Fudgy Gluten Free Brownies

Brownies are one of those things that are really hard to mess up. Of course some are better than others but when you get down to it brownies are a great way for new GF cooks to dive right in. I’ve made several GF brownies and I’ve liked all of them but can’t recall what recipes I’ve used, terrible I know. So I’m on a mission to find my favorite GF brownie recipe and since I love brownies this will be fun but terrible for my thighs. This recipe results in an extremely fudgy brownie with a nice flaky top. It’s so fudgy that you need to let it sit overnight for the best results. Now I first tried a piece when it was still very hot and none of it would hold together so I had to use a fork. The next piece I tried it had cooled more but it almost seemed as if it hadn’t been baked long enough. The next day I had another piece and it was perfect. I’m not always in the mood to wait overnight to enjoy my brownies but these are worth the wait. This is a very easy and quick recipe and it was my first choice because I already had the ingredients on hand.

Clare’s Gluten-Free Brownies
Adapted from Gluten Free Goddess

½ C butter (shortening can also work here)
1 C sugar
5 T cocoa
1 t salt
1 t vanilla extract
2 eggs
¾ C Gluten Free Mama’s Coconut Flour (or your favorite GF flour mix)
½ C chocolate chips

Melt the butter in the microwave then add the sugar, cocoa, salt, and vanilla extract mixing well. Mix in the eggs then add the flour and beat just to combine. Add the chocolate chips and spread in an 8”x8” baking pan. Bake at 350 F for 30 min. Allow them to cool completely, preferably overnight, before cutting in and enjoying!

Great Falls & Bozeman - More Gluten Free Options

Our gluten free options in Montana are expanding, we really are lucky to have all the stores and restaurants that we do here. My first new find came through the day care my kids go to. They've been fantastic keeping the kids GF and even sought out some GF brownies that they could safely have at their Halloween Party. I panicked when I first saw them but then I saw the gluten free sticker and of course I had to try it. It was a really good brownie and it came from The Daily Coffee Bar in Bozeman. They have two locations in Bozeman, one near campus at 11th & College and the other at Nth Rouse and Oak St. I tried to send an e-mail to get more information on their GF products and if they carry them at both locations but the e-mail was returned. Either way I plan to stop in to check out their selection and if nothing else I'll at least get a coffee.

People in Great Falls have reason to celebrate also. There is a restaurant, Pegasus Blu, that is 100% gluten free. How cool is that? It makes me want to take a drive to Great Falls just to try them out. They can also accomodate other food sensitivies like dairy and eggs. They have breakfast offering French toast, pancakes, biscuits, etc. and lunch offering sandwiches, soups, burger buns, and salads. Of course there's dessert options of cookies, cakes, brownies, and muffins. They are located at 525 Central Ave on the 2nd floor in Times Square. They are open 8am-3pm Tuesday through Saturday. You can call them at 406-225-5495 or e-mail them at pegasusblugf@yahoo.com.

Sausage & Potatoes

This is a recipe I don’t make too often but it’s a family favorite, especially for Hubby. It’s great when I don’t have a lot of time or when I’m on cooking burnout, which seems to be happening right now. You can add anything you want for veggies, it’s a versatile dish.

Sausage & Potatoes

1 package sausage*
5 medium potatoes
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium onion

Slice the sausage into coins and throw in a hot skillet with the garlic and chopped onion. Stir occasionally while you chop up the potatoes into 1” cubes. Add the potatoes and stir as needed to keep the potatoes from sticking to the skillet. If needed add a dash of olive oil. Cook until the potatoes are tender.

*We avoid nitrates and nitrites so it’s sometimes hard to find sausage that we can eat. I have found some Aidell’s sausage at Costco that we can have but be sure to check the ingredients if you’re trying to avoid these cancer causing ingredients. Also double check that your sausage is GF too, some aren’t.

Leftovers are perfect for a breakfast burrito. Scramble some eggs then add the leftover sausage and potatoes and heat through on the stove top. Wrap it in a GF tortilla with cheese, salsa, and sour cream. Yum!

