Chocolate mousse. That lighter-than-air, seemingly miraculous dessert that’s the stuff of high-end restaurants and single-serve custard cups of sublime chocolatey goodness. I’d always balked at the idea of making it at home – intimidated by the technique or what I thought I needed to do to make it. But there are many ways to make a mousse! (feels like that should be a saying…) and this one is gosh darn easy as pie (or cake). In times of isolation and social distancing, tracking those “safe” friends/folks in your bubble and making plans to get gussied up and cook a fancy meal add a bit more excitement to the COVID life.…
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Gluten Free Pumpkin Swiss Roll with Pumpkin Spice Gold Milk
This year has been a YEAR already and we’re still a few months away from the dawn of a new one. But this year has also had it’s positive notes – one of which is meeting kindred spirits through baking, both in the activism sphere that allows us to connect and pursue justice and change, and others that focus on bettering our craft and collaborating in new ways that challenge us. We’ve been lucky enough to forge friendships with many new folks, including Erin Creeks of Basil and Beauty who embarked on a food photography journey around the beginning of the shut down and created marvelous dishes, desserts, drinks, smudge…
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Gluten Free Caramel Apple Brandy Bundt Cake
This may be the best bundt I’ve ever made. Bold statement, I know, but so far I’ve eaten four slices of this cake since finishing the photoshoot and honestly, if it wasn’t 10pm and if I wasn’t already way too tired thinking about work tomorrow, I’d walk the 20 feet to the kitchen and sneak a 5th. It has apples (loads of them – both in chunked and grated form for maximum moistness), it has Calvados, a gorgeously-apply French apple brandy, it has fall spices, and it is absolutely soaked in a caramel apple brandy glaze. You heard that all correctly. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for but it…
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Chewy Gluten Free Pistachio Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Green has almost always been my favorite color. Pink was the star of the show when I was in about 1st grade and, upon moving into a new house in Eagle Point, Oregon, I was given the massive responsibility of choosing a color for carpet in my room (out of some of the cheaper options) that my dad installed along with all of the other work my parents did on that house by hand. A deep pink was the winner, though I questioned my choice years later when I was stuck with it and had shifted back into blues and greens (my sister apparently had the foresight to choose a…
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Gluten Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake with Chocolate Ganache
October (at least here in the States) is all about pumpkins. A bit of a strange. American obsession, much like peanut butter or butting into Latin American governments or personal reusable water bottles or systemic racism. At least pumpkin, and pumpkin spice everything, is a bit more pleasant than some of those others. And with the christening of PSL (pumpkin spice latte) season upon us, we’re now getting to work developing all-new pumpkin recipes that are fun twists on classics or just straight up experiments that push the envelope of what pumpkin can be (the answer? everything). That humble, bulbous, vegetable is now the celebrity of an entire season, gracing…
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Gluten Free Irish Cream Cupcakes
I’m a tea drinker – any coffee and my heart thinks it’s part of a horse race and my brain bounces off ALL of the mental walls faster than tonight’s debate dissolved into absolute carnivalistic absurdity. So the coffee in the photo shoot for these cupcakes was, I’m sure, absolutely terrible, made from instant coffee granules (GREAT for baking) and promptly tossed out after the winning shots were captured. But! I do love a good coffee-infuse/flavored/enrobed baked good. Or coffee ice cream – I’ll take that any day before 6pm. These gorgeously indulgent cupcakes have not only a luxurious chocolate cupcake (with Irish Cream Liqueur), but they’re filled with –…
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Black Lives Matter Glazed Gluten Free Chocolate Shortbread with Cacao Nibs
Black Lives Matter. Breonna Taylor was 26 when she was murdered. If any of you are parents, let me ask you – if your child was killed by police, what would you do? How would you feel? While she was sleeping. I’d hope you’d want your child, presumably one of the people you hold most dear in this world, to sleep safely every night of their lives. What explanation would placate you if you were told your child was now dead, having been shot to death by people (police – those meant to “protect and serve”) entering her home while she slept and firing into her sleeping body? Would there…
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Gluten Free Lady Fingers
These gluten free lady fingers are an homage to the original recipe and a desperate attempt to slake my desire for coffee flavored desserts. They’re a fairly easy cookie to make, as you can see by the few ingredients and even fewer steps. These gluten free lady fingers can be used as a base for trifle of Tiramisu, or you can live out your inner fantasy of being a fancy French person and dip them in your coffee like biscotti while staring nostalgically out the window. Ladyfingers, also known as British sponge fingers – sometimes known by their Italian name savoiardi or their French one boudoirs – are those little things that make up your…
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Gluten Free Lemon Basil Cupcakes
I remember the day I first tried this lemon+basil combo in something sweet. I’d always been a huge lemon and a huge basil fan – topping fix with squeezes of lemon wedges and adding in ad much fresh basil as I possibly could to bolognese or tossing fresh sprigs on a platter of sliced tomatoes and burrata. But together? It was deep summer back in Ashland, Oregon, I think while I was still in high school. Maybe a weekend since we were wandering around in the plaza downtown in the early, hot afternoon. We ducked into Mix, our favorite tiny coffee+sweets shop on the edge of the line of shops,…
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Gluten Free Tahini Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Ever heard of pan-baking cookies? It might sound like they’re so good you just can’t help smacking the pan of right-out-of-the-oven beauties on the counter. It might be a little bit of that, but it’s a tried and true baking ‘technique’ that creates little ripples around the edge of your cookies as the center, still-gooey dough settles in. These are our first take on those – a bit stiffer because they’re tahini-packed, so they don’t have the most destinct ripples like the famous pan-banging chocolate chip cookies by Sarah Kieffer (we REALLY want to try out recipes in her book, “100 Cookies”) but they’re a start! What these cookies do…
