Chocolate Chip & Cherry Zucchini Bread (Gluten-Free but enjoyed by Gluten Eaters)

Alas more baking. Cannot be helped. Though Gluten Free options are more widely available these days, they do not hold a candle to gooey warm-out-of-the oven zucchini bread. AND it contains legitimate vegetables. This recipe, adapted from Michael McCamley's Gluten Free Baking, is a great basic, we have tried chocolate chip and cherry version, loaves studded with dried cranberries, all good.   I plan to make a version with lemon and herbs and also with espresso.

The recipe makes two loaves. 

Ingredients
3 eggs

1 cup of sugar (or brown sugar)

1 cup olive oil

2 cups sorghum flour

1 cup tapioca flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp xanthan gum

2 medium zucchinis, shredded

Cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, whatever works

Goodies: chocolate chips, dried cranberries, chopped cherries, whatever strikes your fancy

Set the oven to warm to 325. 

Shred the zucchini.  Some recipes suggest letting zucchini drain of juice but skipping this step has not been an issue. 

Right, then.  Mix the dry ingredients, mix in eggs an oil (what DID one do before the Kitchenaid was invented?). Zucchini goes in next - somehow it makes the loaves moist but the shreds are almost undetectable in texture, weird, right? Next mix in the goodies and into the oiled loaf pans. The bread bakes for about 55-60 minutes. 

Zuchinni bread is a little dense, working on that, but let me tell you, these do not last long!  

And here is photographic evidence from a recent batch. 

Shred, shred, shred. 

Chopped frozen cherries looked like a crime scene.

Ready to go in the oven.

Finished! The loafs disappeared quickly.

2014 Summer Reading List

As of late, the posts have been all about baking. Time to fix that and so here it is, another summer reading list. The thing is, I've had a bit of a dry-spell, a reader's block (I swear, it's a real thing). There is no rhyme or reason to these choices, a mix of the books I have on my nightstand already and those in my GoodReads queue that stood out.

First, The Matisse Stories by A.S. Byatt. I very much enjoyed Possession and Angels and Insects, but the former is a dense terribly clever read while the latter is, well, you'd have to read it. The Matisse Stories are mercifully brief, less than 200 pages, three short stories about women, the book threaded together by references to the said artist.

The Pig Did It by Joseph Caldwell, awesome title, right? It's about a pig. It's Irish. If I end up loving it, the book is a part of The Pig Trilogy.

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. The book is about Earnest Hemingway and his wife Hadley during the Paris years paling around with the Lost Generation posse. I know very little about Hemingway and A Farewell to Arms might be the only one of his books I actually read, an oversight, clearly. Though I usually gravitate to more wacky book choices rather than historical ones, this will be a nice change of pace (and I already have it, thought I cannot say with any certainty where I got it).

The Cuckoo's Calling by the writer that shall not be named. The Casual Vacancy was a little tough for me, the writing was excellent, of course, but the topics the book tackled were difficult at best (some pages still haunt me). I expect this will be very different still and I have been curious to read it for a while but never quite got to it.

Jasper Fforde never fails to deliver an alternate reality that makes perfect sense: why couldn't you jump into fiction? Of course color-spectrum-perception determines the social pecking order! His Dragonslayer series are not quite so far fetched, it's just about the shortage of magic. The Eye of Zoltar, the final Dragonslayer book just came out (at least on this side of the Atlantic), so naturally it makes the cut for my summer reading.





Here are book picks from the years past - what are you reading these days?

2013 Summer Reading
2012 Summer Reading
Winter List
Other picks worth a look

Orange Polenta Cake (Gluten-Free, Naturally)

As of late, posts have been far and few in between. Right, we are all busy, so on it goes, and lets keep it brief, shall we?

This lovely little cake is naturally gluten free. The source is here but required some calculations to translate metric to cups.

Ingredients:

• 8 cardamom pods, seeds extracted and bashed with a pestle (OR you could just use ground cardamom)
• 2 cups almond flour
• 2/3 cup polenta
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup caster sugar (translation - sugar)
• 1 cup of butter (I used vegan substitution)
•  3 eggs
• zest of three oranges
• vanilla (a bit)
• pistachios (a hand full)
• creme frache

lovely oranges

So from there on, easy-peasy. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a springform and line the bottom with parchment paper.

If you are bashing your own cardamom, roll up your sleeves and bash away. Mix in almond flour, polenta, baking powder, and cardamom, and set aside.

