Gluten-Free Chocolate Chips (Quarter Batch)

I’m at that age where eating a cookie (or three) over the course of a day is really not working for me. But, I still want a cookie every so often, so I dipped a toe into the dark side by picking up a bag of gluten-free flour.

I know, I know!

I also bought a small bag of gluten-free cookies at work the other day, and son-of-a… Yeah, I felt fine, and I didn’t look stuffed like a pig the next morning. So I guess we all know where this is heading. Ugh.

Ok, fine! I will start to shift over. I’m starting with this recipe I found on the back some other g/f cookie mix bag that was far too expensive for me to buy. I just couldn’t. I hope just buying the flour will get me where I need to go.

(fingers crossed) Here is my first kick at that can.

Auntie Stacey’s Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies:
Dry:
Flour = 75g
Baking Soda = 1/4 tea
Salt = 1/4 tea
White Sugar = 150g
Brown Sugar = 156g
Chocolate Chips = 30-40g
Chopped Nuts = 30-40gĀ  (opt)

Wet:
Vanilla = 1/4 tea
Butter, soft = 40g
1 med Egg

Yield: 12 mini cookies
Bake at 375*F, 11 mins, on parchment

Update: The butter spread out too much, so I dropped the butter and upped the flour increments so I can refer to this online recipe when I make them again next week. But, as for the rest of the cookies, I can tell you they are soft in the middle while retaining a crunch due to the brown sugar. It’s a lovely chewy experience. And the sugar blend is dead on. The cookies aren’t not too sugary, and nor are they underwhelmingly sweet.

Mini Cinni Buns

I was cleaning out my big freezer and found this tube of croissants in it. I defrosted it and then rolled it out to spread some melted butter, ground cinnamon, and white sugar all over one side before cutting and rolling this into eight small cinnabuns.

Also, I am so old, I had to take a picture of the packaging instructions so I can zoom in the text to know at what temp to bake these suckers.

Tuxedo Muffins

I made these large muffins these other day on a whim. I ended up with four, but if I had split the batter up more, I would have yielded anywhere from 6-10 depending on the muffin tin size I had on-hand to use.

These muffins have an oatmeal mix base, but I assure you, you can’t taste the oats or even detect their texture. What you will think you’re eating instead is a brownie. And you might (should) want to eat it with a fork. The chocolate tends to colour your fingers. In the best possible way, of course. šŸ˜€

Tuxedo Muffins:
1/4 C (225g) Muffin Mix (of choice)
1/8 C (110g) Coco Powder
3 Tbsp Instant Espresso Powder *
1 Egg
3 Tbsp Veg Oil
1/2 tea Vanilla Extract
1/4 C White Chocolate Chips (reserve some to top muffins before baking)
1/2 C Chocolate Chips (milk or dark)
Enough Water to moisten the batter enough to scoop into the liners

Whisk all of the dry goods together before dropping in all of the wet ingredients. Fold the wet ingredients in to combine in one go, and then stop. Don’t overmix. Scoop it all into your liners and bake the muffins at 425* for 10-15 mins before dropping the heat down to 350*F for 20 mins. (This timing is for the large muffins)

The muffins are done when the top don’t feel soft and moist anymore. If you want to temp the middle with a probe, they will be fully cooked at around 190-200*F.

I hope you love there coffee cafe muffins as much as I do. I’m in love with them. *swoon*

* If you don’t have instant espresso powder, you can use a mix of 3 tbsp hot water + 2 tbsp Nescafe instant coffee grinds mixed together like a slurry, which is what I did when I made these muffins the other night.

Air Fryer Ciabatta Bread Loaves

A few nights ago I found a Youtube video showing me how to make ciabatta bread from scratch that can be baked in an air fryer. So, D-UH, I was into it. Here is my first attempt. This picture shows the bottoms after I finished flipping and baking the loaves. The tops look just as beautiful.

I made the mistake of spraying the loaves instead of brushing them with melted butter. I won’t do that again. I didn’t like the finished tops as much, but I did like them. Another thing this recipe calls for is using a bigger than the basket size of parchment so you can pinch up a segregation wall in the middle so the loaves don’t proof and bake together as one square of bread.

Baked at 400* for 8 mins over parchment paper, and then the parchment came off to finish the flipped over loaves in the bare pan another 6-7 mins. When they came out they felt hard or perhaps a tad overbaked, but after a quick rest on a rack, they soften up nicely. I was pleasantly surprised. šŸ™‚

Air Fryer Cinna Bun Bombs

Using a container of Pillsbury Dough crescent rolls, I made some cute cinna bun bombs that I filled and glazed. The husband ate them up! Here’s how I did it:

Cinna Bun Bombs:
1 can Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, in tact
4 tbsp Sugar + 1 tea Ground Cinnamon

Unpack the crescent roll, but don’t unroll the dough. Cut the roll into eight pieces. Turn them on their side and push down on them to flatten them out to about 1 1/2″ discs. Shape the discs so they are round and flattened.

Drop each disc into a bowl of the mixed sugars and roll it around to coat the whole outside. Place the discs into the preheated air fryer basket to bake for 10 mins at 325*F.

When bombs are cooled off, make glaze and pour it over the tops. This is a quick set glaze, so you can pack it up within 20 mins for transporting.

Glaze:
1/8 tea Ground Cinnamon
60 g Powdered Sugar
15 mL Whole Milk (or 18% cream)

Optional: You can fill the bombs by making a deep cavity hole and piping your own pasty cream in.

What I Air Fried This Week

I made a lot of the same things I’ve already made, and I also went back to try the Chocolate Croissants again because I wanted to play with the times.

Instead of the typical 350-400* bake, I dropped it down to 300-320* for ten mins using a can of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and a crushed up Flaky chocolate bar. Nailed it!

I also saw this video recipe for Lemon-Pepper Wings and decided I needed to try it since the flavourings were right up our alley. I mean, lemon and pepper? C’mon! So I used frozen chicken parts that I coated in seasonings and then in flour. I dropped them in the basket and flipped once half way, cooking them at 400* the whole time ( 8 mins + 8 mins).

The recipe called for rolling them around in some melted butter with the lemon-pepper blend, and they were fantastic. What I didn’t like was how the butter made the crisp texture straight from the air fryer soggy. :-\ I will definitely make these wings again but I will roll them in the lemon-pepper dry seasonings before I cook them and forgo the butter bath altogether.

And if that doesn’t work, I will dust the crispy wings in the lemon-pepper seasonings as a rub after they come out of the air fryer all hot and crispy.

Yes, I know. I need better lighting for my pictures. I agree. I have a ring light but my kitchen is still largely a mess from the unexpected repairs the husband had to do in there, and my ring light is buried in a corner right now. Oh, well.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Muffins

I really need to make these strawberry cream cheese muffins again very soon. So good. *drooling*

How I did it: I made a basic oatmeal muffin using a bag mix, mixed up a cream cheese filling, and sliced up some strawberries.

I added 75% of the sliced strawberries to the batter and used the other 25% to the tops after dropping a big dollop of the cream cheese filling into the top middle spot of each muffin.

I used a skewer to swirl the cream cheese down into the filling a big before covering it up with one or two slices.

Bake as normal according to the muffin mix instructions.

Baking Hacks – Cookies

I’m a big fan of food hacks. I don’t have a lot of time and mental bandwidth to think of these myself, so when I come across them, I take a screencap for the future when I know I’ll be looking to cut corners. But, a food hack has to be a clever hack. The hack can’t ruin the final product. And it has to make my life easier. Like this one.