Eyeball Tarts

Every Halloween I try to make a Halloween themed dinner, it’s never anything extensive because I just don’t have time for that but it does make dinner a little extra fun. This year I decided to try eyeball tarts and I found them to be pretty good, I did make a couple changes beyond making them gluten free. These work as appetizers or as a main meal.

Eyeball Tarts
Adapted from razzledazzlerecipes.com

Cream Cheese Tart Shells

½ C butter, softened
3 oz cream cheese, softened
3-4 T milk
1 ½ C Gluten Free flour (I used GFM’s Almond mix)
½ t xanthan gum
1/8 t salt

1/2 t garlic powder

Mix the butter and cream cheese thoroughly and then add the milk. Add the flour, xanthan gum, salt, and garlic powder mixing well. You may need to add a bit more milk if it’s too dry, you want it to come together as dough. Chill for a couple hours and grease a mini-muffin tin. Take about 1 T of dough and press it into a muffin cup using your thumb to smooth it on the edges and push a well into the middle of the cup. Fill all 24 muffin cups with dough. Bake at 425 F for about 10 min. They will not be very browned but that’s OK because they will be cooked more later on.

Eyeballs

24 fully cooked gluten free meatballs about 1” in diameter
1/3 C pizza sauce
24 small slices of mozzarella cheese*
24 sliced pitted black olives

Spoon some pizza sauce into the baked tart shells, don’t skimp since the flavor will be really nice (I wish I had put more in mine). Top each shell with a meatball. Bake at 350 F for 15 minutes. Top each meatball with a slice of cheese and place an olive on top. Put into the oven (turned off) until the cheese has melted around the meatball. Serve with more pizza sauce on the side if you like.

*You can buy a pack of mozzarella slices and then just break each slice into 4 equal pieces, these are the perfect size to cover the meatball.

Scotcheroos Gluten Free

We were at a family function awhile ago and everyone eating the Scotcheroos that I couldn’t have about killed me. It also got Hubby wanting some even though we was able to enjoy them since he’s doing the gluten challenge right now. I decided to give them a gluten free whirl and that’s when I realized some butterscotch chips have barley in them, blast! I went to 5 grocery stores before I found some GF butterscotch chips in this area and I thank Smith’s for carrying them. Hershey’s are GF but Nestle Tollhouse are not, seems that everyone carries Nestle but not Hershey’s. They were worth the hunt and as delicious as their gluten filled relatives.

Scotcheroos
From Celiac.com

1 C sugar
1 C light corn syrup (you can use rice syrup or agave)
1 C peanut butter
5-6 C GF crispy rice cereal (Koala Krisp works great)
1 C GF semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 C GF butterscotch chips

Combine the sugar and corn syrup in a medium sauce pan and bring to a boil stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in the peanut butter. Add the cereal and stir to coat with the mixture. Press into a greased 9x13 baking dish.

Combine the chocolate chips and butterscotch chips in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for 1 minute, stir and microwave for another minute. Stir until combined then spread evenly over the cereal mixture in the pan. Cool and cut into bars.

I ran out of rice syrup when I made these so I then tried to fill the rest of my cup with Agave nectar but I ran out of that also. Thankfully I had honey and even with my trifecta of syrups it turned out delicious.

Nova Cafe - Gluten Free in Bozeman

The other weekend we had the pleasure of my parents visiting us and I thought it was a great time to try out the Nova Café. We always go out to eat breakfast the day they leave so we drove to Bozeman on Sunday morning. It was busy but the wait was only about 20 minutes and I was able to take in all of the gluten free baked goods they offered, plus you can sit and have a cup of coffee for free while you wait. Honestly when I heard they offer GF baked goods I figured there’d be one thing to choose from but I saw that there were 4 options, wow! They had lemon bars, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate muffins, and maple nut muffins. I wanted to buy everything but I was able to control myself. Our waiter was very knowledgeable on what was safe for us and what wasn’t and that is such a comforting feeling. For instance the bacon is fried on the same griddle as the pancakes so there may be some cross contamination but the sausage is safe. Also the seasoned red potato home fries can be cross contaminated so instead they offer an awesome fruit bowl. The minute the fruit bowl hit the table my boy was all over it. They also offer gluten free bread, 3 seed or white, and both are really good. The three seed has fennel in it (at least that’s what I think it is) and I’m not a fennel fan but I still ate it. It was a great breakfast and here’s a picture of my boy in toast heaven.