Beat sugar and butter together. Add in eggs and keep mixing, add the dry ingredients, orange zest, and vanilla  into the mixture. Pour the mixture into the springform and bake for about 40 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.

butter & sugar

While the cake is baking, prepare the syrup - heat up slowly juice of two oranges, 3 tablespoons of honey, and 2 tablespoons of rose water.

After the cake is ready ever-so-carefully extract it from the springform and place on a pretty cake plate. Poke itty-bitty holes in the cake and pour the syrup over it. Sprinkle crushed pistachios and orange zest over the cake, garnish with whipped cream if you are feeling decadent, and serve with tea (or Limoncello).

I am thinking this cake might work very nicely with rhubarb sauce too or perhaps lemon ginger?

Pretty little cake, totally gluten-free.

Learned Tot: On the Go

Wow, it's been a good while since I've posted about our learning-at-home-after-school activities. It's not that we have slowed down our learning efforts, indeed not. Yet finding a quiet moment to write about the said endeavors can be a challenge.

In a matter of days we will be boarding a plane for a spring break (destination is another matter, there will not be a palm tree in sight). Travel calls for packable activities, preferably with educational value, that fits into the carry-on with room to spare.

This before you is a fairly balanced curriculum that will serve us well for the duration of the trip, especially one the road.

Here is our packing list:

• Tiny flashcards of words to review spelling - this itty bitty flip book I chanced on at Muji is perfect size for words.
• The Angry Birds pack with a handful of twisty color pencils (less messy and easier to use than crayons!) and a pen.
• We love any books that Simon Basher has to dish out. These books were selected off the shelf for their slimmer size and to cover a range of subjects: U.S. Presidents for a bit of civics, Math (in lieu of daily worksheets, it is spring break after all), and Extreme Physics to learn about way-out-there concepts. 
• Wimpy Kid notebooks, one for writing and the other one for drawing. This was a great buy indeed - slim to pack and as evidenced by the smudgy nose well loved.
• A fold-up map (no spontaneous Dora songs, por favor) - all of us in this house love maps and this one, which came in the mail from a charity, is perfect for travel.

Best part? All the materials stack up to fit into a medium size backpack with room for a snack and a hoodie.

How do you incorporate learning into your travel plans?

Camp Fire Cupcakes

This post isn't about cupcakes, actually. It is about decorating them. There comes a day, say any dreary Wednesday, when one realizes that she (or he) is expected to produce decorated desert for a group of greedy Cub Scouts. Right. We were in it to win. But win we did not, a subject that no one in the Klatch household is prepared to discuss, as it is still raw and it is generally agreed that we were robbed. 

So back to decorating the said cupcakes. Never mind the cupcakes themselves. A cake from a mix will do the job here. The pretty flames are key here and like jello shots, the flames are remarkably simple to make, if you follow the right steps.
 

What's not to love? Pretzel logs, mini marshmallows on toothpicks, and flames!

The key ingredient in flames are Jolly Ranchers! Thought any hard candy should work. Step one is smashing the candy (IMPORTANT: smashing is best done in a large zip-lock, this is where things could go wrong)

Smashed Jolly Ranchers

Step two is melting the candy - at about 350 degrees for 4-5 minutes. Now this is where things could go really wrong so it's important to line the cookie sheet with tin foil and spray it with oil (or else you may be faced with a nasty clean up job, for reals). Also, you have to watch melting candy like a hawk so it does not burn. when melted candy comes out of the oven it looks a little bubbly but the foam disappears as the mixture cools.  

Oh, and one more thing. Don't touch melted candy - it is hot, hot, hot.

Melted Jolly Ranchers.

Once the candy cools and hardens, carefully peel it off the tin foil and break into shards. And they are sharp, so watch your fingers, things could go wrong here too.

That's it! I am thinking this same technique of cupcake decorating would work for for ice cupcakes with blue and clear candy or for bloodied glass for Halloween, no?

These will be making a comeback this summer!

Let's Make Whoopie, Chocolate with Marshmallow Filling

Cupcakes are booooring, not to mention the frosting does not travel well. The answer: whoopie! I am still fiddling with this recipe to get the cakes smoother (where did I get it to begin with? It may have started out as a combination of recipes).

