Gluten-Free Panettone #Recipe by @LibbyKlein #Christmas

Libby Klein I just adore Panettone. It's not just me, Figaro goes nuts for the stuff. He'll come running when he smells it and demands a few bites. I suppose this is meant to be a dessert, <insert eyeroll here> but I eat it for breakfast throughout the holiday season. And then sometimes for dessert. Don't judge me. This recipe takes two days and ideally requires the use of a panettone mold. Although you can just use a small cake pan if that is what you have. Because this makes two panettones, you can either use 2 molds, or leave a ball of dough in the refrigerator until after the first cooled panettone is unmolded, or bake one in a small cake pan. If you do that, the flatter, wider, cake pan panettone may be fully baked before the one in the tall mold, so be sure  to check the temperature before the time is up. If you have a probe thermometer that goes in the oven, I'd bake the panettones with the thermometer inserted to ensure your panettones are fully baked before removing them from the oven to cool. My recipe has been adapted from Kim, the queen of gluten-free baking. See the original here.

Gluten Free Panettone

Makes 2 small or 1 large Panettones

Ingredients:

DOUGH

3½ cups 1 to 1 gluten-free flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1¾ teaspoon baking powder
2 tbsp plus 1½ teaspoon instant yeast
2 tablespoon whole psyllium husks (or 1½ tablespoon psyllium husk powder)
1 tsp salt
1½ cups slightly warm milk
¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter, very soft
2 large eggs, room temperature

FRUITS

½ cup mixed raisins
½ cup candied orange peel
½ cup candied lemon peel
¼ cup dark rum
zest of one orange
juice of ½ orange
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Day 1

The Dough

Blend the flour, sugar, baking powder, yeast, psyllium husk, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the paddle or dough hook attachment, slowly add the warm milk, soft butter, and eggs into the dry ingredients.

Once completely combined, turn the mixer up to about medium or medium high and beat for 5 minutes. The dough should be smooth and somewhat stretchy, more like a thick batter.
Remove the dough hook or paddle attachment. Scrape the dough together into a rough ball or mound using a bowl scraper or spatula. It should be fluffy looking and almost look like buttercream frosting. Cover the bowl and chill in the refrigerator overnight

The Fruits

Put dried fruit and mixed candied peel in a medium bowl and pour vanilla extract, orange juice and rum over the fruit. Mix well, cover, and soak overnight on the counter.

Day 2

Prepare your panettone molds with a nonstick spray and some parchment paper. The parchment paper will be very useful if you only have one mold and need to use it again to bake the 2nd panettone.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and attach directly to your stand mixer. Add soaked fruits. Using the dough hook, knead briefly just to distribute. Dump the dough from the bowl to a well-floured surface and smooth into a round ball. Carefully place half the dough in each of two panettone molds.

Place mold or cake pan on two baking sheets and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Place in a warm, draft-free area until the dough has reached the top of the panettone mold or cake pan, about 2-3 hours. I like to put them in a cold oven with a 9x13 pan of just boiled water underneath.

When they have risen and are puffy, take them out of the oven so you can preheat to 400° F. I leave the pan of water in the oven. Brush the panettones with an egg wash. Bake on baking sheet for 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350° F and continue to bake for about 55-60 minutes more, tenting with foil halfway through if getting too dark. A skewer inserted into the center of the bread should come out clean. The temperature should read between 170-175° F in the center. Remove the panettones from the oven and allow them to cool completely before slicing.

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/

Joanne’s Gluten Free Christmas Stollen #Recipe by @LibbyKlein #Christmas

 Libby Klein  It's that time of year again. The time when I want to eat all the things I can't have. It seems every celebratory holiday food has gluten in it. I've made it my mission to create all the things that scream Holiday Gluten-Free. Last year I posted my recipe for Hanukkah Jelly Donuts. I'm still thinking about them. They were that good! This Christmas favorite hails from my German roots. You can also find the recipe in the back of my Christmas mystery - Silent Nights Are Murder. If you've already read it, you understand why it's called Joanne's Stollen. Gluten-free bread is very tricky. But these loaves come out beautifully. Be sure to use a probe thermometer to ensure they are fully baked before removing them to cool.

Joanne’s Gluten Free Christmas Stollen

Makes 2 Loaves

INGREDIENTS

 

1 cup whole milk heated to lukewarm

4 teaspoons instant action yeast

2 Tablespoons sugar

 

1 ½ cups raisins

¾ cup candied orange peel, finely chopped

¾ cup candied lemon peel, finely chopped

½ cup rum

 

 4 cups gluten free flour

*1 teaspoon xanthan gum IF it is not already in your flour

½ cup sugar

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

¾ teaspoon ground cardamom

¾ teaspoon ground mace (or nutmeg if you can’t find mace)

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

Zest of 1 lemon

Zest of 1 orange

¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 egg

2 egg yolks

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup blanched almonds, chopped

 

2 7oz tubes marzipan or almond paste

 

For the Glaze

1 stick butter, melted

½ cup Powdered sugar for coating

 

Directions

Make sure you took out the butter to soften.

