Gluten Free Cheesecake Recipe

Last week was my mother's 70th birthday!  She just moved out to Oregon in December, and my father will be moving here within the week.  My parents live 1/4 of a mile from us now, and I am extremely thankful that they have moved to be closer to us.  Since my father is not here yet, I wanted to make my mother's birthday special.  So, my husband made salmon (per my mother's and son's request) and popcorn shrimp (per my daughter's request).  And we ended the evening with this cheesecake, my mother's favorite dessert.  The kids made some birthday cards, and my son played "Happy Birthday" to her on his guitar.  It was a wonderful evening, and I was so happy to get to spend the special day with her!  Here is my recipe.

Gluten Free Cheesecake

• 1 cup whole almonds (about 4 ounces)
• 1 1/4 cups plus 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 2 pounds nuefchatel cream cheese, at room temperature
• 4 large eggs plus 2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• Boiling water, for baking

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. 

Using a food processor, pulse the almonds and 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar until finely chopped.   Add the butter and pulse until combined.  Press the nut mixture evenly into a 9-inch springform pan.  Bake until the crust is slightly browned, about 10-15 minutes.  Take it out of the oven and lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees.  

While the crust is cooling, place the pan on a long piece of aluminum foil.  Fold the foil up the sides of the pan.  Set it in a large baking dish or roasting pan.  

Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese at low speed until it is fluffy for about 1 minute.  Gradually beat in the remaining 1 1/4 cups sugar until smooth and creamy.  It should take 1-2 minutes.  Beat in the eggs and egg yolks 1 at a time, making sure that all of the ingredients are combining well together.  Beat in the sour cream, lemon peel, and vanilla.

Pour the filling into the already baked crust.  Transfer to the oven and pour enough boiling water into the baking dish to reach halfway up the sides of the springform pan.  Bake until the edges are set and the center jiggles slightly.  In my oven, the cheesecake only took 60 minutes, but I have made this before in a different oven and it took 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Turn off the oven, prop the door open slightly and let the cake cool in the oven for 1 hour.  Remove the cake from the water bath and discard the foil.  Let the cake cool completely, then cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours.  Then serve.

Cook's Notes:  Remember that this recipe calls for 2 pounds of cream cheese, which is 4- 8oz boxes.  I always seems to forget that and have to make a second trip to the grocery store!

This recipe is inspired by a recipe that was in the Rachael Ray Magazine a few years ago, and we fell in love with it.  My husband and I had never made cheesecake, but we thought we would give it a try.  This recipe is easy to follow, and I have never been disappointed the way it turns out.  It is light and fluffy, and the crushed up almonds in the crust blend well with the creamy cheesecake.  It is absolutely delicious!  I hope you enjoy it!

<3 Cassidy

Gluten Free Poke Hole Cake Recipe

Have you ever heard of a Poke Hole Cake?  This is a recipe that my family has been used many times, including for my first birthday.  It is extremely easy to make, and there are lots of opportunities for your children to help.  My kids really wanted to help make a birthday cake for their father, so I decided that this was the perfect recipe.  

Poke Hole Cake

4 cups almond flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup honey
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
2 packages instant pudding
1 cup confectioners' sugar
4 cups cold milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan with crisco and dust with almond flour.

In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda.  Then add the honey, eggs, and vanilla extract.  Mix all of the ingredients together until it has been combined thoroughly.  Scoop the batter into the prepared cake pan.

Bake for 30 minutes, until a knitting needle inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.  While the cake is still warm, poke holes in the cake with the handle of a wooden spoon throughout the cake.  Ideally, the holes should be about 2 inches apart.  Since my children were the ones who poked the holes, I just made sure that the holes were spread out throughout the whole cake.

After poking holes, mix the pudding mix and sugar together.  Gradually add milk and stir.  Then beat at a low speed for no more than 1 minute.  Pour the pudding over the whole cake, making sure that the pudding fills all of the holes.  Chill the cake for 1 hour and then serve.

Cook's Notes:  My mother used to make this recipe with a cake mix instead of a made from scratch cake.  You could also make this using any flavor you want of cake or pudding.  We are chocolate lovers, so tend to choose chocolate over any other flavors.