The Cakes for Woopies (this makes about 35-40 little half cakes)
8 tablespoons of veg shortening (Spectrum is the go-to brand)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs
1 cup of coconut milk
vanilla
 
2 1/4 cups of gluten free flour (usually a mixture of white rice flour, potato starch, & tapioca starch, but GF mixture worked very well too)
3/4 cups of cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon xantham gum


Step 1: Preheat oven to 375, line baking sheets with parchment. Into the KitchenAid goes Spectrum shortening and sugar and brown sugar, start mixing and then beating together to fluff. Add eggs and vanilla, mix to fluff.

Step 2. I am never one to get an extra bowl dirty, but this step is necessary. Mix the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, xantham). Add half of the dry mixture and half of the milk to the KitchenAid, mix, mix, mix. Add the rest of the dry mixture and milk, mix again.

Step 3. Scoop tablespoons of dough onto the parchment (cookie dough scoop works great, I am in the market for a new one so let me know if you have a model to recommend) and bake for 12-15 minutes, cool cookies on baking racks.

Look at these beauts! Still working on getting smoother cakes.

On to fluffy frosting!

1 1/2 cups of Marshmallow Fluff (Rice marshmallow cream worked great, Ricemellow)
1 1/4 cups of Spectrum Shortening
A few glugs of vanilla

Step 4. Put all the frosting ingredients together and fluff, fluff, fluff. My original notes mention confectioners' sugar but the frosting was plenty sweet without the extra sugar.

This is my go-to frosting now!

Step 5. Frost and sandwich the cakes.

Option: are Whoopies too summery?

Mince Pies - Part 1 (Filling)

I am new to mince pie making but it seemed just the thing to go with our Olde-Worlde meets Whole Foods gluten-free holiday feast. None of the recipes were quite right. Some called for "good quality ready made mince" oblivious to realities of the New World - a sad dusty little jar of mince at the bottom of the grocery store shelf. Does that count as good quality?

Other recipes had precise measurements in metric system or called for beef suet (tradition or not, I am not prepared to bake with beef fat). It was time for desperate measures - winging it. 

All the recipes boiled down to dried fruit, apples, spices and brandy. On to the the mince.

Gobs of dried fruit and spices

So into the pot went:

• Loads of golden raisins
• Handfuls of prunes chopped up
• Dried chopped apricots, not too many
• Chopped dry figs
• A baggie of dried cherries
• 2-3 tart chopped apples (mine were Granny Smith)
• 2-3 Meyer Lemon juice and zest 
• Juice of an orange and zest
• Spices: cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg
• Some dark molasses
• In the absence of brandy, in went Cointreau (but later, once the fruit is close to being done)

Into the pot the goodies go, stir and cook, smell the goodness. Here is what did not go into the pot - no beef or any meet products and no sugar. Most recipes called for extra sugar but dried fruit are so sweet that sugar seemed an overkill.

Mince smells and tastes like Christmas.

Next step pie crust. Good luck to me!

Magic Macaroons

Macaroons are magic - they are easy, gluten-free, and universally beloved (except by coconut haters). So, without further ado, on to to the macaroons. This recipe is courtesy of Danny Macaroons.

This is the plain old regular macaroon version but I see salty caramel and spiced pumpkin in our future. And the recipe couldn't be simpler. Pop your oven on to 350 and start gathering your ingredients. Arrange the said ingredients in an artful way - 14 ounce standard issue back of sweetened shredded coconut (make sure it is sweetened!), 14 ounce can of sweet condensed milk, 2 egg whites and a pinch of salt. A dash of boozy vanilla doesn't hurt either.

This was a double batch.

Add salt to egg whites and whip them. There are different schools of thought on whether it is better to use cold or room temperature egg whites. Mine were cold and whipped well. Oh here is a tip, use a mixer, don't be a hero with a hand whisk.

See? Upside down! I took a chance and flipped the bowl over to test if my egg white whipping skills were up to snuff. They are!

This is the sticky part - mix shredded coconut with condensed milk and then fold in the whipped egg whites.

Egg whites are folded into coconut & condensed milk mixture.

Scoop spoonfulls of the mixture onto cookie sheets lined with parchment and in the oven they go for 25 or so minutes (I kept mine a little longer to get them golden).

Done!

Danny Macaroons just came out with a book "The Macaroon Bible" - mad props! This is going on the holiday gifts short list. But then again, I might keep it for myself!

