Peanut Butter Munchies (Gluten Free Option)

I’m a passionate baker. Not by choice. It’s because I’m not very good at cooking, and as a woman and soon to be wife, I need to be able to say that I actually know how to use the oven for something other than Sylvia Plath rendition. Especially because FI knows how to cook, so it’s not entirely necessary for me to learn right now. Most of my baking ends up wrapped in saran wrap and sent to Virginia, where FI is. This was a bit of a unique situation.

I got two cookbooks for Christmas this year.  The less exciting of the two was the All-American Dessert Book. The only reason that I can say that is because the other one is a Harry Potter Cookbook. Don’t worry, sometime in the next few weeks I’ll be writing a post detailing our creation of Pumpkin Pasties, Lemon Drops, and Rock Cakes while drinking Butterbeer. Unfortunately, this post is going to be about something else not nearly as enthralling, but equally delicious.

I pulled this recipe from the All American Dessert Book. Which has some insanely awesome recipes that I cannot wait to try. I made the Peanut Butter Munchies as recorded in the book to send to FI and, as the first batch cooled, my sister sneaked one. And then tried to sneak off with the rest of them. So instead of only sending FI 20 of the 32 cookies I ended up with, I decided to make another batch. This time, gluten free so that my entire family could enjoy them, and with a few tweaks from the original recipe to better fit.

This is the first recipe that I really struggled to convert to gluten free. I’m slowly learning that you can’t always just substitute in gluten-free flour and bake it as usual. I almost burned the crap out of the first batch in the oven. After some serious trial and error, I found a combination that ended up with the same result as the non-gluten free ones. You may end up having to tweak this a little bit to fit your oven, as with every recipe, but hopefully it’ll work out for you as well.

The Midwestern version of cooling something in the refrigerator - putting it outside. That's our Christmas tree you see in the corner.

These cookies are wonderfully hearty and robust. With all of the included morsels, you could probably even get away with calling them healthy. Maybe they’ll even fit on your diet plan.

Peanut Butter Munchies (Gluten Free)

Pre-Recipe Notes: 

• I found the mixer indispensable in this recipe. I normally hand-mix cookies with a wooden spoon, and I’m very happy that I’m decided to use the mixer, especially towards the end when I was mixing a lot of heavy ingredients together.
• If you don’t like coconut and are considering leaving it out, please don’t. It is more for texture than taste; it helps to hold all the little morsels together and keeps the cookies soft and chewy.
• As a rule, I also always at least double the amount of vanilla in a recipe. A good friend gave me this tidbit a few years ago and I’ve found that it makes baked goods more flavorful and richer. I’ve never once had a problem.
• If you don’t want or need to make them gluten free remove the xantham gum, and substitute regular all-purpose flour. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes. Mine took 17.

Ingredients:
2 1/3 cups all-purpose gluten free flour
5/8 teaspoon xanthum gum (Or to your xantham gum’s specifications. I used 1/2 heaping teaspoon, because who has 1/8 of a teaspoon.)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 sticks salted butter, slightly softened
2/3 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4  cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup semisweet chocolate morsels
1 cup craisins (dried sweetened cranberries)
1 cup dark raisins
1 cup shredded or flaked sweetened coconut
2/3 cup coarsely chopped salted peanuts (divided)

Directions:
Makes 32 cookies.

Whisk together flour, xanthum gum, and baking soda. In a large bowl, beat the butter, peanut butter, and oil until blended. Add the brown sugar and continue beating until well blended. Add the eggs and vanilla. Continue beating until very light and fluffy.

Add half the flour mixture into the butter mixture until smoothly incorporated. Beat or stir in the remaining flour mixture, the chocolate morsels, cranberries, raisins, coconut, and peanuts until evenly mixed.

Dump the batter onto a piece of parchment or wax paper and shape into a 6-8 inch disk. Cut into four sections and shape each section into a smaller disk. Cover and refrigerate for about 20 minutes or until firmed up slightly. It is important to keep the batter cool during the process. It makes them easier to shape on the baking sheet and they cook a bit more evenly that way. I only removed the disk that I was working with while shaping the cookies and left the rest in the refrigerator.

Position a rack in the upper third of the over and preheat to 325 degrees F. You may choose to grease the baking sheets with nonstick spray – I chose not to and didn’t have a problem.

On a baking parchment or wax paper, separate the quarter you are working with into 8 balls. I did this by cutting it like a pie. It was a bit of an awkward way to separate, but it worked just fine. Space the cookies about 3 inches apart on the baking sheet. Pat down each cookie until about 1/2 inch thick.

Bake one sheet at a time for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the cookies are tinged with brown, just darker at the edges. Mine took 10 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack and let stand for a few minutes. This will help them to firm up slightly. Transfer to a wire rack or paper towel to cool completely.

They’ll keep, stored airtight, at room temperature for up to 2 weeks or frozen for up to 1 1/2 months. Or, you can just eat them all right now and you won’t have to worry about storing them. Trust me, you’ll be tempted.