So, get your kids in the kitchen and have some fun baking!  They will feel so proud when they get to share what they made.

<3 Cassidy  

Gluten Free Sugar Cookies Recipe

My daughter is becoming happier and happier to help me in the kitchen, especially when she gets to decide  what we are making.  Last month, my daughter requested that we make sugar cookies, because she really wanted to be able to decorate them with frosting and sprinkles.  We had been so busy, that I really did not feel like making the cookies from scratch.  So, I decided to try using Pamela's Baking and Pancake Mix.  

I was pleasantly surprised with the way the cookies turned out.  The dough was easy to roll out using the parchment paper.  The dough held together well.  My kids were able to transfer the pre-cooked cookies from our counter to the cookie sheet without them breaking.  When cooked, the cookies were soft and chewy.  The were sturdy enough to frost, but not too hard.  We are definitely going to be making these again soon with our new Chanukah cookie cutters.  Here is the recipe I used.

   

Gluten Free Sugar Cookie Recipe

1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 3/4 cups Pamela's Baking and Pancake Mix

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together.  Add egg and vanilla extract and beat together.  Add Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix and beat until it forms into a dough.  Wrap dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.  (We left it in the fridge for 1 hour, because we had to pick up my son from school.)

When you are ready to make the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment paper until the dough is ~1/2-inch thick. Cut out whatever cookie shapes you like and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet.  Leave space between the cookies, because they will spread.  Bake for approximately 12-15 minutes.  The edges should be light brown.  Let cookies cool slightly and use spatula to remove from cookie sheet.

When the cookies are completely cooled, you can decorate the cookies any way you choose.  I used a store bought vanilla frosting, because that is what my children requested.  Then we decorated the cookies with colored and chocolate sprinkles.  Here are a few samples of what we made.  

I hope you enjoy making these cookies with the people you love.  Enjoy!

<3 Cassidy

Gluten Free Noodle Pudding (Kigel) Recipe

L'Shannah Tova!  Happy Rosh Hashanah!  Today is the first day of the Jewish new year.  Since I was little, my mother always made kigel for Rosh Hashanah.  What is kigel, you ask?  Kigel is a traditional noodle pudding.  I have heard it called kugel, but that is not how my mother and grandmother said it.  Actually, my husband calls it kugel, but I joke with him that I do not understand this word.  I only make kigel!

This recipe was passed down from my grandmother.  There are numerous sweet and savory kigel recipes, but I have never tasted one that even compares to this.  So, here is my gluten free version of my grandmother's kigel.

Grandma Taube's Kigel

8 oz gluten free linguine noodle, broken into 1-2 inch pieces

1 cup sugar

Juice of 1 large lemon

1 teaspoon vanilla

5 eggs

16 oz cottage cheese

1 pint sour cream

Cinnamon

Crushed walnuts

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Cook the noodles according to the directions on the box.  While the noodles are cooking, grease casserole dish with Pam.  When the noodles are cooked, drain the water and place them back into the pot you used to cook them.  Add the sugar, lemon juice, vanilla, eggs, cottage cheese, and sour cream.  Mix all of the ingredients together and pour into the greased casserole dish.  Sprinkle the top with cinnamon and crushed walnuts.  Put it in the oven and bake it for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the topped is nicely browned.  (I baked it for only 60 minutes in my convection oven.)  Then shut off the oven, and let the kigel stay in the oven for 1 more hour.  Then remove from the oven and serve.  This kigel can be served warm or at room temperature. 

This kigel turned out amazingly well.  The broken linguine noodles worked well substituting for broad noodles.  It tasted just like it did when I was a child.  My husband was impressed that this recipe was gluten free.  It is a great dish to serve for a holiday meal, and it is easy to travel with for a pot luck dinner.  I would be proud to serve this to anyone.  I hope you enjoy!