All about (BBQ) Oysters

As it happens, barbecued oysters are a specialty in Northern California. More specifically in a town of Bodega Bay (pop. 1,077). Bodega Bay, known for being the site of Hitchcock's Birds, is a tiny town perched on the rocky coast of Bodega Harbor in Sonoma County. Other places surely have considered tossing oysters on the grill but for the purposes of this tale, Bodega Bay is the cradle of this genius idea.

So back to oysters. Raw oysters may be stuff of legends but they do not rock my boat. I don't love the slimy texture nor am I keen on possible pathogens. Barbecued variety came as a revelation (thanks, Ash!) - smoky, buttery, garlicky, irresistible!

Lunch of BBQed oysters from a tiny shack, ahem, cafe.

Lunch left us longing for more oysters, so to the fish market we went to pick up these beauties. After a thorough scrubbing to get the grit off, oysters go on a hot grill (though our batch had to be finished off in the oven). The oyster dude at the grill in Bodega Bay shucks oysters before grilling to avoid handling hundreds of hot oysters but at home we thought we could manage shucking a couple dozen after cooking them since they are so much easier to pop open.

Freshly scrubbed oysters - not a fun job, by the way, and a scrubby brush helps.

Oh, right. Warm and shucked, oysters on half shell got a dose of sauce - we had to wing in here: chopped onions (shallots may have been better here), garlic, barbeque sauce, Siracha (because it makes everything better!), squirt of lemon or lime. I do dearly wish we had fresh parsley to sprinkle on top and I am sure bacon or a splash of dry white wine would not be unwelcome. But we had a perfect accompaniment - Ace Pear Cider, but that's for another post.

Behold, two dozen beauties!

Lastly, I am not a seafood expert so eat the bivalves at your own risk.

Pretty, dreamy Marie (Laurencin)

It's been some time since I have written about great women artists and it is time. Most have not heard of Marie Laurencin, but she sure had some famous friends. Like Mademoiselle Chanel.

Marie Laurencin - Portrait of Mademoiselle Chanel, 1923 Source

Marie was born in Paris and studied porcelain painting before falling in with hip cats of the day: Braque, Picasso, Gris, Apollinaire. Were these artists aware that they were to become something significant? Did they instinctively seek each other out? Were any perfectly ordinary friends among them now lost to history?

Marie Laurencin, Group of Artists (1908). Image via Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris.

Marie was there when crazy notion of cubism cane about. A few of her pieces have a whisper of cubist lines and sober colors. But mostly Maurie Laurencin stuck with what she did best, lovely, effervescent, with the same cast of languid girls. 

Marie Laurencin - Les jeunes filles - Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Why isn't Marie Laurencin's name known worldwide like the names of her posse? Was she too much of a one-note?  Is her art just too pretty, lightweight, lacking the grit that would make it important? Perhaps it is all those things, pleasant and superficial. 

Excellent GF Pumpkin Bread

After a year and a half of intensive gluten-free baking one can adapt "regular" wheat-reliant recipes with a degree of competence. This one is adapted from this Bon Appetit version. My version, obviously, uses a different flour mix and also cuts down, way down, on sugar.

Don't even think about cutting the recipe in half to make one loaf. These will be gone fast.

INGREDIENTS (Makes 2 loaves!)

• 2 cups of white rice or sorghum flour
• 1 cup of tapioca flour or potato starch (or do half and half)
• 3/4 teaspoons of xanthan gum
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, ground nutmeg, cloves. I also like a bit of cardamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 1 cup of veggie oil (we used olive oil, which worked very well)
• 3 eggs
• 1 can of pumpkin (15 oz)

Mix the first seven ingredients together. In your trusty KitchenAid, beat sugar and oil, then mix in eggs and pumpkin. Stir in the dry ingredients mix. Pour equal amounts into two loaf pans (I line mine with parchment but you can probably spray and flour them too.

Bake your loaves for about 1 hour 10 minutes until ready, let the loaves cool and enjoy with a cup of tea. I am thinking a smear of apple butter would not hurt things either.

Perhaps I better go test out this recipe another time, just to be sure.

Here is my Gluten Free 101 guide and Ginger-Apricot scones if you are on a GF baking spree.

Real Boy

This sort of painting, despite its merits, would not typically catch my prolonged attention. My favorites are more modern, more ambiguous, and less academic. But this portrait of a little boy with a long name, destined not to grow up, came to life during story time with  my younger son.  The painting is in our An Alphabet in Art book under M for Magpies. Suddenly, through the eyes of a three-year-old, I saw this painting for the very first time.

