0 Gluten Free Key Lime Cupcakes

This past couple weeks have been quite daunting for me. I've been working quite a bit, so I sadly haven't had much chance to post recipes or cook. However, I have quite a few uber awesome recipes coming up, so I'm making up for it with high quality.

Now there are a lot of components to this dessert for sure, but all the hard work is worth the delicious pay off.

Here's a really zesty recipe that transforms key lime pie into a cake. It uses a gluten free graham cracker crust, homemade key lime curd, the cake recipe from my Tiramisu Cake, and a mascarpone cheese frosting. I hope you enjoy!

For the key lime curd, I use the following recipe from Allrecipes, "Fresh Lime Curd", and I substitute the lime juice with key lime juice. For this recipe, be sure to carefully temper your eggs, or else you'll end up with scrambled eggs in your curd.

Serves: 18 cupcakes
Prep Time: 35 minutes total

• 5 minutes for the crust, 
• 10 minutes for the cake, 
• 10 minutes for the curd, 
• 10 minutes for the frosting

Cook Time: 25 minutes for the cake, 30 minutes for the curd

Ingredients:
Crust
1 1/2 cup gluten free graham cracker crumbs
6 tbsp butter
1/4 cup sugar

Cake
227g eggs (4-5 large eggs)
227g white sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp baking powder
85g white rice flour
57g potato starch
28g tapioca starch
28g almond flour
28g brown rice flour
227g melted butter

Frosting
5 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
1 cup mascarpone
1 1/2 cup heavy cream


Steps
Preheat the oven to 350F.


Prepare the Allrecipes version of Fresh Lime Curd. Click here for the link. Like I said before, be sure to replace the lime juice with the key lime juice, and be sure to carefully temper your eggs. At first the curd will look like this:

At the end after cooking, the curd will go from a grey-tan color to a bold golden green:

Refrigerate the curd while preparing the rest of the components. 


Crust
Line cupcake tins with paper cups. In a small bowl, melt all the butter. Combine the crust ingredients, and then spoon crust into the bottom of each cup. Spread the crust into even layers.

Cake
In a small bowl, combine all the flours.

Fill a shallow dish with warm water, and place an empty medium-sized mixing bowl into the dish. Add the eggs, sugar, lemon, and vanilla, beat for about a minute. Remove the eggs from the water and beat them until they have tripled in volume, which took me about 5 minutes.

Gradually fold the flour into the batter until fully combined. Pour the batter into the cupcake tines, and bake for 25 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.


Place the cupcakes onto a cooling rack and let them cool completely.


Frosting


To make the frosting, start a double boiler, and add the egg yolks and sugar. Cook over high heat until the sugar is dissolved, stirring constantly. Once sugar has dissolved, reduce to low heat and continuously whisk for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes, remove the custard from the heat and whisk until it has thickened a bit, approximately 1 minute. Fold in the mascarpone until combined. Whip the cream in a chilled bowl until peaks form, and gently fold into the custard until well combined. Refrigerate the frosting until you are ready to frost.

Assembly


Using a circular piping tip, or a knife, cut holes into the middles of the cakes. 


Fill a Ziploc bag with the curd, and then cut off the tip to form a piping bag. Pipe the middle of the cakes with the curd.


Then frost the top of each cupcake with the frosting. Top the cupcakes with lime zest for garnish.

I hope you enjoy this recipe! Hope everyone has a good week!

2 Sunday Brunch

Not going to lie, if I could see this plate of pancakes every morning, I swear that I would have died and gone to heaven. This past weekend my friend Marggie and I decided to have Sunday brunch together at my house. For brunch we made my gluten free pancakes and fried some pancetta.

 The panel pictured above I used solely for the purpose of making pancakes. It's a Food Network skillet pan that my mom bought me for Christmas. It's got a non stick surface, and I totally recommend this pan. I barely use any spray oil and the pancakes are able to slide right off the pan.

The recipe that I used for these pancakes is located here: http://tcrumbley.blogspot.com/2010/08/gluten-free-pancakes.html

My greatest tip for these pancakes is to make sure the skillet is not too hot, and to flip them at the right time. To test the skillet, if a drop of water instantaneously evaporates from the pan, then the pan is too hot. You'll know that the pan is hot enough if water droplets dance around the pan before evaporating.

Meanwhile, wait to flip the pancakes when these two things happen:
1. the edges are not longer wet,
2. once the pancakes start to bubble, if you pop one of the bubbles and the pancake holds its shape.

