Cybele Pascal - YumYumSpot

My sweet friend Amy Green of Simply Sugar & Gluten Free and her lovely husband Joe are having a baby! Any day now, they’ll be adding a little one to their already loving and warm household. By the way she nurtures those beloved dogs, not to mention her tens of thousands of loyal followers, I know Amy is going to be the best mom in the world! In honor of her soon-to-be-born baby, some of us in the food blog world decided to throw her a baby shower, virtually. Thanks for organizing the party, Hallie and Maggie!

Gluten Free Vegan Focaccia

Makes 1 square 9-inch bread

This rustic flat bread is great served with white bean dip or dunked in red sauce. Its also wonderful dipped in olive oil. Be sure to serve it warm.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups warm water (110° to 115°F)

1 teaspoon agave nectar

1 (1/4-ounce) packet rapid-rise yeast

3 ½ cups Gluten-Free Bread Flour Mix (see below)

1 tablespoon xanthan gum

1 tablespoon salt

¼ cup olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoons coarse sea salt

1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary

1. Combine the water, agave nectar, and yeast in a large bowl. Mix well. Make sure the yeast is completely dissolved.

2. Whisk together the flour mix, xanthan gum, and salt.

3. Add the flour mixture to the yeast mixture in two batches and mix well for about 1 minute, or until the dough is coming together.

4. Spray a 9 by 9-inch baking pan with baking spray or grease with vegetable shortening and dust with cornmeal, tapping out any extra.

5. Transfer the dough to the pan, using a rubber spatula. Use a frosting spatula to smooth down the surface and coax the dough into the corners of the pan. Cover with a folded dish towel or cloth napkin. Place the pan in a dishpan and pour hot water to come two-thirds up the sides (or just fill your kitchen sink basin). It may float, but dont worry, thats fine. Be sure to fold your cloth so its not dragging in the water. Let the bread rise for 1 hour. I generally replace the hot water with new hot water after the first 30 minutes. Check it periodically to make sure its still quite warm.

6. After the dough has risen for 1 hour, use your fingers to gently make dimples all over the top of the bread. Return the bread to its warm bath to continue rising while you preheat the oven.

7. Preheat the oven to 450?F. Once its heated, pour the olive oil over the top of the bread, brushing lightly with a pastry brush to distribute it evenly. Sprinkle the top with the coarse sea salt and rosemary. Bake for about 22 minutes, or until golden on top. Transfer to a cooling rack, turn out of the pan, and let cool for about 15 minutes before slicing.

Table of Contents

Gluten-Free Bread Flour Mix

Makes 6 cups

1 1/ 2 cups millet flour

1 1/2 cups sorghum flour

2 cups tapioca starch

1 cup potato starch

Combine all the ingredients in a gallon-size zipper-top bag. Shake until well blended. Store in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Focaccia and Gluten-Free Bread Flour mix recipes reprinted with permission from The Allergen-Free Bakers Handbook: How to Bake Without Gluten, Wheat, Dairy, Eggs, Soy, Peanuts, Tree Nuts, and Sesame. Copyright © 2009 by Cybele Pascal, Celestial Arts, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, Berkeley, CA. Photo credit: Chugrad McAndrews.

(Please note that all my recipes are completely free of all top allergens (wheat, dairy, soy, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, fish, shellfish, and gluten), so as many people as possible can enjoy them. Additionally, all the ingredients are available at Whole Foods, and online at Amazon.com. If you have trouble finding something, let me know and Ill help you find it.)

SAFETY NOTE: Because each persons food sensitivity and reaction is unique, ranging from mild intolerance to life-threatening and severe food allergies, it is up to the consumer to monitor ingredients and manufacturing conditions. If manufacturing conditions, potential cross contact between foods, and ingredient derivatives pose a risk for you, please re-read all food labels and call the manufacturer to confirm potential allergen concerns before consumption. Ingredients and manufacturing practices can change overnight and without warning.

For other fantastic Gluten-free and Sugar-free treats coming your way to the baby shower, check out the other party guests below. Everyone is cooking up something wonderful!

Congratulations, Amy and Joe!

xoxo

Cybele

I’m not sure how it’s happened again, but Allergy-Friendly Friday has almost turned into Allergy-Friendly Saturday, which certainly doesn’t have the same ring. Forgive me. I’m ushering it in, by the skin of my teeth.

Please come back Monday, I’ve got a fun surprise for you! In the meantime, some great Allergy-Friendly recipes from last week’s Allergy-Friendly Friday roundup were:

Please add your allergy-free and/or gluten-free recipe links to Allergy-Friendly Friday. PLEASE remember you have to link back from your post, for me to feature your recipe. That means link WITH A HYPERLINK THAT LINKS BACK HERE. When you link back to this post, you can share both your own and others fabulous allergy-friendly recipes. Am I repeating myself? And remember, I specialize in creating gluten-free recipes that are free of the top 8 food allergens, but yours dont have to be. They just have to be allergy-friendly in SOME way.