Gluten Free Guinness Cupcakes with Bailey’s Buttercream Frosting

I meant to write this post sometime between Christmas and New Years, but just never got around to it as we spent the time in between at my future in-laws place the next state over. Needless to say, with 2 babies, 1 toddler, 2 teens, and 8 adults, it was a very chaotic handful of days.

Not the prettiest, but frankly, it doesn’t matter.

These cupcakes were a highlight of the weekend for everyone. Set out as dessert every night that we were there, all 30 of them were gone by the end of our stay. This isn’t the first time that I’ve made them; however, this is the first time I’ve had help. After being an absolute hit last year with the same people, my FI insisted that I make them again this year. Being brought up in the good ol’ Midwest, my inbred politeness required me to bring along something to thank my hosts, so I agreed. I just made him help this year. Which, frankly, made things run a lot smoother. These do take a long time to make and the extra set of hands cut the time almost in half.

See what I did there?

And I know, the thing that everyone is most excited for is that they’re gluten-free. Gluten intolerance or celiac’s disease can be an extremely difficult to live with, as gluten is in most of the things that we eat. Finding gluten-free recipes (especially baking ones) that actually work can be difficult. The product is often dry and crumbly. These on the other hand, are moist, hold together fairly well (I mean, it’s a cupcake, so I’m not sure what exactly you expect), and taste incredible. You won’t even realize that they’re gluten free. My dad, FMIL, and one of the FSIL’s are gluten intolerant, so it was extremely important to me that everyone was able to partake in the yummy goodness of these cupcakes.

See? Yummy goodness. Right there. All up in there.

The original version that I worked from was not gluten free and, along with a few other changes, also had Jameson Whiskey added to the ganache (you can see that one here). This version is often called the Irish Car Bomb Cupcake. I omitted this because these would be fed to minors and we didn’t really want to get them tipsy off of one cupcake. The sugar high was enough.

These are perfect to bring along to a holiday party or a gathering with friends. Other’s have said that they don’t store very well, but we had the opposite experience. We were able to store them in the refrigerator for a few days and they held up just fine. Last year we put them outside on the porch. Praise be to midwestern winters. Keeping our holiday food cool when we run out of room in the refrigerator.

Note: Guinness Beer is not entirely gluten free. While it doesn’t contain wheat, is does contain malted barley which produces a protein similar to gluten. Given the small quantity of beer, I doubt that you will have a reaction, especially how unlikely it is to have one in the first place. For the record, no one that I’ve served this to has had a reaction.

 

Gluten Free Dark Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes

Makes 24 – 28 cupcakes

Cupcakes
1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose gluten-free flour
1 teaspoon xantham gum (alter this per the instructions on the flour that you use)
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Ganache Filling
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
(This chocolate is too bitter for my taste, so I used 1 ounce of unsweetened chocolate with 7 ounces of semisweet.
Use the type of chocolate that you’ll enjoy most and taste it before you put it into the cupcakes.)
2/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons of heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, room temperature

Baileys Frosting (see Recipe Notes)
3 to 4 cups confections sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 to 4 tablespoons Baileys (or milk, or heavy cream, or a combination thereof)

Make the cupcakes:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners.

Put the butter with the beer in a sauce pan over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Whisk in cocoa powder until smooth. Cool slightly.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. In a mixer bowl, beat the eggs and the sour cream together. Add the beer/butter/cocoa mixture and beat to combine. Add the flour mixture and beat briefly just to combine. Using a rubber spatula, fold the batter until completely combined and of equal consistency everywhere.

Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 of the way if you want flatter cupcakes and 3/4 if you want domed. Bake for about 17 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool completely to room temperature. (Because we do live in the good ol’ Midwest and it’s currently winter and thus of freezing temperature, we put ours outside to cool them faster)

Make the filling:
(We started the filling as soon as we put the first batch of cupcakes in the oven. Both the cupcakes and the filling need to cool extensively before you combine them)

Chop the chocolate into small pieces (it will melt easier) and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then stir until smooth. Add the butter and whiskey (if you’re using it) and stir until combined.

Fill the cupcakes:
Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped.

Use a 1-inch cookie cutter to extract the centers. (If you don’t have one, an apple corer will work just fine. I went about half to 2/3 of the way down and twisted the corer to help dislodge the centers. You can use a small knife if that helps. If you go too far down, you can repair it by packing the bottom with cake from the centers.) Put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.

(If you don’t have a piping bag [like me], cut a small hole in the bottom corner of a large ziplock bag. Put the filling inside the ziplock bag and widen the hole as necessary. If you cut the hole too big you won’t have enough control over the amount of filling in each cupcake. If you do cut the hole too big, simply transfer the filling to the other corner of the bag and cut a new hole. Just make sure that you’re not accidentally squeezing the filling out of both holes.)

Make the frosting:
In a large mixer bowl, whip the butter for several minutes until very light and fluffly. Slowly add the powdered sugar, letting it incorporate, utnil the butter becomes thicker and stiff (you will know when this happens). Slowly drizzle the Bailey’s (or milk or cream or a combination thereof) and whip until combined. Feel free to add more Bailey’s to your discretion – we sure did. Just makes sure the frosting doesn’t become too runny.

Ice and decorate the cupcakes. Or, just slather on the frosting and nom immediately.