Gluten-Free Lemon Bakewell #Recipe by @LibbyKlein #Mother'sDay

Libby Klein Last Christmas, I bought a jar of Lemon Passionfruit Curd that I had planned on eating with scones. That just never happened because I was too busy trying to finish writing my next book to make scones. And being gluten-free, just buying it from the store is not something I can do very often. So I came across this recipe from Scrummy Lane for Lemon Bakewell Slices and it sounded perfect. 

I've adjusted it to be gluten-free. And the first attempt was rather. I don't know if that's a British thing or if the gluten-free flour didn't play nicely with the recipe, but I've made a couple of adjustments to tenderize the bars. Let me know what you think. And if you're British or have experience with British delicacies, let me know about your Bakewell experience in the comments.

Gluten-Free Lemon Bakewell

Yield: 1 9x13 pan

Ingredients:

Pastry

2 1/2 cups gluten-free one-to-one flour blend

1/2 tsp salt

6 Tbsp powdered sugar
zest of 1 lemon

6 Tbsp cold butter

1 egg

1-4 Tbsp lemon juice

Filling

1 stick butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

zest of 2 lemons

4 large eggs

1 1/2 cups almond meal

4 Tbsp gluten-free flour

1 cup lemon curd

1/4 cup sliced blanched almonds

Directions:

For the Pastry layer

In the bowl of your food processor, add the gluten-free flour, salt, powdered sugar, and lemon zest. Pulse until combined. Then add your cold butter cubes. Pulse until you form a crumbly mixture. Add the egg and 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice and pulse again. You want a cohesive dough that isn't too dry or too wet. Add additional tablespoons of lemon juice until the dough begins to pull away from the side and form a ball. Think pie crust.

Pat into a flat rectangle between two sheets of parchment paper. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Take out the dough and roll into a rectangle the size of a 9x13 pan. Bake for 10 minutes. 

Make the filling

Beat together the butter, sugar, and lemon zest until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time and fully combine. Add the ground almonds and the gluten-free flour. Don't overmix.

Spread the lemon curd over the pastry base until just about the very edge. 

Smooth the top with the almond cake filling. Then sprinkle with sliced almonds. 

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until lightly browned on top. Let cool, and cut into bars.

P.S - That Citrus Passion fruit curd was delicious.

 

Gluten-free baker Poppy McAllister and her aunt Ginny are looking forward to a quiet, homey Christmas at their B&B in Cape May, but unfortunately, death isn’t taking a holiday this year . . .

Ever since Thanksgiving, Poppy and her pals have been left with an unsolved mystery of the romantic kind. But at least this mystery isn’t the kind that involves murder. That all changes when the body of a fish supplier is discovered in the kitchen of her ex’s restaurant—and he’s frozen, not fresh.

For once, it’s not Poppy who tripped over the corpse, yet she can’t escape being drawn in since the victim has a note taped to him reading Get Poppy. Figures—an engagement ring isn't labeled, but the dead guy is addressed to her. Now, while Aunt Ginny plans a tree-trimming party and pressures Poppy to decode a mysterious old diary, the amateur sleuth is asked to “unofficially” go undercover at the restaurant to help the police. Until then, the only crime Poppy had been dealing with was Figaro’s repeated thefts of bird ornaments from the tree; now it looks like it’s going to be a murder-y Christmas after all.

 

Libby Klein grew up in Cape May, NJ where she attended high school in the '80s. Her

classes revolved mostly around the Culinary sciences and Drama, with one brilliant semester in Poly-Sci that may have been an accident. She loves to drink coffee, bake gluten-free goodies, collect fluffy cats, and translate sarcasm for people who are too serious. She writes from her Northern Virginia office where she serves a very naughty black smoke Persian named Sir Figaro Newton. You can keep up with her shenanigans by signing up for her Mischief and Mayhem Newsletter on her website. www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/

Happy Mother's Day with a Few of Our Moms' Special Recipes

 

Because so many of you will be busy today, we're taking a day off. But if you happen to stop by the blog, we want to wish you a Happy Sunday.

If you missed our Mother's Day tribute post last week, by all means, check it out. We gathered "Around the Kitchen Table" for a special talk. Not only did all of us share culinary memories (and recipes) of our moms' favorite foods, but many of you shared your own thoughts and memories with us in the comments. We absolutely loved reading them! So if you missed our group post, or missed reading all the wonderful comments, we invite you to click the image below to jump there now...

