Recipe: Gluten Free Chocolate Brownies

I got this recipe from my friend's mom a long time ago. It really does produce the best brownies. They are fudgey, moist, have a chewy edge (my favorite part), and they are chock full of chocolate. As a confirmed choco-holic I can't live without these brownies. So, I made a few adjustments to the recipe and voila! they're now GF.

mmm brownie bites.

These are just about as simple to make as boxed brownie mixes are. In fact, go to your cabinet and throw away any boxed mixes that you have. After you try these you won't even want to look at those anymore. Trust me.

You can make these the traditional way in a square baking dish, or you can do what I did and make them in a mini cupcake pan.  Making them in the mini cupcake pan is a good way to portion control these babies. Especially if you're like me and can't be trusted to cut a small brownie out of the pan.

Now, without further ado, here is the recipe...

Ingredients: 

• 1 cup of butter
• 4 - 1oz squares of unsweetened baker's chocolate
• 2 cups of sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup of Mama's gluten free almond blend flour
• 1 tsp of Vanilla
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 1/2 cup of chopped nuts (optional, but walnuts are amazing)

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Grease your baking pan
• Melt butter and chocolate in a double boiler until smooth. (You can also do this in the microwave) Poor this mixture into a large bowl.
• Stir in sugar until combined.
• Add eggs one at a time stirring with a spoon until completely blended.
• Add flour, vanilla, and salt until combined. Make sure you break up any clumps of flour.
• Stir in nuts (optional).
• Poor into baking dish or portion out into mini cupcake pan.
• Bake for 30 to 35 mins. Or until tester comes out clean. If you're using the mini cupcake pan bake for approximately 10-15 mins.
• Cool completely.

The tops will be light and flakey, the bottoms will be moist and delicious! This will be another thing that you won't even know is gluten free. Feel free to share...or not.

Bon appetite!

Recipe: The Best Gluten Free Chocolate Cake

The subtitle to this post should be: The most amazing chocolate cake EVER!!! Seriously! It really is...if I do say so myself. Don't believe me, ask my hubby. He ate more than one cupcake in a day. I found this recipe on Bakespace. I originally followed the directions as written and the cake was good but it wasn't as good as I knew it could be. So I tweaked it a little bit. Now that my family and I are gluten free, I've had to further adjust the recipe to make it gluten free. Actually, I think the GF flours make it taste even better. The cake is light, airy, spongy, and well, perfect.

My dad and step-mom's wedding cake. mmmmmm

I know that parts of this recipe may have you questioning my sanity but trust me, there is reason behind the madness. If you try this out please let me know what you think of it.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1-3/4 cups Mama's Gluten Free Almond Blend Flour
• 3/4 cup regular cocoa (not dutched cocoa)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk (or one cup whole milk with 1 tbsp of white vinegar)
• 1 cup strong black coffee (let this cool otherwise you'll just end up cooking your eggs)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
• 1 sm package of chocolate pudding powder

Instructions:

• Heat oven to 350°F.
• Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch baking pan.
• Stir together sugars, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, pudding powder and salt in large bowl.
• Add eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil and vanilla;
• beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes (batter will be thin).
• Pour batter evenly into prepared pans.
• Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
• Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks.
• Cool completely.

If you make this into cupcakes as I usually do it'll yield more than 2 doz cupcakes. Bake them in the oven at 350 for approximately 12-15 minutes. Cool completely before frosting.

This cake and/or cupcakes are amazing by themselves or with frosting. It's not too sweet to hold the frosting and it's not even a little bit plain that it can't take standing in the spotlight by itself. This is by far my favorite cake. The picture is of my dad and step-mom's wedding cake. Underneath the buttercream frosting and decorations is the beloved chocolate cake with a strawberry mascarpone filling. It was delicious! mmmm.