 

Heat your milk in the microwave for 30 seconds or on top of the stove until it is lukewarm. Lukewarm is cooler than you’d think. You body is 98 degrees. Lukewarm is slightly cool to the touch but not cold. If you make the milk too hot, let it sit there until it cools down or it will kill the yeast. Once the milk is just right, add the 4T of yeast and the 2T of sugar. Stir, then let sit while you do everything else. It should get nice and frothy. If it doesn’t, throw it away and start over. If it still doesn’t, you need new yeast.

 

In a microwave safe mixing bowl, add your raisins and chopped peels. Pour over ½ cup rum. Microwave for two minutes. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside.

 In the bowl of your stand mixer (or a large mixing bowl) Add the gluten free flour, xanthan gum if you used it, sugar, baking powder, salt, spices, zests, butter, egg, egg yolks, and vanilla. Add the milk and yeast mixture. Turn the mixer on low and beat the dough until all the ingredients are fully incorporated and form a nice ball of dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl and holds together on the beater. Turn off the mixer.

 

Drain the fruits in case there is rum that did not get absorbed. Add the re-hydrated fruits to the mixing bowl, along with the blanched almonds. Turn the mixer back on and mix until the fruit and nuts are fully incorporated into the dough.

Turn the dough out onto a floured countertop or a larger piece of parchment paper. You may need a little flour for your hands to keep from sticking. Form the dough into a nice ball where the fruits are well distributed. Cut the ball in half, and move half to the side. Form remaining half into a log about 9 inches long. With your rolling pin – or using your hands – flatten the dough into an oblong disc roughly 12 inches long.

Roll your marzipan into a rope a little shorter than the dough. Place the marzipan in the middle of the dough and roll the short sides up to cover the ends of the marzipan. Roll the dough back into a log. Place the log on a clean piece of parchment, on a baking sheet, and set someplace cozy to rise. Repeat the process with the other ball of dough and other tube of marzipan.

 

Cover with a light tea towel or cheesecloth and leave in a warm place to rise for 1 ½ - 2 hours, until risen and puffy. This is your only rise. 

Pre-heat the oven to 325°F and bake for 70 minutes – or until a probe thermometer reads 195-200 degrees in the center of the stollen. Remove from the oven, brush with melted butter, and dust with icing sugar. Let it cool, then dust with icing sugar again. Serve cool.

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/

Gluten-Free Rum Cake #Recipe by @LibbyKlein #Father'sDay

 Libby Klein My husband loves rum. He was in charge of liquoring the fruitcake last Christmas and the end result had to be eaten with a spoon well away from an open flame. So for Father's Day, I thought this would be the perfect dessert for him. I've seen versions of this that include the use of Coke-Cola, but I went traditional. There is so much you can do with this recipe. Add a little lemon or lime zest. Maybe some Maraschino cherry juice. Or Pineapple and coconut. It makes a good jumping-off point for just about any cocktail-infused cake you can think of. Just keep the liquid amounts the same. What would you add to make the perfect cake for yourself or your loved ones?

Gluten-Free Cuban Rum Cake

Ingredients

For the Cake:
2 cups granulated sugar
½ cup unsalted butter softened

½ cup vegetable oil
3 cups gluten-free flour 
4 large eggs room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ cup heavy cream
¾ cup Rum – I used Bacardi gold

For the Buttered Rum Sauce:
¼ cup unsalted butter
¼ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup light brown sugar 
¼ cup rum 
¼ cup heavy whipping cream 
2-3 dashes Angostura bitters optional
1 pinch salt

Directions

For the Cake:

Preheat oven to 325F. Grease a (10- to 15-cup) Bundt pan with baking spray or butter and flour it.

Combine gluten-free flour, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl then whisk together.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter, oil, and sugar, on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined after each addition. Add vanilla, beating just until combined.

With the mixer on low, add flour mixture alternating with rum and heavy cream, beginning and ending with flour mixture just until combined.

Pour batter into pan and bake for 65 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Invert onto a cool rack and let cool completely. Glaze-cooled cake with half of Buttered Rum Sauce. Serve with remaining sauce.

For the Sauce:

Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add remaining ingredients, stirring until fully combined. Bring to a boil. Boil, stirring occasionally for 4-5 minutes. Transfer mixture to a heat-proof bowl or measuring cup; let cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally. Use immediately or store chilled in an airtight container for up to 1 week. Warm slightly before using.

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/

Gluten-Free Linzer Hearts #Recipe by @LibbyKlein #Valentine's Day

Libby Klein  And now one of my very favorite Valentine's Day Recipes. Raspberry Linzer Hearts. Linzer cookies are a twist on the Linzer torte - a recipe from Linz Austria (Where I have been!) A cake made from almonds or hazelnuts, jam, and spices. Nutmeg is one of my favorite spices so it's my go-to with this recipe. While you can use other jams or even Nutella, I love the raspberry. Something about raspberry just says fancy dessert to me. And those red windows are beautiful. Especially for Valentine's Day. Let me know in the comments what flavor jam you would use.