CLICK HERE TO READ LAST WEEK'S

CULINARY TRIBUTE POST FROM ALL
OF US TO ALL OF OUR MOTHERS.

And here are some of the special
 recipes a few of us shared in our

Mother's Day tribute post last week...

Maddie Day/Edith Maxwell

"One of my sisters shared our mom's recipe for POPPYSEED CAKE, which I posted last year. Mommy took a cake decorating class when I was young. I still have her cigar box of little jars of coloring. She could do roses and all kinds of shaped piping. She had a heavy two-part Santa Claus cake mold that ended up being a decorated standing St. Nick, with cherries in the cake so it looked festive. And so many more."

Leslie Budewitz 

"As I've said here before, my mother was not a great cook, but could she bake! When I was a child, my dad told me if I wanted to bake great cakes, learn from my Aunt Peggy, but for pies, learn from my mother. She grew up on a farm, the 5th of 13 children, and learned to bake in 4H and from an aunt of hers. Here's her favorite CHERRY PIE, with my stained copy of her recipe for an oil crust."

Tina Kashian 

"My mother was a talented cook and, together with my dad, they owned a restaurant in South Jersey for thirty years. The two would often bicker in the kitchen. But she was the better cook! We all worked in the restaurant, and food was an important part of my childhood and teen years growing up. You would think my mom would be sick of cooking when she got home, but no, she cooked every night. Lots of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern dishes. I have memories of lamb kebab, tabouleh salad, and simmering grape leaves and tomatoes and peppers stuffed with meat and rice in a traditional dish called, dolma when I came home from school. I shared this recipe at MLK HERE. Sadly, both my parents passed away. My mother when I was in my twenties, but I have her treasured recipe box. I make her recipes, but they never taste as good. I think it’s the memory I’m holding onto. Miss you mom!"

Cleo Coyle

"My mom (Rose) is gone now. She died of cancer in 1991, and I miss her greatly, but I remember she had a real sweet tooth (candy, chocolate, cream puffs) throughout most of her life. On the other hand, Marc’s late mother, Evelyn, relished making hearty main dishes. In fact, she gave her love of CITY CHICKEN to Marc, who made it for me. This Depression-era dish, which is (ironically) made without chicken, is now a favorite of mine, too!"

Thank you all so much for 

being part of our Kitchen, and...

Happy Mother's Day!

🌷🌸🌷 

Gluten-Free Cream Puff Swans #Recipe by @LibbyKlein

 

 Libby Klein I used to make cream puffs all the time back in the days before gluten was viciously cut out of my life due to my auto-immune disease. They’re a dessert that WOWs people because they look so fancy and complicated. I’d see frozen ones at functions and parties all the time and sigh with self-pity that I couldn’t have them anymore. Why it never occurred to me to just try to make them gluten-free I’ll never know. I finally gave into temptation after watching a cooking show where the pastry chef made a tart with vanilla pastry cream, mmm - Pastry cream, and I’m so glad I did. These are wonderful for a Mother's Day Brunch, or a fancy Shower or Tea Party. And they're easier than they look.

Disclaimer - Read all your labels to make sure your ingredients are gluten-free. Gluten can be sneaky.

Gluten-Free Cream Puffs

Yield: 12 large cream puffs

 Choux Paste (sounds like Shoe paste) – a most intimidating sounding recipe - is actually very easy. I recommend using a big wooden spoon for this. And if you are making the swans, you'll need a piping bag with a number 8 or 10 circle tip.

 

INGREDIENTS:

1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter

1 cup water

Hefty pinch salt

1 cup gluten-free flour blend that has xanthan gum already added

*if your gluten-free flour blend does NOT have Xanthan gum already added (like Bob’s Red Mill does not) add ½ teaspoon xanthan gum to the recipe

4 eggs

Vanilla Pastry Cream:

 INGREDIENTS:

¾ cup sugar

¼ cup cornstarch

Heavy pinch salt

1 ½ cups whole milk – Not skim milk. 

    If you’re making pastry with skim milk you don’t deserve cream puffs.

6 egg yolks

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract - or scrape one vanilla bean

Later:

1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream

 

DIRECTIONS:

 Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. In a heavy saucepan, add 1 stick of butter and 1 cup of water and bring to a boil. 

When the butter is melted, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the flour all at once, mixing quickly (the mixture will form a ball). Let it stand for a couple of minutes to cool a few degrees.

