

Bake approximately 20 minutes, until tops are lightly browned.

Combine powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk to make glaze. The amount of milk you use will depend on how thick you want the glaze to be. Stir until all lumps are dissolved. Drizzle over warm rolls if desired.

Gluten Free Buttermilk Bread

Liquid Ingredients:
3 Large eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup Oil
1 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon milk into which 4 tablespoons dry buttermilk has been dissolved.
Heat milk such that liquid mixture will end up at room temperature.

Dry Ingredients:
2 cups Brown rice flour
1/2 cup Potato starch flour
1/2 cup Tapioca flour
3 1/2 teaspoons Xanthan gum
1/4 cup Sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons Salt
2 1/4 teaspoons Active dry yeast

Preparation
Mix all liquid ingredients together and pour into breadmaker. Mix all dry ingredients, except yeast, together and spoon over top of liquid ingredients in breadmaker. Sprinkle yeast over dry ingredients, and avoid letting it touch the sides of the pan. On the Welbilt ABM3300, the settings are ‘Basic’, ‘Light’. I beleive this corresponds to your basic loaf settings on most machines. After bread is done, do not remove from pan until any ‘Stay Warm’ cycle is finished and the bread has cooled down.
Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Check out Ginger Lemon Girl’s blog for detailed recipe and instructions. These cookies were amazing; definitely not something you could identify as gluten free. I had to hide them away today in a cookie jar to keep from over-indulging.
Barber Family Strawberry Icebox Cake

Sorry the recipe is a closely guarded secret! ☺ But here’s a picture of the yummy goodness.