Amaretto Brownies & Salted Butter Caramel Sauce (Gluten Free!)

I wish every weekend was cabin weekend...

Cabin weekend means good friends, great food, copious amounts of wine and beer, hot tubbing, and pontoon rides. Exciting news was shared between friends who had gone FAR too long in between visits. Raucous games of cutthroat bocce ball were played. There were too many smiles and laughs to count.

As usual though, the weekend mostly revolved around food, and there was disaster at almost every turn. More on that later, but one thing that did not get screwed up was the dessert. One of my best friends, (and brand new mom-to-be!!), has a gluten allergy, so it is always challenging to find a gluten free dessert that everyone will enjoy. Luckily, there is Tartelette to the rescue. If you ever need a gluten free dessert, please visit her site, she doesn't alter what she eats because of her intolerance, rather, she makes it work for her, and then is nice enough to share it with the rest of us.

Of course I edited the recipe slightly (I can't help myself, I had to add some booze) and I simplified it a bit. Instead of using a combination of hard to find, not to mention expensive, gluten-free flour substitutes, I used an all-purpose gluten-free baking mix. The texture of the brownies may have not been exactly like Tartelette's version, but they were still great. Moist and rich, we didn't miss the gluten at all. Topped with vanilla ice cream, and a salted butter caramel sauce, and heck, the brownie could have been missing for all I knew.

Dark Chocolate Amaretto Brownies & Salted Butter Caramel Sauce
adapted from Tartelette
makes about 20 3-1/2 inch round brownies

*I made the brownies in tartlet molds, and originally served them like that with a scoop of ice cream  and caramel sauce drizzle on top. If you want to make sandwiches like I did in the pictures, bake the brownies in a thin layer in two parchment paper-lined baking dishes and cut circles once they have cooled.

For the brownies:

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
6 ounces dark chocolate
1/4 cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder
3/4 cup all purpose gluten-free baking mix (or all purpose flour)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup amaretto (or if you want to omit the alcohol, substitute 1/4 cup strong coffee)

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Brush 20 3-1/2 inch tartlet molds with a bit of melted butter, or butter and line a baking dish with parchment paper, set aside.

In a small bowl set over barely simmering water, combine the butter, chocolate, and cocoa powder. Whisk gently, until chocolate and butter are melted, and mixture is fully combined and smooth. This will only take a minute or two. Remove from heat, set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the "flour", baking powder, and salt. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the eggs, sugar, and vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed about 4-5 minutes. Add chocolate mixture and beat until combined. Add amaretto and beat to combine. Add the flour mixture in two additions and beat just until incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition.

Fill each tart mold about 3/4 the way full, and bake for 20-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (start checking around 15 minutes or so). Let brownies cool in the molds on a wire rack completely, then un-mold and store in an air tight container until ready to serve.

For the caramel sauce:

1-1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1 stick salted butter, cut into small pieces
2/3 cup heavy cream

In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, combine the sugar and the water. Simmer just until the sugar is dissolved. Add the butter, and let it boil until it turns a deep amber color. Remove from heat and carefully add the cream. Whisk to combine, and place back over medium-low heat and cook for about 30 minutes, until it has thickened and is nice and creamy.

Now get your vanilla ice cream out.

Grab a spoon...you know what to do.

Just go for it.

Stay tuned for some exciting news, a giveaway, and more recipes from cabin weekend!

Pre and Post

Recently I enjoyed a fabulous meal with my wonderful friends up in Minnesota. There were appetizers by Heather, an amazing salad by Jen, mustard-coated pork tenderloin, caramelized onions and green beans, and roasted potatoes by Stefanie, and a gluten-free white peach galette by yours truly. Oh yes, and lots of wine. It was a definite group effort for this dinner but somehow I only managed to get pictures of the pre-dinner and post dinner eats, and I blame it on all that wine. I did get one picture of the beautiful potatoes, but only because one of the strawberries jumped ship while under the broiler.

Heather provided a simple and tasty appetizer that included french bread, brie cheese, and fresh strawberries. These tidy little stacks were slid under the broiler for a few minutes, where they turned into hot and molten morsels.

Dessert was my job, and yes once again I went for a gluten free adaptation for Miss Jeni. After a lovely trip to the Minneapolis farmer's market, I found myself with some gorgeous white peaches, and a bag of golden raspberries. I wanted something simple that would showcase these late summer beauties. I opted for a galette, with is simply a free-form tart. You roll out a big circle of what is essentially pie dough, put your fillings in, and fold up the edges to hold it all in.

The galette was tasty, but it didn't hold together very well at all, and I am sure that was do to my improvised crust. I found a pie dough recipe and substituted gluten-free baking mix and almond flour in for all purpose flour. Next time I think I would eliminate the almond flour from the dough, and just use more almond flavor in the filling.

For the filling, I sliced the peaches really thin and laid them in concentric circles on the disk of dough. I cooked the golden raspberries down with some sugar, gelatin, and some limoncello to make a sort of jam. It was a bit of a random combination, but that's what's great about relying on my parents well stocked pantry instead of using a recipe. You never know what fun things you will find in there. I brushed this mixture over the peaches, folded up the dough and sprinkled with white sugar and sliced almonds.

Served with fresh whipped cream, it was a good ending to a sublime evening (okay that's a lie, the evening ended with us drinking beer at Williams Pub, but it was the ending to a great meal anyway).

Crust

3/4 cup gluten-free baking mix

1/2 cup almond flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces

3 to 4 tablespoons ice-cold water

Add baking mix, almond flour, sugar, and salt to food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Add cold butter and pulse until butter has been cut into pea-sized chunks. Add water one tablespoon at a time and pulse until dough forms a rough ball. Turn out dough onto floured surface, gently form into a disc, cover it with plastic wrap and let rest in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours.

Golden Raspberry "Jam"

1 cup golden raspberries

3/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon gelatin, dissolved in 1 tablespoon water

a few tablespoons of Limoncello, or other citrus liqueur

Combine all ingredients into a small saucepan, and simmer over very low heat for about 20-30 minutes, until berries break down, and sauce thickens.

Galette

1 chilled pie dough

golden raspberry 'jam'

2-3 white peaches, skin and pits removed, halved and thinly sliced

1 egg, beaten

sugar and sliced almonds to garnish

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

On a floured surface, roll out dough to form a large circle about 13 inches in diameter. Place dough on a parchment paper or sil-pat lined baking sheet. Arrange peach slices in concentric circles, leaving at least a 3 inch border of dough. Brush 'jam' on top of the peaches. Fold the edges of the dough up over the filling. The great thing about this kind of tart, is that it is supposed to look rustic. So don't worry if it looks bad now, it will most likely look beautiful when it comes out of the oven.

Lightly brush the top of the dough with the beaten egg, and while it is still wet, sprinkle crust with sugar and almonds.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes until golden brown. Serve with fresh whipped cream.

There are definitely more riffs on this classic tart in my future. I can't wait to try it with regular pie crust, and all kinds of fillings, and oh yes, there WILL be ice cream involved.

Let's do dessert first, ok?

Ah...cabin weekend. My favorite time of year. A few of my best friends and I, (whom I don't get to see that often) and our significant others get together twice a year at a cabin in northern Wisconsin. It is a weekend filled with bonfires and pontoon rides, lawn games and beer, hot-tubbing and trips to the corner bar, but most of all, it is a weekend with lots of laughs, and lots of food. Each couple takes a meal throughout the weekend, and somehow I always get volunteered for the Saturday night dinner. Not that I am complaining of course, but it definitely takes an extraordinary amount of planning to be able to pull off a nice meal for ten people in the kitchen the size of a closet (not to mention a power outage, but more on that in later posts). All of the food this weekend was amazing, although I have such wonderful friends, that I think they would smile and ask for seconds even if it tasted like a shoe.

There will be many posts to come telling you about the actual meal that I made, and the meals that my friends made, but I think my crowning achievement of the weekend (besides the ribs) was that I, Bria, made a cake. And it was good. And it was gluten-free.

I have been lusting over a cake that was on the cover of Bon Appétit for about four years now, and since two of the cabin attendees had birthdays in the last week, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to make it. The only problem was that one of said birthday girls has celiac disease and is allergic to gluten. No fear, Whole Foods gluten-free baking mix to the rescue! I was a bit worried at first, but it was surprisingly easy to find gluten-free substitutes that I could swap into the cake so that everyone could enjoy it. The cake was a bit heavy and dense from the gluten-free flour, but it was still very sweet and delicious.

Okay let's get to the good stuff. I followed the recipe exactly, except for the flour and baking power gluten-free substitutions which I made notes of in the recipe below. Normally I like to mess with recipes and make them my own, but not when it comes to baking. If I had strayed I probably would have ended up with something more resembling a cinder block than a lemon cake. There are four main components to this cake: the cake layers, the lemon curd, the frosting, and the pistachio crunch. To make life easier on myself, I made one of these components each night last week and they all kept beautifully until Saturday when it came time to assemble the cake. The whole recipe can be found at Epicurious, and here is my Gluten-Free adaptation, broken down into each day, making it much more manageable:

Gluten-Free Lemon Pistachio Crunch Cake
Adapted from Bon Appetit 2004
(my notes in green)

MONDAY
Kicking off the week of prepping for the weekend, I decided to bake the cakes and freeze them. I triple wrapped them in plastic wrap and placed them each on a flat surface in the freezer until they were completely frozen, at which point they could be stacked. I also saved the 8 egg yolks to use them for the lemon curd, they can be placed in a Ziploc container and will be fine in the refrigerator for a few days.

Cake
3 1/2 cups Gluten-Free Baking Mix (I used the 365 brand from Whole Foods)
4 teaspoons Gluten-Free baking powder (also the 365 brand from Whole Foods)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups unsalted butter, room temperature (2 1/2 sticks)
2 cups sugar, divided
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons lemon zest (I accidentally read this as tablespoons, but I think a little extra lemon zest never hurts)
1 1/2 cups whole milk
8 large egg whites

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour three 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 1 1/2-inch-high sides. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Gradually add 1 3/4 cups sugar, beating until well blended. Beat in vanilla and lemon peel. Beat in flour mixture alternately with milk in 3 additions each. Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites in another large bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining 1/4 cup sugar, beating until stiff but not dry. Fold whites into batter in 3 additions. - this stage was a little touch and go, I believe the gluten free mix made this batter VERY thick, as in almost bread dough thick. I double and triple checked that I was following the recipe correctly, which I was, so I think If I ever make gluten free cake again, I will add a bit more liquid to the batter.

Divide batter among prepared pans -if yours is thick make sure to smooth it out with a spatula to get an even top. Bake cakes until golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes.

Cool cakes in pans on racks 15 minutes. Cut around pan sides and turn cakes out onto racks. Turn cakes right side up and cool completely. At this point you can freeze the cakes if you are keeping them for more than a day or two before assembling.

TUESDAY
The lemon curd was made and stored in a Ziploc container with a piece of plastic wrap pushed down onto the surface to make sure no air would get to it.

Curd
8 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
2 tablespoons lemon zest
1/8 teaspoon salt

Whisk all ingredients in heavy medium saucepan to blend. Cook over medium-low heat until curd thickens and candy thermometer registers 170°F, stirring constantly, about 7 minutes (do not boil). I did not use a candy thermometer for this, but I did use a double boiler instead of heating it directly in the saucepan so that I wouldn't have to worry as much about it burning or curdling.

WEDNESDAY
The frosting requires that you make a base, chill overnight, and finish the next day. I made the base of melted white chocolate and cream and left it to sit in a Ziploc container overnight. I also made the pistachio crunch, chopped it up and put it into a Ziploc bag and into the fridge.

Frosting
2 1/2 cups chilled whipping cream, divided
8 ounces high quality white chocolate (for gluten-free, make sure there is no wheat in the ingredient list, I used Ghirardelli)
1/8 teaspoon salt

Bring 3/4 cup cream to simmer in heavy medium saucepan. Remove from heat. Add chocolate and salt; stir until smooth. Transfer frosting base to bowl. Cover and chill overnight.

Pistachio Crunch
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter (1/2 stick)
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup unsalted pistachios (if you can't find unsalted, rinse them off and roast them for a few minutes to dry them out)

Place large sheet of foil on work surface; butter foil. Combine sugar, butter, and 1/4 cup water in heavy medium saucepan. Stir over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves and butter melts, occasionally brushing down sides of pan with wet pastry brush. Increase heat to medium-high and boil until syrup is medium amber color, stirring constantly, about 12 minutes.

Remove from heat. Immediately add baking soda (mixture will foam up), then the nuts and stir to blend well. Spread nut mixture onto prepared foil, separating nuts. Do these last few steps VERY quickly, it sets in about 10-20 seconds.

Cool completely. Chop crunch into 1/4- to 1/3-inch pieces, and store in air-tight container.

THURSDAY
All I had left to do at this point was finish the frosting. I packaged the frosting the same way as the lemon curd. The frosting just required a little whisking to firm up prior to putting it on the cake.

Whisk remaining 1 3/4 cups chilled cream into frosting base to loosen. Using electric mixer, beat until frosting holds stiff peaks. Put into airtight containers until ready to be used.

SATURDAY
Saturday was cake eating day! Time to assemble the cake!

Using serrated knife, cut off mounded tops of cake layers to level. Place 1 cake layer on platter, trimmed side up. Spread with half of lemon curd. Top with second cake layer, trimmed side up. Spread with remaining lemon curd. Top with third cake layer, trimmed side down.

At this point I crumb-coated the cake with a small amount of the frosting and put it back into the fridge for about an hour. This let the layers set up and sealed the lemon curd inside.

After it was set, I finished frosting the cake and put back into the fridge with plastic wrap draped lightly over the top. About 10 minutes before I served the cake, I pressed the pistachio brittle into the sides of the cake.

Oh one last thing: Cut, serve, and enjoy.

And make the gluten-free birthday girl very VERY happy!