Recipes

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Gluten Free/Sugar Free S'MORES

Over spring break we were going to take the girls on their first ever camping trip.  That ended up getting canceled due to rain (we were NOT going to have their first camping experience involve rain, we wanted them to like it!) and we pitched the tent in our bedroom and roasted marshmallows (sugar free of course!) in our bedroom fireplace.  Which we had never even used before. Thats a whole different story.
ANYWAY, I digress
So, since we were going camping, and s'mores is basically my favorite part of camping, I had to figure out a way I could enjoy them with my new diet.  I found this recipe on Gluten Free Girl and the Chef.  Her recipes always include a lot of different flours and she encourages measuring them out by weight instead of with cups, so I was too intimidated to try anything. Weighing out your flour? Seriously?  Thats some hard core baking stuff right there. But then I found her graham crackers.  And I had a week off so I had the  time.  And in the end, it really was not hard and didn't take that long (the only reason it took more time than it should have was because Izzy was trying to help. And no offense Izzy, you really aren't that helpful....)

You will need:
2.5 ounces sorghum flour (that’s about 1/2 cup, plus 2 tablespoons) {apparently a harder flour to find, usually you have to order online, but the dudes at Sprouts went and checked the back for me and found one more bag! I was so happy I almost kissed him!}
2.5 ounces brown rice flour, ground super fine, if possible (1/3 cup, plus 1 T)
2.5 ounces tapioca flour (1 tablespoon shy of 1/3 cup
2.5 ounces sweet rice flour (1/3 cup, plus 2 tablespoons) {I missed getting this flour, so I just used 5 ounces of the brown rice flour }
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/4 teaspoon guar gum
1/2 teaspoon salt
3.5 ounces unsalted butter, just out of the refrigerator (7 tablespoons)
3 ounces mild-flavored honey (1/4 cup) {Yay!  No sugar! Love baking with honey!}
3 to 6 tablespoons cold water
cinnamon sugar (optional) {I skipped this one, but will try it next time!}




Cutting in the butter. Cut the butter into small pieces (about 1/2 tablespoon size). Add to the flours in the food processor. Pulse until the butter is incorporated into the flours. The mixture should have a coarse, sandy texture, like cornmeal. {I did this in my brothers awesome Vita-Mix blender.  Not sure why its neccessary since the flours all seemed pretty fine already.  But whatever, I'm not the expert. And I just really wanted to eat some good grahams so I did what the expert said}
Finishing the dough. Stir together the honey and 3 tablespoons of the water. With the food processor running, pour in the honeyed water. Let the food processor run for a few minutes, allowing the dough to form a ball. The final dough should be soft and pliable, even a bit wet. If it still has not come together entirely after a few minutes of processing, add the remaining cold water, a tablespoon at a time.
Refrigerating the dough. Put the dough in a suitable container (or wrap with plastic wrap) and put it in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. This will be just enough time to let you clean up the mess, put away the flours. Oh, and to…
Preheating the oven. Preheat the oven to 325°. Line a sheet tray with parchment paper. Have another piece of parchment paper, same size, ready as well.
Rolling out the graham crackers. Cut the ball of dough in half. Return the other half to the refrigerator. Put the ball of dough onto the parchment-lined sheet tray. Cover it with the other piece of parchment paper.
Carefully, roll out the dough to a rectangle about 1/2 the length of the sheet tray, or until the dough is about 1/4-inch thick. Cut the dough into 8 pieces. (You’ll have ragged round pieces on the edges. Leave them on. They’ll make great scraps for graham cracker crusts.) If you want the final crackers dusted with cinnamon sugar, do that here. {again, didn't do this, but will with some raw cane sugar next time} Refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes.
Decorating and baking. Pull the sheet tray from the refrigerator. Using the tines of a fork, prick holes into the crackers in a regular pattern that looks good to you. {I just used a fork to poke across the middle.  Totally not necessary, but fun if you want the full graham cracker presentation/effect}
Bake the graham crackers until they are golden-warm brown and starting to be hard, about 15 to 20 minutes. (Turning the tray halfway through baking will help them to not bake too brown.) Allow them to cool on the sheet tray until they are cool to the touch and hardened even more, about 30 minutes.
Repeat with the second half of the dough ball.
Eat. Dunk in milk. Make s’mores. Enjoy.
Makes about 16 graham crackers (or more if you cut them in half, as we did for Little Bean’s small hands)
They are smaller than real graham crackers, but delicious!!!!  Reminded me a bit more of pie crust than graham crackers, but it tasted AWESOME with my natural marshmallows and dark chocolate

Here are me & the girls before we started to bake!
These are my ingredients for my s'mores!
So no points for artistic/photographic ability here, but just so you can get an idea.....
Delicious! I seriously had four of them.  And then finished off the graham crackers over the next 36 hours......

2 comments:

  1. Seriously- you are such an inspiration for me. I love reading your blog so much. :)

    ReplyDelete