Last week, before I left Tulsa, we stopped in for cheesecake and coffee at the Gypsy Coffeehouse downtown. In conversation with the owner, as my mother and I ate the topping off our cheesecakes, and scraped all traces of graham cracker crust off of every bite, the owner told us he wished he had a good gluten free alternative for the crusts. I told him I had an almond-flour based shortbread cookie recipe I'd been meaning to try, and I promised I would test it and let him know whether it might work for cheesecake. So far everything he tried was too crumbly. Hopefully this one will hold together better. Tonight's post will be dedicated to the first round of recipe testing.
First, credit where credit is due. I don't remember where I found this link (most likely on Facebook), but the recipe was posted in Real Food Kosher online. It's titled "Vanilla Shortbread (Grain-Free and Egg-Free)," and it was posted by an individual named Lisa Rose. Since I'm currently living alone, I decided to make a half-batch, and as it has no eggs, dividing it was very easy. The full recipe is as follows:
1 1/2 cups almond flour
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of sea salt
1/3 cup melted butter, ghee, or palm shortening
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tablespoon vanilla powder or vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Whisk wet ingredients together and mix together with dry ingredients. Scoop out dough, 1 tablespoon at a time, and place on baking sheet. Flatten dough balls gently with your fingers. Bake for 15-18 minutes until edges begin to golden. Let cool on a rack.
My experience so far:
It was a little difficult to find tapioca starch at my regular grocery store, but I eventually found it at Whole Foods. I probably could have ordered it at Publix, if I had wanted to go through the effort. The almond meal is fairly coarse. I need to investigate ways to grind it more finely, without turning it into almond butter. The chunky texture was noticeable in the final product.
Yes, the recipe calls for separate bowls for wet and dry ingredients, but I'm a "throw it all in one bowl" kind of gal.
The dough is fairly wet, and I wondered whether I needed to add more of one of the flours, but I stuck with it, in the proportions called for. It turned out that it wasn't very sticky, so the wetness didn't seem to be a problem.
No amount of digging in the lower cabinets, on my knees, produced my silpat for cookies. I have no idea where it is. And I learned many moons ago that wax paper (which I have) and parchment paper (which I do not) are NOT the same thing. So to avoid cookies stuck to the sheet, I sprinkled a little of the tapioca starch, and slid the dough around a little bit, to make sure they were not going to stick. Also, I used a couple spoons to scoop the dough, and I appear to have made them almost twice as big as they were supposed to be.
After 16 minutes at 350.
They needed to cool completely on the rack. I broke open the first one while they were still warm, and it was a bit cakey. The cooler ones were crisper.
It's possible a little less baking soda would have made them harder, like traditional shortbread. But these were very good, once cool.
I could really taste the almonds in the final product, but I like almonds, so that was a positive. Tapioca starch is a fairly sweet flour, so the tiny bit of maple syrup was plenty to make them sweet. I could have even handled using a tiny bit more salt, to intensify the flavors.
My big kitty boy says he approves of them as well. He helped me finish the third one I ate.
I stopped at Publix today for cream cheese and raspberries. Tomorrow, I try to make cheesecake with this recipe. After round one, I'm expecting good results. I will let you know.
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