Is it really November 26th?

I hope everyone who reads this blog had a great Thanksgiving!  I definitely did - lots of amazing food ate with my immediate family, sister-in-law and adorable nephew.  (All gluten free, too.  We've been doing that gluten free holiday thing for a few years now, not to brag or anything :D) 

I've been a lazy daisy as far as photographing baked goods go.  The dessert recipes for Thanksgiving are going to be linked to here, and the pictures I took were just snapshots taken throughout the day, during the meal preparations.  They're certainly nothing compared to a lot of food bloggers, but they're something and the recording of recipes is what matters here anyway, even though the food setups for pictures frustrate me enough to stop posting for almost 3 weeks.  What do you do when you live somewhere the sun only makes an appearance 2 days out of 7?  It's not ideal for food photography.

Anyway, firstly I made Ellie Krieger's Pumpkin Flan and it tasted absolutely wonderful, pumpkin pie without the crust, which was what I wanted.  Perhaps I'm just jaded and lazy but I'm done with gluten free pie crusts unless someone can find me a fool-proof recipe.  They're just not worth the time and effort.  (I can't find one that's easy to roll out, I always end up piecing together the crust in the pan, so what's the point of taking the time to roll it out at all?  Plus the metallic tapioca starch taste always puts me off...)  I didn't take any pictures of this because when I inverted it onto the platter, the caramel didn't really drip down any sides since the sides were so thin (I made it in one 8-inch cake pan rather than 8 small ramekins), it just pooled in the middle and didn't look so great.  But it did taste amazing and that's what matters.  The only changes I made to this recipe were to increase the amount of spices and bake it in a large cake pan.  Served with cinnamon whipped cream on the side.

Then the chocolate cream pie - if I didn't make this, I'm fairly certain my sister would have a fit.  I enjoy it as well but I was dreading the crust.  I remembered I had some leftover gluten free vanilla cookie crumbs in the freezer and added just a couple tablespoons of melted butter and pressed those into a 9-inch pie plate and baked at 350 until the edges were golden.  This could not have worked more perfectly and I plan on doing this every time I need to make a gluten free pie, quite honestly.  Normally I use a very high-fat recipe in Lisa Yockelson's book Chocolate Chocolate, but this year I was looking for something lighter, something that wouldn't leave my stomach feeling like a brick after eating it, so of course I went to Cooking Light.  This recipe came out so nicely, so creamy, so chocolaty.  And no one knew it was "light." Success?  Success.  Only difference was that I used real whipped cream instead of the meringue.  I figured just a light slather of real cream would be just as caloric as an 8-egg white and 1 cup-sugar meringue topping.  Yes it might be poor reasoning, but it is Thanksgiving after all :)

Basic Gluten-Free Baking.

My brother's fiance is a Celiac. Meaning she can't have anything with wheat in it. That means no cakes, cookies, muffins, waffles, pasta, anything with wheat in it. Whatsoever.

As long as they have been dating, I've used this opportunity to do some gluten-free baking. It's not as hard as it might seem. Mostly I stick to naturally flourless things, such as meringues, flourless chocolate cakes and cookies, though sometimes I do venture into various flours and substitutes (chickpea flour, almond flour, tapioca starch, xanthan gum). When I heard they were coming for dinner the other day, I immediately though of a pavlova. They remind me of spring and summertime and we all need some of that here right now.

I was introduced to the pavlova by one of my favourite cookbook authors Nigella Lawson. This is a variation on her recipe from Feast.



Pavlova recipe adapted from Feast by Nigella Lawson

Meringue base:
8 large egg whites
Pinch salt
2 1/2 cups superfine granulated sugar
4 teaspoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons white vinegar
1 tablespoon Amaretto (I use this in place of vanilla extract in everything gluten-free that I make)

Whipped cream topping:
2 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon sugar

Fruits of your choice (I used blueberries, raspberries and blackberries!)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites and salt until soft peaks form. Then add the sugar a few tablespoons at a time until it's all incorporated and stiff peaks are formed. Fold in the cornstarch, vinegar and Amaretto (or extract) and then pour this onto the parchment-lined baking sheet, forming about a 10-inch circle in diameter, smoothing out the top. Put this in the oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 300 degrees F, then bake for an hour to an hour and a half, or until there are cracks around the rim. Then turn the oven off, open the door and let it cool completely.

You can try to take this off the parchment and put it on a platter, but I find it easier to take a platter, and then INVERT the pavlova onto it, and then peel off the parchment. Meaning the bottom of the meringue is then the top, where the cream will go.

When the pavlova is completely cooled, whip the cream and sugar until soft peaks form, and dollop generously over the meringue. Then scatter the fruit (or pile, in my case) all over the cream. This is a messy dessert, but it's SO delicious and fun to eat. Great show stopper also, if you're looking to impress someone special ;)