This is a portrait of a tiny kid, a toddler really, just the sort of boy we would meet at a playground. And birds, oblivious to danger. And kitty-cats, a little sinister but soft. As I watch my own little boy look at length at his long-lost friend, asking questions, the formal portrait fades and all that's left is a real boy.

Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuniga by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes - image loaned from the Met

Read about our favorite kiddie art history books here.

Apricot-Ginger Tea Scones (GF)

A few months back, with a bake sale looming, I couldn't find a suitable gluten-free scone recipe (plain old wheat ones were abound, of course). I settled on chocolate chip scones from Gluten-Free Goddess. But with a few substitutions. Vanilla rice mild (meeh!), became soy milk. Spectrum shortening was replaced with coconut oil. And chocolate chips were replaced with apricots and ginger. So, behold my very own version of gluten-free scones.

These puppies went fast!

Set the over to 375 and get mixing. 

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup of white rice flour
• 1/2 cup of amaranth flour (or millet - hey, baking GF, you can't avoid a few oddball items)
• 1/2 cup tapioca flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 cup sugar (or brown sugar)
• 4 tbsp coconut oil
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup of soy milk
• A dash of boozy vanilla 
• Grated fresh ginger and chopped dry apricots

 Mix, mix, mix.

 

Form a circle on the cookie sheet lined with parchment and score it with knife into wedges. Sprinkle with sugar (raw sugar if you have it on hand). In the oven it goes for 25 minutes.

Serve with dairy free butter, Earl Gray for grown ups and berry tea for classy tea-loving tots.

Beach Book Bag

I belong to the annoying tribe of people who feel the need to be productive. At the beach completing a book offers a sense of accomplishment, provided you choose your reading well. Beach reading cannot be too heavy  (I don't think this is the time to start Proust) but it cannot be blatantly trashy. Here is my list that got me through July in the city, a week of sandy beach and I expect will take me through to seaside girls weekend in September.  

You cannot go wrong with the tried and true authors. It is a shame Stella Gibbons is mainly known for Cold Comfort Farm because her books do not disappoint. Nightingale Woods is a clever Cinderella story set among 1930s gentry. Twenty-one year old widow Viola Withers is not terribly clever or sparkling, but you cannot help rooting for her. Read it! And let's hope more of Ms. Gibbon's books come back to print.

Fair warning - Brunelleschi's Dome is not strictly speaking a beach read, but you will learn a lot about Renaissance architecture. Ok, it is not a beach read at all, but it is short and feuds between capomaestros do spice things up and you really will up your ante on the construction of cathedrals earning your own esteem.

I will read anything Jasper Fforde will dish out.  This is my number #6 Thursday Next book. These books are chock full of wordplay, book jokes, and familiar characters from the classics. Did I mention it is set in book world where there is a feud between Racy Novel and Women's Fiction genres?

I am eagerly awaiting the last of Corfu trilogy by Gerald Durell. Durells are quirky, kooky, and you just want to be among those dropping in on them in their villa. There is mild Mother, bookish Lawrence, gun-toting Leslie, and perpetually obsessed with her looks Margo. The writer, Jerry at the time, is the youngest. What would it be like to spend your childhood collecting animals on the Greek Isles?

Sorcery & Cecelia is for the Austen-lovers. Two well brought up girls, one in London for the season, the other moored in the country, usual Regency fair.  Oh and there is magic, of course, nothing extreme, just some enchanted chocolate pots and charms. It is a silly little book and a good one at that.

I read Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle a few months back, but should have saved it for the summer! Though it would be just as perfect on a chilly fall evening. Sisters Cassandra and Rose grow up rambling in a ancient castle. They are bohemian and naive. And then Cotton brothers show up. Of course.

Remember Lemony Snicket? Yes, one in the same. Daniel Handler wrote several grown up books and I am yet to read them, certainly an oversight. Adverbs is a novel written in short stories. Can't wait!

Here is last year's Summer Reading list

Conversation Piece

I am in love with this itty bitty painting! In this most comfortable of rooms, chock full of art and books but with adequate seating, pleasant conversation flows. Do you suppose they are sensibly chattering about weather? Or debating the merits of life dedicated to the pursuit of arts?

Vanessa Bell, Conversation Piece 1912 oil
Source

The piece is by Vanessa Bell,Virginia Woolf's sister and a talented artist in her own right. BBC has a treasure trove of art - here is a slideshow of Vanessa Bell's works.