Gluten-Free Linzer Hearts

Makes 10 large and 5 bonus minis

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups gluten-free flour blend with xanthan gum
1 cup almond meal
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup granulated white sugar
1 vanilla bean, scraped or 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
powdered sugar, for dusting
Raspberry jam, for filling

DIRECTIONS:

Combine the flour, almond meal, salt, nutmeg, and xanthan gum (if necessary) in a medium mixing bowl. Whisk until combined. Set aside.

Add the butter and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on medium-high speed for 2 minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the vanilla, egg, and lemon zest and beat on low until combined.

Add the dry ingredients to the mixer and beat on low speed for 1 minute or so until combined, pausing to scrape down the sides of the bowl at any point if needed.

Roll the dough between two sheets of parchment until you have about a ¼ inch thick rectangleish shape. You’re cutting out hearts so it isn’t crucial to have the dough any a particular shape to begin with. But it is very important to have an even thickness. Use rolling pin guards if you have them.

Chill the dough and refrigerate at least one hour until it is stiff. You can chill it overnight if you want to.

Preheat the oven to 350°F Pull off the top sheet of parchment, and cut out your shapes. If you are making hearts like mine, you’ll need two sizes of cutters. A larger heart for the top and bottom, and a smaller heart to cut out the window of the tops. I save all my smaller window cutouts and make sandwich cookies.

Using a spatula, move all of the cutouts to a cookie sheet lined with fresh parchment paper.

Bake the cookies for 11-13 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly golden around the edges. Different sizes/shapes of cookies may require different amounts of cooking time, so I recommend keeping a close eye on the cookies during the final minutes or baking to be sure that they do not overcook.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the cookies cool on the baking sheet (unless they are overcooked in which case you’ll want to carefully remove them to a wire rack to cool completely to room temperature.)

Fill the cookies with jam, then make them into sandwiches. Either sandwiching the large hearts with the cut-out window top, or the smaller hearts together like you see in the photo.

Then using a fine mesh strainer, dust the cookies with powdered sugar. I like to place them on a pretty plate and give them a final dusting of powdered sugar before serving. You can dust right on the jam center. The jam will absorb the powdered sugar and leave that beautiful red center. The large cutouts are so beautiful and festive, but my favorites are the minis. Just the perfect size for a little snack.

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/

Light and Fluffy Gluten-Free Biscuits #Recipe by @LibbyKlein #Christmas

    Libby Klein Last week I gave you a delicious recipe for Aunt Ginny's Fig Jam with Port Wine that you can make for Christmas gifts or as part of your Holiday dinners. If you missed it, check it out here. This week I'm giving you a fabulous recipe for light and fluffy biscuits that you can make for any holiday meal. Fresh out of the oven no one would ever guess that they are gluten-free. You definitely want to make these in a 9x13 pan so they will rise evenly. Sitting them next to each other will put them on the buddy system and they'll help each other lift. The first time I made these on a cookie sheet the ones around the edges were all a little lopsided. Not that anyone cared since they disappeared. These are fantastic with Aunt Ginny's Fig Jam, or with sausage gravy for Christmas Brunch.

Light and Fluffy Gluten-Free Biscuits

Yield 12 biscuits

Ingredients

4 cups gluten-free flour blend with xanthan gum

¼ cup baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

3 sticks of cold butter, cut into cubes

2 large eggs

1¾ cups half-and-half or buttermilk

Directions

 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In the bowl of your food processor, add the dry ingredients. Turn the food processor on and blitz to combine. Add the butter a chunk at a time while you pulse. If your food processor doesn’t have a pulse feature just turn it on for a couple seconds with each piece of butter, then turn it off until you add the next piece.

 

Mix together the half and half and eggs and pour into the food processor with it running continuously. The mixture will come together quickly and pull away from the sides of the bowl. If it’s too wet, add a couple Tablespoons of your flour mixture until you have a cohesive dough.

Turn out on a floured board or a floured piece of parchment paper. Sprinkle flour on top of the dough and form into a ball. Pat down to a disc about 1 ½ to 2 inches thick.

Using a floured biscuit cutter, cut rounds of the dough and place in a parchment-lined 9X13 pan. They don’t have to be touching necessarily but use the buddy system.

Brush the biscuits with melted butter if you so desire. Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until golden brown.

Poppy McAllister discovers that gluten-free Halloweens can scare up another case of murder in the latest installment of this delightful culinary B&B mystery series! - Kirkus Reviews

Poppy is none too pleased when her B&B is coerced into participating in the Cape May Haunted Dinners Tour during Halloween season. Though her knack for finding dead bodies has given the place a spooky reputation, the Murder House is a completely undeserved nickname. At least it used to be . . .
 
While Poppy wrangles with some guests who can’t stop squabbling with each other—including a paranormal researcher, a very quirky pet psychic who freaks out her portly Persian, and an undercover tabloid reporter eager to catch her staff in a lie—one of them winds up facedown in a plate of tiramisu. And now she has bigger worries than getting her house TP’d . . .
 
Includes Recipes from Poppy’s Kitchen!
 

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/