Category: Gluten Free

In Memory of Beffa WyldMoon Woman of the Pen

Maybe recipes wait in food heaven to be born.

I don’t know, but their potential calls to me, and sometimes they won’t let me go until I give them form. These cookies were like that. I’d been working on a masa pastry dough, and saw some potential for crackers or little cakes….
I wondered, masa cookies? I looked online and yes, poor misshapen things with m&m’s stuck on them. They looked so clunky.

So I dialed-up. Can I still do that? Hello cookie paradise?
“Hello, if you were a masa cookie what would you be like?”
Sure enough they began to answer, left and right.
You just have to ask and then listen up.
--I’d be like a sugar cookie, except with a masa taste.
--I wouldn’t be dry please use potato and tapioca starches.
--I wouldn’t be crumbly so use flaxseed.
--I’d be like a Moorish medieval cake.
--I’d be sweetened with honey.
--I’d have a hint of hot chilies to resonate with the corn..
--I’d have spicing that marry the Old and New Worlds--
like coriander, anise and cinnamon.
-- I’d be buttery, but have some leavening.
-- I don’t want to be dense, use some sorghum flour.
Sorghum and masa are a great match.
-- Don’t short the salt, but use good salt.
--Ok, a touch of vanilla
-- Apple cider vinegar to contrast against the sweet and bring around the spices
--Roll me in sugar at the end and then press me with a beautiful stamp.
--Don’t burn us, we’re good cookies.
I promised I wouldn’t burn them, and wrote out a trial recipe. It was Sunday morning and I convinced myself that my husband wouldn’t mind masa cookies for breakfast. We ate the first round of cookies with our breakfast and discussed the changes needed. While he cleaned up, I rewrote the recipe, then made up the second batch. I was a bit obsessed to get it right before the cookie muses left. When the second batch came out of the oven and I'd tasted, I knew a cookie full of hope and promise had been born.

Masa Honey Spice Cookies

Makes sixteen 2½ inch cookies, gluten-free and low sugar
The first bite in and your mouth will dance with delight. Even spicing, honey, corn, a hint of heat, touch of sparkling sugar on the crust. The crumb so moist and buttery. You’ll wonder where you landed, try another to make sure.

Ingredients
½ cup /60g masa harina or fine corn flour
½ cup /75g gluten free pastry flour
½ cup /80g potato starch
2 tablespoons /12g ground flaxseed
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoons sea salt
⅛ teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon whole toasted coriander ground
1 teaspoon whole toasted anise seed ground
pinch of cayenne
½ cup /113g unsalted butter
⅓ cup honey
1 large egg
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
3 tablespoons sugar for rolling

Method
using a food processor or by hand
Grind flaxseed in spice grinder and set aside
Toast and grind coriander and anise seed together and set aside
Add all dry ingredients to the food processor bowl, spin to combine
Cut butter into small pieces and pulse 8-9 times into dry ingredients
Add honey, egg, vanilla and ACV.
Run processor until ingredients come together into a dough
Let dough process for 1 minute
Chill dough for 15 minutes
Preheat oven to 350F/180C
Line a cookie sheet with parchment
Divide dough into 16 balls of 2 tablespoons each
Roll each ball in sugar or baker’s sugar
Arrange on sheet with space between each ball
Press each cookie evenly with a cookie press or bottom of a glass
Baked cookies should be 2½ inches across
Bake for 12 minutes or until they smell perfect

Flaky Moist Rollable Masa Dough

10/10/2016

Revisionist Baking Monday Dedicated to Mateo for his 23rd Birthday

hands-on Lesson in recipe development

Orion, my apprentice wanted to know how I develop recipes, because it's an interest area of his. I’ve been trying to slow down and articulate the process I go through for him. It’s difficult, because it’s a lifetime of interwoven processes, mixtures of science, common sense, inspiration, art, and intuition….
I was making refried pinto beans for lunch. I had the last zucchini from the garden, plus onions and dried chilies. Orion was roasting the zucchini with onions, toasted cumin and coriander.
I thought I was just making tortillas, but then the whisper happened. "What if you added potato starch for more moisture?" Then it evolved into a pastry using butter, because Orion remembered that I use butter for my tamales. I glanced at my frequently used fridge magnet recipes, and noticed that Grandma’s corn bread used the same ratios I was working with. Wonderful, because I wanted to add baking powder to lighten up the masa with the butter. I knew it was going to happen in the food processor because it’s excellent for making doughs. I asked Orion to estimate for me how much liquid it would need to pull it all together? He thought ½ cup of water, and he was right.
I felt that this dough was going to work out. We made it up into tartlets, chilled them and then prebaked. We taste tested with some of the roasted zucchini, onions and cheese. Approval. I tested the dough again the next day for a tamale pie, and I'll definitely be making it again. I like this dough.

