I have not been tempted by anything until I made this Hungarian Shortbread. By the reactions of those who could indulge, if I ever do decide to cheat, this will be the culprit! I never ache for anything, I find myself completely satisfied on my gluten free diet, but oh, this does look good. I also don't keep a gluten free kitchen. We are very very careful, two toasters, separate wooden spoons, a separate freezer for all our gluten free flours, well labeled jars in the fridge and a partner who is equally careful. If I do bake with wheat flour, or any gluten, it is after I have complete my gluten free cooking. This light, crumbly shortbread is the result of a clever technique: freezing the dough and grating it. It is based on a recipe by Dorie Greenspan.
2 cups wheat flour, plus more as needed
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp fine salt
1/2 pound sweet, unsalted butter, plus more to prepare pan
1 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
3/4 cup good raspberry jam (I use the kind with seeds from Stonewall)
Sift flour, baking powder and salt together, set aside. Cream butter in a kitchen aide mixer using the paddle attachment for 2 minutes. Add sugar and egg yolks and continue to cream for another 4 minutes. With the mixer on slow, add the flour mixture until it comes together, about a minute. Turn dough onto a light floured surface and bring together with your hands. Divide dough into two disks and wrap in plastic wrap. Freeze for at least an hour and up to 3 hours. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 or 10 inch spring form pan. Remove disks from freezer, unwrap, and grate one disk using the large holes of a box grater, directly into the the prepared pan. Gently pat grated dough to even it out. Spread the jam evenly over the dough leaving a half inch border around the edges. Grate remaining disk over the jam layer and pat gently to even out the surfaces. Bake until light golden brown, about 45 - 60 minutes, depending on your oven. Cool on a wrack completely before removing from pan. Dust with powdered sugar.
2 comments:
Like you I am not at all tempted by gluten -- except for one temptation, my favorite scones, which fortunately for me are far away from CA in Hong Kong....Your discussion of your kitchen arrangements is quite helpful; I wish more GF bloggers would describe how they work out GF/non-GF matters. I was unaware how careful I needed to be, blindly baking and cooking for my non-GF family -- no doctor ever told me about the dangers of cross-contamination. Of course, every celiac has a different level of sensitivity (I just read about a woman who says steam from pasta glutenizes her!), plus I truly believe we can become so identified as celiac that we psych ourselves into a gluten reaction or misascribe unrelated problems to gluten (an issue for most chronic illnesses). Your plan of cooking your GF food first is one I have just begun to implement, as I realized I have been regularly glutenizing myself by cooking my dinner last. Thanks -- I can't wait to read through your archives.
Hi Michele,
Thanks for posting a few comments on my blog. It is always nice to see someone is actually looking and reading besides myself. I don't post too often. Wow, favorite scones all the way in Hong Kong . . . must be good! I find most physicians don't really know the first thing about actually managing a gluten free diet. So, I would not look to them for help. Your better off getting tips from bloggers. I am sure you read GF Girl which is the best. It seems like getting gluten from the steam in which one is boiling pasta is a stretch. My understanding is that the gluten actually needs to enter the GI tract. . I do know that you need to make sure kitchens are not cooking GF pasta in the same water as they previously boiled regular pasta. I also agree with you that we can get carried away with the whole issue and need to be careful. As for the dates, I use the fresh and dried dates, and I also use dried fig. I am not a big fan of fresh figs. They are indeed very very different and I find that recipes don't always specify which should be used, fresh or dried so it can be tricky. I like dried fruit alot, I always call the manufacturing plant when I use dried fruit since I have heard that oat flour is used to prevent the fruit from sticking together. I guess this is a common practice in bluk packaging as well. If I am not sure about something, I usually rinse it well before eating or using. My parnter is pretty careful about not double dipping but generally we have seperate jars for things like mayo, peanut butter, jelly (you get the picture) Anyway, thanks again for your comments and good luck in your journey!
Cari
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