I hope you enjoy these tips, and share some brunch-filled love with your friends and family this weekend!

2 Gluten Free Smores Brownies

I will have to say, I love the Scheduled Posting Feature that Blogger has. With my 46 hour work week coming up, it'll be the only way I'll be able to post recipes over the course of this week!

As promised on Google+ (my public profile is located here) I'm posting my adaptation for Gluten Free Smores Brownies!

Chocolate Fountain?

My friend Mary sent me the recipe that I adapted, written by Homemade for Holman. You can find the link with the recipe here. I really didn't deviate from the original recipe, I only adapted it to gluten free. Therefore, I wanted to not only share this tasty recipe, but also how I made it gluten free.

For the crust, I substituted wheat graham crackers with Kinnkinnick Gluten Free Graham Cracker crumbs. Not only are they gluten free, but they taste just how I remember graham crackers tasting.

Ended up with a really cool picture of the milk and the oil separated.

For the cake, I did the following:

• Did not add boiling water at the end
• Reduced sugar to 1 1/2 cups
• Substituted the 1 3/4 cup wheat flour with 1 cup white rice flour, 1/4 cup tapioca starch, 1/2 cup potato starch, 1/2 tsp xantham gum

For me, the boiling water made the batter too soupy, and it didn't bake quite right. Also, I prefer my chocolate cakes a little less sweet, so that is why I reduced the sugar.

Well I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did. It was the first time I used a butane torch and now I'm excited to use it in other applications.

Also, I've started to experiment more with my food photography, I'd love to hear your opinions!

1 Seared Steak and Potatoes

Once again I have a relatively busy week at work, but I wanted to share this rather delicious recipe and fun presentation of steak and potatoes! Serve it with basil butter for a colorful yet herbaceous presentation!

Serves: 3-4
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients
1 lb london broil
salt and pepper
2 slices bacon
4 white potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 green onion diced
2 tbsp butter, room temp
1 tbsp milk
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
1 tsp minced garlic



Steps
Preheat a grill pan to medium heat, spraying the pan with non stick spray. Season the steak with salt and pepper, and place on the pan once hot. For medium, let the steak cook for about 8-10 minutes, and then flip and let cook for another 8. Once done, remove from heat and let it sit for 5 minutes before cutting.

While the steak cooks, boil the potatoes in water for about 10 minutes or until tender. If you insert a fork in them without resistance, the potatoes are done. Drain the potatoes, and mash with a ricer or use an immersion blender to puree the potatoes. Add the butter, onion, milk, and some salt and pepper to the potatoes. Cook some bacon on medium heat in a pan, and once both sides are crispy (will take about 5-6 minutes) dice the bacon and mix it into the potatoes.

To prepare the basil butter, dice all of the basil leaves. Mix it together with the butter and garlic in a small bowl. Let it refrigerate until you are ready to serve.

When you are ready to serve, cut the sirloin into equal size portions. Scoop some potatoes onto a plate and place the steak on top. Spoon a small amount of butter (1/2 tsp - 1 tsp) into the top of each steak. I hope you enjoy this!

0 Orange Onion Pork Roast

Oh boy. August has been quite the busy month for me. Long work weeks do not work well with healthy diets and gluten free, which is why I like to make meals such as roasts that keep well over the course of the week, so I can cook once and eat it over the course of a few days. Here's a really easy pork roast that has a really tasty orange garlic sauce that I hope you enjoy! Serve with your favorite greens and seasoned rice!

Serves: 4-5 

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

2lb pork roast

1 medium onion

2 cloves garlic diced

3/4 cup orange juice

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1/4 white wine

2 tbsp oregano

1 tbsp thyme

1 tbsp rosemary

1 tsp paprika

salt and pepper

Steps:

Preheat a pot over medium high heat and add a few tablespoons of oil. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the pork, and  place into the pot. Let the pork cook for a few minutes, gaining a good sear. Flip the pork and continue cooking for another few minutes.

Reduce the heat to medium and add the onion and garlic. Once the onions begin to turn translucent, add the remaining ingredients. Stir the contents of the pot, reduce heat to medium low, and cover for about 40 minutes, or until the internal temperature is 140F.

Remove the pork from the pan, and cook the juice down over medium heat for about 10 minutes until the juice reduces to a sauce.

Serve the pork with vegetables and rice, spooning the sauce over top the pork.

I hope you enjoy!