Gluten-Free Baguettes with Greek Olive Tapenade Recipe

Rustic, easy gluten-free baguette.

Why do you always crave the things you can't have? Is it because desire dims upon acquisition? Is it the crusty chestnut that the chase is more interesting than the catch? Do we simply take for granted the things we hold, the things we use, the things we eat, day after day? Familiarity breeds perhaps not contempt but a subtle numbness. We slowly turn off to the everyday beauty, the generosity of the simple luxuries in our life. It seems to me a form of forgetting. A spiritual amnesia that coaxes us into believing we want what we don't have. And we neglect to appreciate what we do possess.

Which brings me, I'm sorry to say, not to any esoteric mystery, but. To bread.

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Make Gluten-Free Brownie Cupcakes with Namaste Baking Mix

Brownies baked as cupcakes- from Namaste baking mix.

Check out these fudgy little gems. Chocolate chip brownies dressed up like cupcakes. These are Steve's creation. He's been making gluten-free brownies for- let me think a minute- almost nine years. (How, I ask you, is that possible? Nine years gluten-free? Yep. We'll be celebrating nine years of gluten-free living this December. Perilously close to a decade.) So he's the resident brownie expert. I bow to his expertise.

He's baked brownies from scratch. He's tried all the gluten-free mixes. He's added flavors. Coffee. Peppermint. Vanilla. He's added extra chocolate chips. Chopped walnuts. Pecans. Even raisins. He bakes brownies weekly. But lately he's got a new twist to this favorite classic treat. He plops the batter into a cupcake liner clad muffin tin. 

Steve swears this creates a better, moister brownie.

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Gluten-Free Banana "Crumpets"

Split and grill these sweet no yeast "crumpets" for extra flavor.

I started out craving a scone. Then it turned into a crumpet. Not a traditional crumpet. A crumpet without yeast. And sweet. Not because I have anything against yeast (I dig my English Muffins bigtime), but because I had a bevy of ripe bananas hanging out on my kitchen counter, whispering to me, coaxing me to imagine a new recipe and highlight their fragrant banana awesomeness. So that's how it all started.

But I was low on gluten-free flours.

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Coconut Chocolate Chip Cake- An Easy Gluten-Free Recipe

Use a gluten-free pancake and baking mix to make cake!

 

This is one of my most popular gluten-free cake recipes- a divinely simple gluten-free coconut cake studded with chocolate chips. And so easy to make if you keep Pamela's Ultimate Baking and Pancake Mix on hand. We are leaving for Los Angeles on Friday and Yours Truly in Gluten-Free Goodness will be off-line for a bit. I thought I might leave you with something sweet to nosh as I prepare for our much anticipated sojourn into Hollyweird.

A simple recipe. No fuss. No frosting. Cake for those of us who aren't gifted with ganache. The kind of cake you can grab on the go (how very un-Zen!) or nibble politely over coffee and a hot flash inducing debate with friends about why naturally beautiful, smart and talented women inject military grade toxins into their foreheads and goddess-knows-what into their lips and bursting apple cheeks until all you can do, Dearest Reader, is stare in frozen horror wondering, What the Tap-dancing Hades have you done to your face?

Please, women. I beg you. Stop.

Your once expressive faces (your numero uno tool of the trade in theater and film) now look like masks or worse. You look like a sky-diving plastic blow-up doll. You do not look younger, I'm sorry to tell you. You look weird. Vacuous. If not desperate. There's an uncanny vinyl aura oozing from a visage that's had "work done" (I guess the new phrase is "been refreshed").

Trust me. Be strong. Be authentic. Think: What would Frances McDormand do?

And go eat some cake.

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Bread Machine Tips- Old Post

Warm, gluten-free bread with sorghum flour, just baked.

This gluten-free bread machine post has been updated by yours truly and has moved to a new location where it is much, much happier.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

One more click and you're there.

Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins

Gluten-free blueberry muffins with sour cream.

As promised, here's my latest muffin recipe, using Pamela's Gluten-Free Baking and Pancake Mix. Oy vey, these are good. And so easy. I didn't even get out the mixer; I stirred the batter by hand with my favorite wooden spoon. If you're in the mood for a different berry or fruit, by all means, substitute the blueberries. Whatever makes you happy, Babycakes. Go for it. This batter would cozy up to cranberries, spiced apples, you name it.

And by the way, if you're looking for a dairy-free egg-free blueberry muffin, I've come up with a vegan Brown Sugar Blueberry Muffin recipe you might like.

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Almost Sausalito Cookie Bars

The nubby chocolate chip landscape of a favorite gluten-free cookie bar.

I ask you. What beats coconut and chocolate in a cookie recipe- especially if they happen to be gluten-free? Coconut and chocolate and macadamia nuts.

Okay, I confess. My all-time favorite cookies in those innocent pre-gluten-free days were not some hoity-toity gourmet bakery confection but those bagged big and bumpy Pepperidge Farm chocolate chunk cookies you could get in any East Coast grocery store. Yup. If memory serves me well, my go-to favorite featured coconut and chocolate. They might have been called Sausalito. Or some such California-evoking moniker.

In our quest to tweak one of our favorite dessert bar recipes this week my cookie-making husband and I came up with a chocolate chip coconut cookie bar that tastes an awful lot like those beloved crunchy-chewy Pepperidge Farm gems. We didn't happen to have any macadamia nuts on hand- but if we did I would have added some to the recipe.

And for those of you who loved dunking those Pepperidge Farm Nantucket Cookies into a glass of ice cold milk- Babycakes, these are dunk worthy.

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Gluten-Free Polenta Cake

Delicious, moist gluten-free polenta cake.

I've been craving polenta cake. Don't ask me why. Okay, ask me. It was the lemon polenta cake in the movie Dinner with Friends. Such a cake! And I didn't have any lemons on hand. But I did have a few ripe bananas. So I thought, Why not make a banana polenta cake? How bad could it be?

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Maui Wowee Cookie Bars with Coconut & Chocolate Chips

Gluten-free cookie bars with coconut and chocolate.

Ah. Savor this Maui Wowee goodness- a delicious coconut chocolate chip cookie bar recipe. But first, a little back story. I remember the first gluten-free cookie I ever ate. I was a week into this new gluten-free lifestyle, knowing- by my body's dramatic response to giving up gluten- I was on the right track. I was feeling hopeful, deprived, relieved, angry and curious all at once.

So, Dear Reader, I took my first bite.

The store-bought cookie tasted like dog biscuit dust. Like a thawed frozen pizza box whizzed in a Cuisinart. Like a stale corner crumble from last year's abandoned Christmas cookie tin from your aunt that can't cook and pontificates about politics over instant coffee, Sara Lee pound cake and her gently crushed pack of Virginia Slims.

My husband and sons felt sorry for me (though they masked it with humor, tossing cookies out the back door into the night like so many flying hockey pucks). The worst of it? They felt powerless to help.

That's when I knew.

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