The X - Files: Baking with Xanthan Gum (Lemon Berry Tart)

You may (or may not) have been wondering to yourselves, "whatever became of the second half of the Ricotta Pastry?" Well, the answer is: it became a delicious Lemon Berry Tart! This recipe I found in my trusty Betty Crocker Cookbook and was the original impetus for my search for a new GF pie crust. The picture looked too yummy to pass up and the GF results met my expectations and then some. A few pieces of advice. 1) Add salt to the crust (I even added to the recipe I included with the Kringle post), otherwise the crust hasn't much flavor. 2) If you refigerate your pie, let the crust reach room temperature before serving. This will make serving and enjoying considerably easier.

Lemon Berry Tart

• 1/2 Ricotta Pastry
• 1/2 cup lemon curd
• 8 ounces cream cheese (softened)
• 3 cup mixed berries or other sliced fruit.

Follow instructions for Ricotta Pastry in Kringle post and create one baked pie crust. Cool completely. Mix together lemon curd and cream cheese. Spread over crust. Lick mixers, they will be delicious, while refrigerating crust and lemon mixture one hour. Arrange berries on lemon mixture and serve.

The X - Files: Baking with Xanthan Gum (Kringles)

I am ashamed to reflect upon how long More from the Gluten-Free Gourmet sat unopened and unexplored with my other recipe books- there are some fantastic recipes in here! Last weekend, I wanted to experiment with pie crust because, apparently, I was feeling very ambitious. Usually, I refuse to have anything to do with GF pie crust. It's a pain to roll out and get into the pie plate and then, after all that work, it never tastes good- forget about the texture problems. Fresh from my resounding sconce success, I decided to explore the Gluten-Free Gourmet's pie crust recipes- but which to choose? I settled upon the Ricotta pastry because it sounded interesting and I thought it would go very well with the Lemon Berry Tarte I wanted to make. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the GFG suggested using half the pastry to make a kringle- intriguing. I've been on a quest for a yummy GF pastry for some time now and this recipe is a winner. Flaky (I have to warn you, there is nothing healthy about this recipe), fruity and it has icing!

Ricotta Pastry

• 1 1/2 cups white rice flour
• 1/2 cup tapioca flour
• 1 teaspoon baking power
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup sour cream

Sift together the dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. Stir in the butter, ricotta cheese and sour cream. Mix ingredients well with a pastry fork. Chill in the refrigerator at least two hours (longer is better). Roll out the dough between two pieces of plastic wrap. Once you have the desired size, remove the top piece of plastic wrap and use the bottom piece of plastic warp to carefully invert the crust into the pie plate, shape and remove plastic. Bake as directed for recipe. If recipe calls for a baked crust, use a fork to poke holes all over the crust and bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes.

Kringle

• 1/2 dough from ricotta pastry recipe
• 1 can any GF pie filling or jam
• 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons milk

Roll out the pastry between two sheets of plastic wrap into a rectangle about 10 inches by 16 inches. Remove top layer of plastic. Spoon half the pie filling down the center of the dough (jam also works very well- for the kringles pictured, I used lemon curd and raspberry jam. I also made one with cherry pie filling. All delicious.) and use the plastic wrap to fold each side of the pastry over the filling. Flip over and place seam-side down on a greased cookie sheet- this is the tricky part. Slash diagonal slits across the top about every two inches. Bake for 35-40 minutes at 400. While baking, whisk together the confectioner's sugar and milk. Drizzle the resulting icing over the kringles while still hot. Cut into pieces and serve.

Coming soon: the other half of the Ricotta Pastry become a Lemon Berry Tarte!

The X - Files: Baking with Xanthan Gum (Scones)

I love to bake. So it's unsurprisingly that my family and friends would kindly gift me with gluten-free cookbooks. What is surprising is that I never use them. I don't know why, they're all well-reviewed and filled with delicious sounding recipes. For some reason, I just didn't want to venture into gluten-free baking; it seemed too complicated with the different flours, dough enhancers, vinegar, etc. Well, here is an example of personal growth through blogging. For the sake of my blog, I decided to try out gluten-free baking with all it's complexities. As documented earlier, I went to the NLC and invested in a variety of flours and xanthan gum. I was ready to begin.

For my maiden voyage I choose something easy and that I really miss: scones. Whole Foods has an excellent Almond Scone I enlist my Mom to get for me every time I go home, but it's not quite the same. So, I pulled out my copy of More From the Gluten-Free Gourmet and assembled the ingredients for English Tea Scones.

English Tea Scones

• 1 cup white rice flour
• 1/2 cup tapioca flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
  

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a medium bowl, blend together all the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter with a pastry fork until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in the yogurt until the dough forms a soft ball.

Knead lightly on a rice floured board. Roll out to 3/4 inches thick and cut into rounds with a 2 1/2 inch cookie cutter. Place the rounds on a greased cookie sheet and bake 10-12 minutes.


Top with jam and Devonshire Cream (1/2 cup sour cream, 1/2 tablespoon confectioner's sugar and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla blended). Delicious - sweet, tender and flaky. I was so excited about my successful gluten-free baking and my yummy results, I called my Mom to brag! Even my sister enjoyed them, she remarked they went very well with the tea. Well, it was Twinning's English Breakfast Tea and they're called English Tea Scone, so I hope they went well together!