I had the Veggie Scramble and I’m glad I remembered to take a picture before eating it all. The fruit bowl did have raspberries with it but they disappeared before everyon had their plates in front of them, the things I give up for my kids.

My kids had the chocolate muffins for breakfast the next day and they were really good, I heated them a bit in the microwave to help soften them up and yummy. I forgot to take a picture so just imagine a big chocolately muffin.

We found ourselves at the Nova Café for lunch the next day and I usually do salads but I had to get a sandwich just because I could. I had the Quickie on the white bread and it was fantastic. I was also able to safely eat the baked French fries and I was in a little piece of heaven myself.

This time I didn’t control my purchases so I picked up a chocolate chip cookie, peanut butter cookie, and mixed berry twist. The cookies were really good though I prefer my homemade versions and the mixed berry twist was to die for. I couldn’t get enough of it. It’s a sweet bread twisted with fruit and worth stopping by just for that.

Gluten Free Molasses Cookies

I have been fretting about turning our Christmas molasses cookie recipe gluten free. I’ve never swapped a cookie recipe on my own and there’s no way we could have Christmas without these cookies so I didn’t have an option. The kids were sick this weekend (again) so I had some extra time at home while we tried to not share our germs and figured it was perfect to try my hand at turning my recipe GF. I did some reading and comparing of cookie recipes I love and came up with a plan. I didn’t expect them to turn out but I was pleasantly surprised that they did. I tried variations in rolling them out and in bake times and below is what I found to work the best. These cookies are soft and yummy and the frosting is a must. The taste is great but they have a tendency to be a bit flaky and cake-like, it’s odd but the frosting helps to distract from its flakiness. I’ve subjected my co-workers to sample the cookies so I can get an objective opinion and the only comment has been that they’re very airy and light and not really like a cookie. My family is happy with them so I guess that’s what matters.

Becky’s Molasses Cookies
Adapted from my Mother-in-laws recipe

1 C molasses
1 C shortening (I used Spectrum)
1 C brown sugar
2 eggs beaten
3 ¼ C + 1/3 C GF flour (I used Gluten Free Mama’s Coconut flour)
1 ¼ t xanthan gum
1 T baking soda dissolved in ¾ C boiling water
1 T cinnamon
1 T cloves
1 T ginger
½ t salt

Sift or whisk together your flour, xanthan gum, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and salt. Cream together the molasses, shortening, and brown sugar. Add the eggs and mix thoroughly. Add the flour mixture and baking soda mixture alternately in three batches starting with the flour. My mixer likes to splash the water mixture so start slow and be careful! Once it’s well mixed put it in the refrigerator overnight to chill.

Once the dough is chilled you can roll it out and cut shapes into it. Preheat your oven to 350 F, I used my convection option so I set the temperature to 325 F. Tear two 15 inch lengths of wax paper and take some of your GF flour and sprinkle it on one length of the wax paper. Put about 1/5th of the dough on the floured paper and then cover it with the second length of wax paper. Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough to about 1/8th inch in thickness then take a cookie cutter and cut out your desired shapes arranging them on a cookie sheet. These fluff up and don’t spread so you can squeeze quite a few on one sheet. I found it easiest to pin one end of the wax paper between my body and the counter top to hold it still while I rolled the dough out. Bake for 9-10 minutes and allow the cookies to cool before removing them from the cookie sheet.

Butter Frosting

2 ½ T softened butter
1 ½ C confectioners sugar
1 ½ T cream
¾ t vanilla

Cream together the butter and sugar. Stir in the cream and vanilla until smooth and it has reached your desired consistency. I find that I always need to add more cream to get it to the consistency I want.

Frost your cookies and enjoy!