Lime Pistachio Squares

It's been quite a while since I posted anything on this blog but I thought it might be time to start things up again.

Allergy-Friendly Cupcakes

I consider myself lucky. As far as I know, I’m not allergic to anything. Definitely not any foods anyway. This past weekend I took on what I consider to be one of my greatest baking challenges yet – making an allergy-friendly cupcake that didn’t taste like one.

A few weeks ago, a friend approached me and asked if I could make cupcakes for her sister’s surprise bachelorette party. Not a problem. Then she reminded me of the allergies I needed to accommodate. The cupcakes had to be free of wheat (not necessarily free of gluten), dairy, nuts, and sulphites. Phew. Normally I’m quite nervous at the prospect of accommodating an allergy. In this case, all involved were adults who weren’t anaphylactic to any of the previously mentioned items.

I spent a lot of time online trying to figure out which ingredients were safe and which recipes would be best suited to all of the substitutions. My vegan cupcake book, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, was a great starting point for the dairy-free aspect of things. In the end though, I decided to modify the ever popular Coconut Lime cupcakes and make them allergy-friendly.

Getting rid of the dairy was easy. Since there was already a coconut component to the cupcake I substituted coconut milk (being careful to find one that was sulphite-free) for the buttermilk. Next, I found out there’s a ratio for substituting oil for butter in baking. Use about ¾ the amount of oil as you would butter. There were no nuts in the original recipe, nor did any of the ingredients contain anything. The hardest thing to substitute was the good old all-purpose flour. After much research, I decided to use a gluten-free flour blend I came across on Martha’s website. It was made up of a mix of rice flour (I mixed white and brown), tapioca flour, and potato starch. It seemed to be the most popular mix for baking I found mentioned on multiple sites. With all of the ingredients sorted out I was set!

This may be the first recipe I feel I’ve adapted enough to post it as my own…

Gluten-free, Dairy-free Coconut Lime Cupcakes

Adapted from Coconut & Lime

(makes 12 to 16)  

1 1/2 cups gluten-free flour
1 cup sugar
7 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup coconut milk
2 eggs, at room temperature
2 tablespoons lime juice (about 1 lime)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
zest of one lime (or more to taste)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350. Line 12 wells in a cupcake tin with baking papers. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, mix together the oil, zest, vanilla, and sugar until combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the juice. Alternately add the flour mixture and coconut milk, beginning and ending with flour. Fill each baking cup two-thirds full. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean, about 15 minutes.

For the frosting I used Martha Stewart’s Basic Buttercream (my new favorite) and substituted 1 cup of President’s Choice lactose-free margarine for the butter. I find spreading icing to be too time consuming so I just used a large freezer bag with the corner cut off to quickly pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes. Then I dipped the frosted cupcakes into toasted coconut to finish it off. Sulphite-free coconut can be found at health food stores. In this case, I just left the coconut off of a couple of them for the one person with the sulphite sensitivity.

They were a hit! I made a test batch early in the week (and used my co-workers as taste testers) to make sure that they were edible. Even I thought they were tasty. Of course the texture will never be quite the same as all-purpose flour but the flavor was quite good. I thought the frosting might be gross with the margarine but I actually loved the flavor and the ease of using the margarine. No worrying that you’ve left it out long enough to soften. It also piped beautifully. I will probably use the margarine in place of butter again. The bride-to-be was thrilled when she found out that she was able to eat the cupcakes, as was her friend who has Celiac disease.

While I won’t be making these kinds of substitutions on a regular basis (gluten-free flour is expensive!!), I am glad that I gave it a try.

Are there any of your favorite recipes that you’ve adapted to accommodate allergies?

Spring Has Sprung: Strawberry Rhubarb Cupcakes

There are two flavor combinations in this world that I love - chocolate & peanut butter and strawberry & rhubarb. Nothing tastes more like Spring to me than strawberry and rhubarb. I've had these cupcakes on my mind for weeks. The problem I've had getting them made was finding rhubarb. I was determined to make these this weekend so I went searching high and low. After checking every grocery store chain I could think of, and the newly opened for the season Parkdale Farmer's Market, it finally clicked and I knew where I'd be most likely to find what I needed. Herb and Spice in Wellington Village did not let me down. I was set!

Yum

I started off with this recipe for rhubarb cupcakes from Martha Stewart. I opted to add the seeds of a vanilla bean to the cake batter to kick things up a notch. I finally broke down and got some at Costco and now I feel like I need to use them in everything possible.

I wanted to get strawberries in the mix somehow so I went with strawberry rhubarb frosting instead of the whipped cream and rhubarb compote suggested in the recipe. I used the same cooked flour frosting I used for the Peeps cupcakes but decided to put my own spin on them. I added a couple of table spoons of strawberry rhubarb puree to the mixture before cooking it and added a couple more tablespoons after I whipped in the butter. It tasted delicious but something went wrong. I'm not sure what happened but it sort of looked like the butter separated. I tried adding some icing sugar to stabilize it a bit but no dice. 

Rhubarb and vanilla: together at last

The elusive 'barb

Looks good enough to eat

I had no idea how visible the vanilla beans would be

The finished product

Even though they didn't look as perfect as I'd like them to, I thought these cupcakes were delicious. Good strawberry and rhubarb flavor and not too sweet. The texture of the cake was exactly how I like it. Moist but not gummy and tender but not crumbly. I would definitely make these again but would probably go with a different frosting.

Are there flavors that make you think of Spring?

C is for Cookie

By the end of the work day today I had a hankering for cookies. Peanut butter cookies to be exact. For some reason, I've been thinking about these cookies for a few weeks. I last made them a couple of years ago for a birthday celebration at the office. It must have been in one of my daily Martha Stewart emails where I first saw this recipe for Peanut Butter Toffee cookies. How could they be bad? It's a really easy recipe to pull together. I made these tonight in under an hour even accounting for all the pauses for picture taking. A simple peanut butter base with added toffee bits and chocolate chips for good measure. The recipe calls for Skor bars (Heath for any Americans out there) but the chips were a more less expensive option.

First things first...peanut butter

Cookie dough sans goodies

Mmmm...

The finished product

Looks good enough to eat!

I think they turned out quite well. Hopefully my co-workers are ready for some sugar tomorrow.

Do you have any favorite, easy cookie recipes you're willing to pull together on a weeknight?