My Favorite Cornbread EVER!

I have always 'liked' cornbread...but never LOVED it. Things have changed. Surprisingly, this gluten free version is my favorite. Go figure.

The flour blend mentioned and the book I got it from are here.


1 and 1/4 C. cornmeal
1 C. flour blend
1/3 C. sugar or fructose powder (I use sugar)
2 tsp. baking powder
1 and 1/2 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tsp. salt
2 large eggs
1 C. milk (2%, rice or soy)
1/3 C. canola oil

Mix the dry ingredients together and then separately mix the wet ingredients. Combine them and mix just til it is moist. Pour into greased cast iron skillet. Bake 25 minutes until top is firm and the edges are lightly browned. Serve warm. I use a LITTLE butter on mine..but not as much as I used to.
Great with soup beans, which are very good for you.
If you add cumin to your beans while they cook-about 1 tsp or so- it helps your body digest them easier. Plus it tastes good.

My skillet is about 8 + inches across the bottom and 10 inches across the top.

Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes

This is another recipe from the Cooking Free book by Carol Fenster. The chocolate cake recipe in cupcake form. The icing is from the Betty Crocker cook book. This combination makes for a VERY tasty cupcake.

The recipe says to fill 12 cupcake molds. Well, a couple months ago I dropped a 1/2 pint Ball jar on the corner of my Pampered Chef muffin stone. :( It snapped the corner cupcake well right off. So now I have an 11 cupcake - muffin pan. At first I was sad. But after making the blueberry muffins and these cupcakes in the ELEVEN pan...I find that they are taller and happier looking. So try filling 11 cups instead of 12 and see how it does for you.

Gluten Free Breads..in my opinion part two.

We use the Carol Fenster book, "Cooking Free" for the gluten free recipes. The blueberry muffins, chocolate cupcakes and the regular sandwich bread are tasty. You can get it on Amazon.com.

The recipe for almond bread is here at my niece's blog.

Sandwich Bread

Our first loaf of g-free bread. Not sure why it went down instead of up, but it is actually quite tasty. Margaret is thrilled.

Blueberry Muffins G-free

My daughter eats gluten-free.
We have struggled to find yummy g-free delights.
The boxed mixes are pricey and not so delightful. :(
We checked out a book from our library titled, "Cooking Free" by Carol Fenster
It has a flour blend that you make up and keep for general g-free cooking.
We mixed up a blend of:
1 and 1/2 C. of potato starch
1 and 1/2 C. sorghum flour
1 C. tapioca starch/flour
1/2 C. almond flour
Stir it really well and stored it in a lovely Tupperware container.
Then.....

we made blueberry muffins. (squeal)

2 and 1/3 C. flour blend
1/2 C. sugar ( we used raw sugar)
2 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tsp. unflavored gelatin powder
1 tsp. salt

1 C. milk (cow, soy or rice) we used cow-whole milk
1/4 C. canola oil
2 large eggs or 1/2 C. soft silken tofu ( um...we used eggs)
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 T. grated lemon zest-from a real lemon :)
1 C. blueberries- fresh or frozen.

Preheat oven 400° and grease 12-cup nonstick muffin tin. (we used 10 muffin cups)

Mix the dry ingredients together in a mixer. Mix the wet ingredients together and add to the dry ingredients. Gently stir in the blueberries. Scoop into cups and bake for 20-25 minutes (add 5 minutes extra if you use frozen berries).
Remove from the oven and cool on a rack.
While muffins are cooling, combine 2 T. powdered sugar with 2 T. fresh lemon juice (you saved it when you zested your lemon-I hope)
Drizzle this over the warm muffins.
Cool for 15 minutes.
Serve.

Be happy!

Breading Pudding-gluten free

Going gluten free isn't for the faint hearted. Trust me. It is doable. But it is hard to get out of the mind set that I have been in for the past 50 years. I am not gluten free.....I eat wheat. But my little daughter started eating gluten free on June 1, 2011. She wanted to see if going gluten free would change some health issues she was experiencing. When she could choose from anything she was hard to feed. Now having narrowed those choices down...some days it seems impossible. My sister has helped by tweaking a lovely almond bread recipe that THANKFULLY my daughter really enjoys. But before the almond bread she tried different types of gluten free bread. Mixes and ready made loaves. Rudi's is a nice ready made bread in the freezer section of some stores. She said it was 'o.k.'. She ate some of it but when the almond bread came along....it just stayed in the freezer-all lonely like.
Well, today I decided to make bread pudding out of the unwanted gf bread.
Hey it turned out quite tasty. Sugar and butter can fix anything!
I thought I would share with you.

For the pudding: combine these in a bowl.
4 slices of bread (if it is big bread like Rudi's)
2 eggs
2 C. milk
1 t. cinnamon
1 C. sugar
2 T. butter
Bake at 350° for one hour...or so.
When I use regular bread I bake it one hour and 15 minutes.

Once it has baked and out of the oven add the sauce.

2/3 C. sugar
1 C. boiling water
1 t. vanilla
1 heaping T. cornstarch (if not gluten free use 2 T. reg. flour)
1 T. butter.
Cook this until thickened and pour over bread pudding.

****I have yet to get things thickened with cornstarch as well as with flour****
If you have any ideas I would love to hear them.