<3 Cassidy

Gluten Free Guitar Cake

This weekend was my son's 7th birthday.  I am so proud of the young man he is becoming.  He is kind, smart, and a hard worker.  He started 1st grade earlier this month, and he is loving every moment of it.  He proudly told me that he does not miss me at all while he is at school for the whole day, and that makes me so happy.  He should be enjoying school.  He is in the second year of a wonderful Spanish immersion program.  He is learning so many amazing things.  He has a wonderful teacher who loves using music as a teaching tool.  And he is making some lasting friendships.  And he knows that I will be there to pick him up when the day is done.

This year I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday, and he said that he wanted to celebrate with his friends from school.  So, we picked a local park, and we invited all of his classmates and a few other friends  from our community.  I really wanted to keep the party simple, because my son says that it is not a birthday without celebrating with your friends.  We had snacks of fruit, veggies, cheese, crackers, and lunch meat.  We also had cupcakes!  I made 58 regular cupcakes, and I ordered a dozen gluten free chocolate salted caramel cupcakes from Ruby Cakes Bakery.  (I am fortunate that I am just gluten intolerant.  I can use flour in my kitchen, and I will be fine as long as I do not ingest it.)  I loved spending the morning while my kids were in school making cupcakes, frosting them, and dipping them in sprinkles.  My kitchen felt so alive, and I knew that I was just getting started.

As I has previously talked about, I like to make themed cakes for my kids.  This summer, my son decided that he wanted to learn how to play the guitar.  Since he is so young, we decided to talk to some of our friends who play instruments.  We were told that he is young, but if he has interest, it would be worth looking into lessons for him.  So, we went to a local guitar store to get more information, and left with an electric guitar, amp, and signed up for guitar lessons once a week.  We were so impressed with how the owners of the guitar store listened to my son, and set him up with a program that is doable and fun for a 7 year old.  Since, my son is now enamored by the guitar, he asked for a guitar cake.  I found this template on the Parenting magazine website.  This is how I made the cake.

Gluten Free Guitar Cake

1- 9-inch round cake
1- 8-inch round cake
16 oz can chocolate frosting
16 oz can vanilla frosting
Yellow food coloring
1 box gluten free chocolate-coated wafer cookies (I used the brand Glutino)
2 large marshmallows
4 gluten free pretzel sticks (I used Snyder's gluten free pretzels)
8 yellow m&m's

I made the same chocolate cake batter I made for my daughter's unicorn cake.  Make sure to use different pans, because this recipe needs 2 different sizes of cake pans.  Once the cakes are cooled, remove them from their pans, and cut a 2 and 3/4 inch curved cut from an edge of the 9-inch cake.  Place the cakes next to each other on a large serving platter or a piece of sturdy cardboard covered with aluminum foil.  Secure the cakes with a little chocolate frosting.  Place the cakes in the freezer for an hour, so the cakes will be easier to frost.

When you are ready to frost, spoon 1/4 cup of the vanilla frosting into a bowl.  Spoon 1/2 cup of the chocolate frosting into another small bowl.  Reserve these for later*  Add 2 teaspoons of chocolate frosting and a few drops of yellow food coloring to the remaining vanilla frosting.  Blend it well, until it looks beige.  Then take the cake out of the freezer.  Spread the sides of the cake with the remaining chocolate frosting.  Then spread the top of the cake with the beige frosting.  Place a canning jar rim on the smaller round cake to make an outline for the guitar's sound hole.  Pipe the chocolate frosting inside the canning rim to form a circle.

For the neck, arrange a row of 8 chocolate-coated wafer cookies above the top of the cake for the guitar neck.  Spread some chocolate frosting on top of this row.  Add another layer of chocolate wafers, and then spread chocolate frosting on top.  Place one of the chocolate-coated wafer cookies onto the lower third of the cake (underneath the sound hole).  Pipe 4 lines of un-tinted vanilla frosting from the top of the neck to the chocolate wafer near the bottom of the cake.  These will be the guitar strings.  Add the yellow M&M's to the end of each guitar string.  Cut 2 marshmallows in half and stick a pretzel in each one.  Stick the 2 pretzels with marshmallows into either side of the guitar neck.

Then serve this to the special birthday boy or girl!