I’m posting this recipe for dairy-free, egg-free sugar cookies well before Valentine’s Day so you have a couple weeks to play with rolling and cutting them out with your kids. They are also gluten-free, and nut-free too, which means they’re a great all-purpose recipe for folks trying to come up with safe, allergy-free treats for school Valentine’s Day parties!

Sugar cookies are a particular favorite of mine, so I jumped at the opportunity to come up with a new recipe. In the past, Ive made recipes for Rolled Maple Sugar Cookies, rolled brown sugar cookies, and plain old sugar cookies made with granulated sugar. I wanted something more tender this time around, so I opted for confectioners sugar, which gives these cookies that sought-after melt-in-your mouth feel.

Palm oil shortening stands in for butter, my go-to superfine brown rice flour mix replaces wheat flour, and Ener-G replaces the egg.

To be sure they are truly kid-friendly, I gave the cookies a test run at my sons play date with Oliver, who has no food allergies. I served the boys the cookies, without revealing they were special. Oliver ate four, and then asked if he could bring two home: one for him, one for his sister. Success!

Melt-in-Your-Mouth Allergy-Free Sugar Cookies

Makes 24

A family favorite, these beautiful cookies are buttery and tender. Plus, theyre vegan, so you can have a taste as you mix. Bake them unadorned, dress them up with sanding sugar, or go all out and decorate them with icing for a truly festive treat!

Ingredients:

1. Combine confectioners sugar and vegetable shortening in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, and beat on medium speed, until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary.

2. Add egg replacer and vanilla extract. Mix well.

3. Measure flour, using a large spoon to scoop flour into the measuring cup, then level it off with the back of a knife. Whisk with the xanthan gum, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.

4. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture, beating on medium-low speed, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary, until thoroughly combined. The dough will begin to ball in the center.

5. Lay out two sheets of parchment paper. Divide the dough evenly between the two sheets of parchment, using a rubber spatula to get it all out of the mixer bowl. Mold dough into two disks. Cover with a second sheet of parchment, and roll out to ¼-inch thickness. Put rolled dough on baking trays or cutting boards and chill 1 ½ hours in the fridge; dont chill much longer or it will become brittle.

6. Preheat oven to 350°F.

7. Remove dough from fridge and let rest 5 minutes. Remove top sheet of parchment and cut out cookies into shapes with your favorite cookie cutters. Transfer to parchment-lined baking trays.

8. Gather up remaining scraps of dough and mold into a disk. (You may need to work it a bit with your hands to make it pliable again.) Roll to 1/4-inch thick between two sheets of parchment. Roll and cut until youve used it all. Bake unadorned or sprinkle with decorating sugar.

10. Bake cookies in center of oven for 10 minutes. Let cool on baking tray for 10 minutes before transferring to cooling rack. Let cool completely before icing.

White Icing

Frosts about two dozen cookies

1. Combine confectioners sugar and rice milk and mix until smooth. Ice cookies, then sprinkle immediately with decorating sugar. Let rest a couple hours until icing sets.

2. Store in an airtight container. These also freeze well.

Melt-in-Your-Mouth Allergy-Free Sugar Cookies

SAFETY NOTE: Because each person’s food sensitivity and reaction is unique, ranging from mild intolerance to life-threatening and severe food allergies, it is up to the consumer to monitor ingredients and manufacturing conditions. If manufacturing conditions, potential cross contact between foods, and ingredient derivatives pose a risk for you, please re-read all food labels and call the manufacturer to confirm potential allergen concerns beforeconsumption. Ingredients and manufacturing practices can change overnight and without warning.

Check out the amazing honor my Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook received this week! See excerpt below:

From MarthaStewart.com:

“The Martha Stewart Show” Bookshelf

As an avid reader and cook, Martha often invites influential authors and chefs to appear on “The Martha Stewart Show.” Here are some of their must-read books, along with a few by Martha herself.

Cybele Pascal’s “Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook” is packed with sweet and savory recipes that leave out ingredients responsible for most allergies. Cybele is an expert on allergen-free ingredient substitutions, and she blogs about allergy-friendly cooking for Whole Living Daily.

Buy the Book: “Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook”

Read more at Marthastewart.com: Must-Have Product Picks from “The Martha Stewart Show”

“The Allergen-Free Bakers Handbook is…a triumph for the food-allergic community. …This book is a goldmine for special-diet bakers–particularly for parents of newly diagnosed kids who dont know where to begin.

read more here: Living Without