Flaky Moist Rollable Masa Dough
Makes enough for one 9 inch pie with lattice top
This masa dough is light and moist, but with a full corn taste, flaky like pastry yet reminds me of a really good tamale. It’s super easy to make, and can be formed into all kinds of shapes. Try it for pies and tarts, stuff it with a filling, layer for a tamale pie, or fold into a gordita. You can bake it in the oven, or on the griddle like a tortilla.

Ingredients
1 cup /117g masa harina
½ cup /80g potato starch
2 tablespoons/12 g ground flaxseed
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon sea salt
½ cup /113 g/1 stick cold unsalted butter cut into small cubes
½ cup/ 115g water

Method
Using A Food Processor
Measure all dry ingredients into food processor and spin
Add cold butter pulse 7-8 times or until butter is the size of small peas
Add water while the machine is running
Let dough spin to clear the sides of the bowl and knead together

For Tartlets
Measure 1 rounded tablespoon dough per tartlet tin
Press evenly in oiled tins
Chill dough in tartlet tins for 1 hour before blind baking
Bake Chilled Tartlets at 425F/ 220C for 10-12 minutes
Fill prebaked tartlets and return to the oven for 12 minutes
for pre-cooked fillings.

For Tamale Pie
Split dough in half
Roll bottom on floured parchment and lift into a removable bottom tin
Roll top as for a pie and cut out shapes.
Chill filled pie with top pieces on for ½ hour before baking
Bake at 425F/220C for 30-40 minutes.

Pre-cooked Filling Ideas
Refried beans & cheese
Spicy carnitas
Roasted veggies with green chilies
Chicken chili verde
Black beans and mole sauce
Picadillo with olives

Uncooked filling Ideas
Chocolate/Cinnamon/ Custard
Pumpkin or Sweet Potato Pie
South of the border quiche

Other Ideas
Masa Pockets/Tetelas
Gorditas
Tamale Pies
Pupusas
Arepas

Why this dough works

Masa creates the base taste and textures of hearty corn
Potato starch adds moisture to the masa which can be dry and crumbly
Ground flaxseed adds binding power and extra nutrition
Butter creates flakiness
Baking powder and soda help to separate and lift the butter layers making the dough lighter

Garden Gifts: Roasted Califlower Medley with Tahini Sauce

9/9/2016

Local Food Friday

Roasted Veggie Medley

Serves 4 as a side dish
Ingredients
1 medium cauliflower broken into florets
1 eggplant peeled and sliced into cubes
1 medium zucchini sliced into cubes
A handful of green beans cut into pieces
10 garden pole beans cut into sections
1 head of garlic peeled into separate cloves
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
Sea salt about 1 teaspoon

Instructions
Preheat oven to 450F to 230C
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper
Lay diced vegetables on the tray
Massage olive oil and sea salt into the vegetables
Bake for 20 minutes,
Stir and bake for another 25 minutes
Vegetables should be melty and tender roasted

Creamy Kefir Tahini Sauce
Makes 1 1/2 cups

Ingredients
1 cup roasted tahini
½ cup milk kefir, or water kefir
more may be needed to thin the sauce
2-3 cloves raw garlic crushed
or 5 cloves roasted garlic
Juice of 1 lemon plus zest
or ¼ cup preserved lemon chopped
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Instructions
In a food processor while vegetables are roasting
Crush garlic in food processor
Add other ingredients and process until smooth
Taste and adjust for salt, sour or liquid
Serve roasted veggies with tahini sauce on warm flatbreads with lightly salted chopped tomato, cucumber and shredded lettuce
With Love Enjoy!

coveting a cauliflower

We had company, our friends Michal, Michael and their almost two-year-old daughter Maya over the weekend. As a parting gift Michal presented me with a beautiful locally grown dark yellow cauliflower, and mottled white and purple eggplant. She must of known I’ve been coveting a cauliflower, craving a favorite recipe of mine-- roasted cauliflower and tahini sauce with flatbreads.

Cooler full of Cucumbers

Then today, Lee who tends the big garden next to our house, brought us a cooler full of cucumbers, zucchini, and two kinds of pole beans. Garden gifts. Abundance of the season, it’s all rolling in from the farms and gardens. My dehydrator is a constant background whir, pickling pots bubbling, and the crockpots full of cooking down apples and plums.
I’d toasted and fermented garbanzo bean flour last night, because I’d glanced at the recipes on the backside of the Bob’s Red Mill package. One for falafel patties, and the other for Whole Grain Flatbreads. I had to, of course, reconstruct the recipes and started by toasting the bean flour in a dry skillet for 4-5 minutes on medium heat. I think I’ll do it in the oven next time; then added firm sourdough starter to both recipes and fermented overnight. Wonderful results, but I want to test them again before I publish the recipes.

From all the bounty I roasted the cauliflower in medley with the other veggies, rubbing them with olive oil and salt; made the tahini sauce; cut up cucumber and shredded lettuce; pressed and cooked up the flat breads and pan fried the falafel patties.
I wouldn’t really call them falafel, but they were good and have possibilities.
I love this local life, the soft rain, my garden transitioning to the slower season and warm meals inside with good company.