*Cook's Notes:  I use a Dessert Decorator by Wilton, so I put the reserved frosting in a bowl until I can put it in my decoration tool.  If you do not have one of them, you can use sandwich-sized plastic bags.  When you are ready to use the frosting, snip off the the corner of the bag and pipe the frosting where you want it to go.  

<3 Cassidy

Gluten Free Blueberry Muffins Recipe

As much as I hate to admit this, my kids love pop tarts.  They would be happy to eat them every morning, but they do not fill up their tummies.  When my son went to Kindergarten last year, I made up the rule that pop tarts were only allowed as snacks or on the weekends.  He grumbled a little, but he gave up on that pretty quickly.  My son ended up eating bagels, eggs, or cereal, and it seemed to satisfy him longer.  Fast forward to a year later, and I am going through this with my daughter who started Kindergarten this week.  She is very stubborn and is morning the loss of the pop tarts for breakfast.  So, I decided that I would make muffins to give my kids something special in the morning.  My first attempt this week was blueberry muffins.  I got some blueberries at our local Farmer's Market, so I thought that that was a good place to start.  Here is my recipe.  

Gluten Free Blueberry Muffins

1/4 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup honey
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon lemon zest, dried
2 1/2 cups almond flour
1 cup fresh blueberries
Cinnamon and sugar

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Place muffin papers in the muffin pan and set it aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the melted butter, honey, eggs, and vanilla.  Then add the baking soda, salt, lemon zest, and almond flour.  Mix together again until everything is well combined.  Pour the blueberries into the batter, and gently stir them until they are blended well.

Spoon the batter evenly into the muffin pan.  I was able to get 11 muffins out of this batter.  Sprinkle cinnamon-sugar over the muffins, and then place in the oven.  Cook for 28 minutes or until a knitting needle comes out clean when inserted into a muffin.  Remove from the oven and let cool.  Then serve.

These muffins turned out wonderfully.  They were moist and lightly sweetened.  I am not a big fan of blueberry muffins, but I thought these were delicious.  My kids devoured them every morning before school last week.  Unfortunately, they were so delicious that they were all eaten before I could take a picture.  I hope you enjoy!  

<3 Cassidy


  

Gluten Free Peach and Blueberry Crisp Recipe

Hooray!  It's peach season.  My children and I picked some peaches at our local Farmer's Market on Thursday.  They are sweet and juicy, and we cannot seem to get enough of them.  We have been eating them by themselves, but tonight we had a special friend come over for dinner.  Whenever she comes over, we like to have a scrumptious dessert to serve.  Since the peaches have been so yummy, I decided that I wanted to make a peach crisp.  When I was looking in the fridge for the peaches, I saw that we still had some blueberries from the same Farmer's Market trip.  So, I decided to throw them in as well.  Here is my recipe.

Peach and Blueberry Crisp

Filling:
6 peaches
1 cup blueberries
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar

Topping:
2 cups gluten free rolled oats
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup melted butter (1 stick)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  I sprayed my baking dish with Pam, but I am not sure that it is absolutely necessary.

Pit the 6 peaches, and cut them into bite size pieces.  Put them in a medium bowl.  Add 1 cup of blueberries, lemon juice, and sugar.  Mix these ingredients together, and pour them into the baking dish.  Place baking dish on a lined cookie sheet to keep your oven clean in case the juices overflow from the baking dish.

Rinse out the medium bowl and pat it dry.  Add the gluten free oats, tapioca starch, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt.  Mix the dry ingredients together.  Add the melted butter and mix together again until the topping is crumbly.

Pat the topping onto the filling, and bake in the oven for 60 minutes.  When the topping is browned, and the fruit is soft when you stick a knitting need in it, it is done.  Take it out of the oven and let it cool.  Serve it by itself or with a scoop of ice cream.  YUMMY!

This crisp was an amazing, and I would be proud to serve this to anyone who stopped by.  The fruit just melted in my mouth, and I loved the crispness of the topping.  I might try this topping with other seasonal fruits too.  Hope you enjoy sharing this recipe with your loved ones as well.

<3 Cassidy