March Food Goals: Gluten Free Recipes

One of my March goals was to try four new recipes.  I was diagnose with Celiac disease in January.  To say that I was SHOCKED would be the understatement of the 2017!  When my doctor, who knows me well, informed me of the diagnosis,  the first thing that came out of my mouth was, "you are shitting me!"  Honestly, I thought going in to be diagnosed with either colitis or crohn's, both run in my immediate family, and I never even considered Celiac disease.  That all being said, once the shock wore off  and I mourned the loss of my favorite childhood meals/deserts, I started to notice that most of my recipes just needed to be tweaked and adjusted slightly.  Since then my life has take a drastic turn for the better, no more daily stomach pain that would have me in bed for hours in the evening, leaving me near tears sometimes.  Over the past few months I  have been slowly began exploring and cooking with GF flour blends using blogs and company websites to guide me in my new cooking/baking adventure.  

#1 Pumpkin Chocolate Cheesecake ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This recipe is simple and delicious.  It was the first desert I attempted to make and it was a huge success.  It's like having the best of both worlds, chocolate and pumpkin pie, in one cake with cool whip!  I used the Cloud 9 GF flour that I purchased from Costco at an amazing price.  I've made a few items with this flour, cookies and pancakes, and some of them are pretty good and others, crepes, were a huge flop.  I will admit it's not my favorite flour but for baking it seems to work mostly okay but you can taste the difference between it and regular flour. 

#2 Gluten Free Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Breakfast food is my favorite and probably the thing I've been most worried about substituting, next to giving up homemade deserts that I've grown up with.  That being said, it's no wonder that recipe
 #2 and #4 are breakfast food recipes.  I had made pancakes with Cloud 9 flour (above) but gave the Robin Hood GF flour a try and it was anonymously decided that these pancakes, with and without blueberries.  These come pretty close to the originally thing. 

#3 Gluten Free Chocolate Fudge Layer Cake ⭐⭐⭐1/2

I made this cake in celebration of International Women's Day on March 8th.  It was moist, chocolaty and the icing was delicious.  You definitely need to have a 3+ hour stretch, as you have to let the cakes cool for a good two hours before icing and stacking them.  I tried to ice and stack them too early and  the top layer of the cake slid off because the icing was melting between the two cakes.  In the end it all worked out but starting at 8:00 p.m. was not the best plan.  Overall it's a good cake but as with many of the GF items, it dries out much quicker than non-GF baking, so I suggest having a large crowd so that you can finish the cake off within a few days, max fridge life is probably 3-4 days.

 

#4 Gluten Free Chocolate Waffles  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I started this post off with a favorite and we are ending it with a favorite!  These chocolate waffles deserve the five star rating! They are fluffy, tasty, chocolaty and just overall awesome. I didn't get a chance to freeze any because they were gone instantly.   The flour I used is GF Patisserie and it  was highly recommended to me by a friend.  It's pricey but it's the BEST one I've found thus far.  I do save it for special baking, such as these waffles or crepes.   I hope to try using the same recipe but subbing in the Robin Hood GF flour to see if it's just as good.   Everyone, GF or not, would love these chocolate waffles. 

Hope you've enjoyed some of these ideas here today.  If you have some good recipes to share please do!  Tonight is book club at my house and we are having the Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake.