Gluten free Cinnamon Rolls- with Toffee glaze

The other day when I was at the bakery, I saw that there were some raisin rolls for sale. The looked so similar to cinnamon rolls, that I could not resist trying one. Boy was I disappointed, the bread part was nice, but there was no cinnamon, and it was all eggy inside, not at all what I was expecting.

I think what was most disappointing was that I have really been dying for a cinnamon roll. We haven't eaten them in such a long time, even before Seyfi was diagnoised with Celiac. Since then, I had just decided that we wouldn't be eating them ever again.

When Seyfi and I first moved in together I use to make cinnamon rolls all the time, at least once a month. I made them for ourselves, I made them when we were having guest over for brunch- I made them a lot. Then I guess we got a bit bored of them, so they kind of fell out of the baking rotation, and then we thought they had to be out of our lives forever.

However, today, after all the success I have been having with the new gluten free flour that I found, I thought that I would give them a whirl. I took Pioneer Woman's recipe for cinnamon rolls.

As I started the recipe, everything went exactly as they were suppose to, the dough was actually really easy to work with, not too sticky and they baked up really nicely. When I went to do her Maple icing, there was a small problem. I had no maple and no powdered sugar. I looked in my Martha Stewart cupcake book again and found a recipe for a toffee glaze, which I used and it turned out wonderfully.

I am happy with the way these rolls came out. They do not have the same texture as normal cinnamon rolls, but I'm getting use to the idea that gluten free baking will never be the same as normal baking. Either way, they taste and look great!

What we did yesterday- Rail Bikes

We've been trying to save a bit of money these days. We thought that one of the best ways to do this was to not do any BIG trips at the weekend, and anywhere that we went, we would bring a picnic with us, so when we woke up yesterday morning, and it was the most beautiful sunny day that we had seen in a long time, we needed to choose our outing carefully.

As we looked through the www.365.be tourist book that we have, we found something that looked like great fun- Rail bikes. The are bike cars that sit on old railway tracks that go through the Namur valley in southern Belgium, only an hour from our house. The best part was that the whole day rental was only going to cost 25 euros for all of us. We were off with out picnic in our hands.

The rail bikes were a lot of fun, easy to use and the scenery was beautiful. We saw trees and rivers, castles, ruins and an abbey. It was an wonderful way to spend an afternoon together. Alara loved passing people who were on their bikes or walking and saying 'choo choo!'

I will give a warning though- if you are not a biker (which we are not), it is a bit of a long trip, and getting use to a bikes seat can be slightly uncomfortable. Not to over share, but out bums are a bit sore... but it was worth it!

Gluten free Chocolate Cupcakes

Martha Stewart's Cupcakes have visited our house again! I'm continuing down the cupcake road, and have made a stop at chocolate.

Today we are having our first real guest over. They are coming over for tea after dinner. I always have trouble deciding what I should make for Turkish guests. I never know if I should do something 'typical' Turkish, or just make whatever I want...

As I thought more about it, I figured that since I would be making something gluten free any way, which will make whatever I make taste at least slightly different, I might as well make something completely not Turkish- therefore I am serving devil's food chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate ganache icing, apple sauce cupcakes with caramel butter cream icing and tomato bruchetta.

The chocolate cupcakes are great! I truly don't know how these cupcakes keep turning out so great, I think it is because of this Schar flour that I am using, it is amazing! I just used Martha's recipe, and exactly changed the flours out, and sprinkled in a bit of guar gum.

I gave some 'practice' cupcakes to some friends today, and didn't tell them they were gluten free- and the could tell the difference!

I will give one critique- I am not happy with the ganache- it didn't set up they way that it should have, I think it is because of the chocolate that I used, but it may have been the cream. It taste great, but doesn't have the right texture. That's what happens though when you are cooking in a new country, sometimes you just don't find that right ingredients the first time.

I'm looking forward to our guest tonight, it will be nice to meet some new people, plus it was a great motivation to give the house a clean!

Time...

A year ago, when I thought about these three years that I wouldn't be working, I don't think that I expected them to be like this. I thought my days would be empty, that I would be bored without having any 'work' to do. What would I do without my daily routine? I used to think how will I fill the TIME?

Boy was I wrong. I have filled the time...

There is always something for me to do, getting the groceries, running Alara up to the library to our reading group, cleaning the house, running to the health food store to get Seyfi some bread, or making dinner, lunch, desserts, breakfast, in general food to be eaten at home. I'm a busy woman.

I often wonder why that is, and I think the reason that I am so busy now is because I feel like I don't have an excuse not to be. When I was working there was always a reason not to do something. I NEED to have a lady clean the house, I don't have time! We NEED to order dinner, I don't have time! We can't go to the library/park/zoo, I don't have time!

The thing is I love the way my days are filled. I don't sit around all day watching television, I fill my days with lots of other activities, and you know what the best part of that is, I do all of these things with my favourite little girl.

She has become quite the little helper, wants to help cook, likes to pick up, folds the laundry with me, and my new favourite, she likes to help me take out the garbage on Wednesday evenings she likes to help me take out the garbage.

My parents say to let her help me do everything, because in ten years, she isn't going to want to do anything. I remember when I was 12, and they are right.

Having this little helper has made me slow down. We do things slowly now, so that she can learn, so that she can understand, so that she can do them right. There is no need to rush through ever little job, we don't need to run anywhere (unless she is wearing her sneakers...) there is no need to race, time is not important to us anymore, life is the journey. Alara has taught me to slow down and enjoy these days.

Buckwheat galettes, stuffed with vegetarian chilli and quinoa

I've had a small bag of organic buckwheat sitting in my cupboard for the past month. I picked it up during our second trip to Paris. It's just been sitting waiting for me to make something, anything with it.

Today I did just that. I made buckwheat crepes, or galettes with it. And boy were they ever good. Galettes are a French crepe that is made from buckwheat flour, which is gluten free (I had to wikipedia it to make sure), they are usually made in the Brittany region of France, but after reading a bit more, I found that they are also made in my little part of Belgium. I immediately took up the challenge.

The crepes were not difficult to make, but they sure were time consuming. Between letting the dough rest for at least two hours, and then making them one by one, they were not something that could just be whipped up on a whim. I was however very proud that I only ended up throwing away three of the twenty two crepes I made.

I didn't want to make dessert crepes, I wanted to eat them at dinner. When I lived in Uruguay we use to eat these wonderful crepes stuffed with meat, or spinach or mushrooms and bechamel, they were so delicious.

But I didn't have any meat, spinach or mushrooms at home, so I made a vegetarian chili, using chickpeas and kidney beans, grated carrots and zucchini, peppers and onions. It was really nice, but I needed to 'bulk' it up a bit more, so I threw in some quinoa, it gave the chili the nicest texture.

When everything was ready, and Seyfi (finally) got home, I rolled some of the chili up, added a bit of emmental cheese and served them with some plain yogurt. Seyfi was really happy with them, and Alara ate all of the chickpeas and kidney beans first, and then scooped up the vegetables and quinoa saying 'Alara quinoa like!'

Gluten free Cupcakes

I decided that I needed a bit of a goal when it comes to my new career as a domestic engineer, and since I have started on this new gluten free course, I thought I might as well choose a direction that directed me in this direction. After I bought my new ice cream maker, I thought ice cream would be good. I promptly went to the library to find a book about the ins and outs of ice cream making.

Unfortunately, there was no such book available at the library. However, I did find the Martha Stewart Cupcakes recipe book. I signed it out, and processed to leave it on the kitchen table for a week and a half.

Now, while it sat there, I was touring around with my parents, so I do have an excuse, and I did buy some pretty muffin papers, but to be honest, in the back of my head, I was thinking 'aren't cupcakes sooo five years ago??'

Then I watched Top Chef: Just Desserts, and one of the chefs (Morgan, who I'm not sure I'm a fan of yet) made these beautiful white cupcakes, and Alara started saying that she wanted to make cupcakes too...

So this afternoon, while Seyfi was a work (on a Sunday if you can believe it!) Alara and I picked out a cupcake from the book, but we didn't have any dutch process cocoa (any suggestions for substitutions?), finally we found one that we wanted, so Alara climbed onto the counter, and we got to work making Martha Stewart's Yellow Buttermilk cupcakes, gluten free...

It didn't go exactly to plan, we didn't have everything that we need to any sort of frosting, and since it is Sunday, and we live in Belgium, popping over to the store was not an option. So, we decided to put some chocolate pieces into the top (since we live in Belgium there is always chocolate in the house!)

We also didn't have any buttermilk, so we used plain yogurt, and we substituted the flour for the the gluten free cake flour that I have, and added some guar gum, the result? Perfection.

The cupcakes were so delicious, Seyfi has already eaten two today.

I'm really happy with this flour that I am using, I'm going to mention it, I'm not getting paid for this or anything, but it is great, and I love all there products- It is from a company called Schar- and they sell gluten free things all over Europe, and some of their products are available in North America as well. Just wanted to mention them because I am so happy with my baking when I use them.

Anyway, the cupcakes are awesome, and I am going to move on to another recipe in the book! Thanks Martha and Schar!

Paris.... with the parents

My parents of made it home safely, but I wanted to do a quick post about the two days we spent together in Paris.

I can honestly say that we had a really nice time, and actually saw a lot of the city. We walked from Pont Neuf, to the Eiffel tower, through St Germain and saw all kinds of fancy shops and people.

But the fanciest shops and people that we saw were in Madeline. We saw, Chanel and Gucci and Fauchon (a fancy food store) and the highlight was buying mustard in Maille. So yummy.

It was really nice to see Paris with my parents, and I am really happy that we had such a nice visit together. Can't wait for them to come again!