Add the eggs to the flour mixture, one at a time, mixing well with a wooden spoon after each addition. 

Transfer a large scoop of dough into your fitted pastry bag. Pipe 8 question marks onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet. On a separate cookie sheet, drop the rest of the dough by large heaping tablespoons forming 6-8 mounds. I usually pipe a couple extra swan necks just in case things get hinky in the assembly.

Dip your fingertips into cold water and smooth the mounds of dough into pretty balls. They will puff us as they bake but they won’t smooth out like dinner rolls.

Bake the necks at 375° F. for 10-12 minutes, or until nicely golden. Bake the domes for 30-35 minutes until golden brown. Poke a hole in the side of each one with a knife and put them back in the oven for 2 minutes. Take them out and let them cool.

Make the pastry cream filling.

In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, bring the sugar, milk, cornstarch, and salt to a simmer. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks.

Bring the mixture in the saucepan to a boil while stirring continuously. Continue to simmer until the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat and gradually whisk hot milk into the egg-yolk mixture a little at a time to bring up the temperature of the yolks. Add everything back into the saucepan and cook over medium-low heat while whisking continuously until the custard is so thick it coats a spoon, like soft pudding. 

Now cook it until it boils for one minute. It will be very thick even while hot.

Remove from heat and stir in 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract or the vanilla beans. Transfer the custard to a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap down to the surface of the custard. Chill until the custard is completely cold. The plastic wrap won't even cling to the custard it's so thick.

In a separate bowl, beat the 1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream until stiff peaks form.

With a rubber spatula, fold a little of the whipped cream into the custard to loosen it up. 

Then fold all the custard into the whipped cream. Chill again until thick and stiff.

Now there are 2 ways to fill your cooled cream puffs. You can either slice them in half like hamburger buns and dollop pastry cream in the middle, or you can transfer the pastry cream into a piping bag – and using the hole you poked into them at the end of baking, squeeze pastry cream into the shell until it won’t take anymore. (Yikes.) You’ll know it’s full because the shell will swell and the pastry cream with start to push back out. In my opinion, this is the best way to fill gluten-free cream puffs because the doughy center will absorb the cream. But today, we are making swans.

If you're making the swans, cut the top off each cream puff round. Cut that top in half longways. That makes the wings. Fill the bottom with pastry cream like it's the swan boat to the tunnel of love. Set your swan neck into the pastry cream and butterfly out your wings.

Top your cream puffs with a dusting of powdered sugar if desired. Then pose them in front of a Swan Princess background like this.

 

B&B owner and gluten-free baker Poppy McAllister, along with her saucy Aunt Ginny, is on the case at the annual Cold Spring Village antique show in Libby Klein’s seventh deliciously witty, paleo-themed Poppy McAllister Mystery.
 

When vintage items go up for auction, gluten-free baker and B&B owner Poppy McAllister discovers some people will pay the ultimate price...
 
It’s peak summer season at the Butterfly House Bed and Breakfast in Cape May, with tourists fluttering in and out and wreaking enough havoc to rival a Jersey Shore hurricane. Also back in town is Courtney Whipple and his family of antique dealers for the annual Cold Spring Village antique show. Courtney’s son Auggie has a unique piece he believes will fetch them a fortune if he can get it authenticated in time—a piece rival dealer Grover Prickle insists was stolen from his store.
 
Poppy and her Aunt Ginny attend the auction, hoping to bid on an armoire for the B&B, and discover a veritable armory for sale—everything from ancient blades and nineteenth-century guns to such potential killing devices as knitting needles and a blacksmith hammer. Strangely, they don’t see either Auggie or Grover—or the mysterious item they both claim to own. Then during the auction, a body falls out of the very armoire Poppy was hoping to acquire, stabbed through the heart. Now, surrounded by competitive dealers and makeshift weapons, she must find out who turned the auction house into a slaughterhouse…
 

Libby Klein grew up in Cape May, NJ where she attended high school in the '80s. Her

classes revolved mostly around the Culinary sciences and Drama, with one brilliant semester in Poly-Sci that may have been an accident. She loves to drink coffee, bake gluten-free goodies, collect fluffy cats, and translate sarcasm for people who are too serious. She writes from her Northern Virginia office where she serves a very naughty black smoke Persian named Sir Figaro Newton. You can keep up with her shenanigans by signing up for her Mischief and Mayhem Newsletter on her website. www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/

Gluten Free Blueberry Baked Stuffed French Toast #Recipe by @LibbyKlein

Libby Klein Surprise! It's me. I'm so thrilled to be joining the Mystery Lovers' Kitchen. My favorite foods are bread and cheese. So why would I torture myself by eating gluten-free? A few years ago I was diagnosed with both Hashimotos and Celiac - because apparently, I'm an overachiever. So I'll be posting a lot of gluten-free recipes for peeps like me. Some people in my house are convinced that gluten must be the most magical-tasting food on earth and they're been persecuted by my leaving it out. To keep the peace, all my recipes can be easily converted to their gluten-full counterparts. This one in particular can be easily adjusted by using regular white bread that is a bit on the stale side.

Gluten-Free Blueberry Baked Stuffed French Toast

Serves: 6 

 

INGREDIENTS

1 Tablespoon softened butter

10 slices gluten-free white bread

4 ounces cream cheese

½ cup Good quality Blueberry Jam or preserves

1 cup Fresh Blueberries

6 large eggs

1 cup milk

½ cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

DIRECTIONS

Grease a large 9x13 casserole dish with the butter.

Make sandwiches by spreading the softened cream cheese on 1 slice of bread and your jam on the other slice. Cut the sandwiches in half and lay them in the casserole dish until you have an even layer. I ended up with an extra quarter of a sandwich that mysteriously disappeared all on its own.

Sprinkle the fresh blueberries on top.

I mix my eggs, milk, heavy cream, and vanilla in a blender because eggs freak me out and I don’t want to see any separation between the whites and yolk in scrambled eggs. While I’m confessing, I also don’t measure my vanilla so I probably used more like a quarter of a cup. I make my own from vanilla beans and white rum so it’s not as ridiculously expensive as store-bought and it tastes amazing.

Pour the mixture over the French toast sandwiches. They will drown in it, but by tomorrow morning you’ll see the bread again.

Cover the casserole very loosely with plastic wrap. This is not one of those times you want to stretch it tight. You want it to lay on top of the eggs. Then cover with aluminum foil and gently press down. Set it in the refrigerator to soak overnight.

In the morning, take the casserole out of the refrigerator for 30 minutes before baking. Preheat the oven to 350°F / 175°C.

Remove the foil and plastic. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 55 minutes. Give it a little jiggle. The French Toast Casserole is done when there's no more liquid left and the egg is set. If there’s a lot of jiggle in the middle, give it five to ten more minutes until there isn’t any.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving. 

Serve warm, topped with maple syrup, whipped cream, or- I like to melt down more of the jam I stuffed the sandwiches with and make a syrup out of it. Enjoy!

B&B owner and gluten-free baker Poppy McAllister, along with her saucy Aunt Ginny, is on the case at the annual Cold Spring Village antique show in Libby Klein’s seventh deliciously witty, paleo-themed Poppy McAllister Mystery.
 

When vintage items go up for auction, gluten-free baker and B&B owner Poppy McAllister discovers some people will pay the ultimate price...
 
It’s peak summer season at the Butterfly House Bed and Breakfast in Cape May, with tourists fluttering in and out and wreaking enough havoc to rival a Jersey Shore hurricane. Also back in town is Courtney Whipple and his family of antique dealers for the annual Cold Spring Village antique show. Courtney’s son Auggie has a unique piece he believes will fetch them a fortune if he can get it authenticated in time—a piece rival dealer Grover Prickle insists was stolen from his store.
 
Poppy and her Aunt Ginny attend the auction, hoping to bid on an armoire for the B&B, and discover a veritable armory for sale—everything from ancient blades and nineteenth century guns to such potential killing devices as knitting needles and a blacksmith hammer. Strangely, they don’t see either Auggie or Grover—or the mysterious item they both claim to own. Then during the auction, a body falls out of the very armoire Poppy was hoping to acquire, stabbed through the heart. Now, surrounded by competitive dealers and makeshift weapons, she must find out who turned the auction house into a slaughterhouse…
 

Libby Klein grew up in Cape May, NJ where she attended high school in the '80s. Her

classes revolved mostly around the Culinary sciences and Drama, with one brilliant semester in Poly-Sci that may have been an accident. She loves to drink coffee, bake gluten-free goodies, collect fluffy cats, and translate sarcasm for people who are too serious. She writes from her Northern Virginia office where she serves a very naughty black smoke Persian named Sir Figaro Newton. You can keep up with her shenanigans by signing up for her Mischief and Mayhem Newsletter on her website. www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/