Smookie, The Dark Chocolate, Gluten Free, Vegan S'More

   
   When I was working on designing gluten-free and vegan recipes for CocoaPlanet here in Sonoma, one of the things I kept hearing about was the idea of a S'more. Not just any S'more mind you, but a gluten free and if possible vegan S'more. I've only made marshmallow about twice in my life and since I'm not a fan of the corn syrup, anything that involved it was pretty low on my list. As I said, I'd only done this once before. Then I discovered AquaFaba aka BeanWater
  
   I didn't discover AquaFaba. That was the labor of many vegans over many years who longed for an egg white substitute in cooking and baking and were constantly experimenting, searching for the holy grail of vegan egg whites. Well, after several years, they succeeded and the word went out. The new weapon in the vegan baking arsenal was AquaFaba.
  
   I've known Sanjana  for a number of years through the Indian Food Community. Her site is K.O.Rasoi and she and her creations are amazing. When she first told me about bean water, my initial reaction was thanks but no thanks. The idea of turning the water I've cooked my garbanzos in into desserts was a no go. So I ignored the idea for about a year and then one day my curiosity got the better of me and I started experimenting. After all, there are so many uses for ceces, chickpeas, garbanzos, chole, whatever one calls them, why not do something with the water also. Boy, was I surprised! I started turning out all sorts of vegan and gluten free treats such as these Macarons.

 
   But meanwhile back to Smookies. Working with bean water can be tricky when you're learning, but the learning curve is pretty easy, and these smookies are among the easiest. One of the easiest ways to get started is using a can of Garbanzo beans with no salt added. So grab your beans and let's get Smookieing.

Here's What You Need:

1 recipe of Chocolate gluten free shortbread cookies 

(note:  vegan shortening can  be substitiuted for butter)

Marshmallows
The liquid from 1 can of no salt added garbanzo beans
2 tsp xanathan gum
1/2 cup plus 1/8 cup of caster sugar
1 pinch of salt
  
The Ganache:

8 oz of CocoaPlanet Vanilla Espresso chocolate or any good chocolate broken into pieces
1/2 cup of cream or coconut milk
1 Tbs unsalted or vegan margarine at room temperature

 Here's What To Do:

Bake the chocolate shortbread cookies.
Take them out of the oven.
Let them cool for about 5 minutes then move them to a cooling rack.

Immediately turn the oven down to 200 degrees.
Place the garbanzo liquid in the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment and whip at medium speed for about 4 minutes.

Turn the speed up to high and add in the sugar, salt and xanathan gum one at a time.

 Beat at high speed for about 10 minutes.

The Marshmallow fluff will get stiff and glossy.

When it's done it looks like this.

Put the marshmallow fluff into a pastry bag.

Pipe the fluff onto the top of each cookie.

Place the cookies back on the baking sheet.

Pop them into a 200 degree oven for about 30 minutes. This allows the marshmallow to bind to the cookie.

After 30 minutes remove them and let them cool.
Meanwhile prepare your ganache for dipping.
When the ganache has cooled, dip the cooled marshmallow tops into the cooled ganache.

Let the ganache set.

Place the smookies into an air tight container in the fridge to keep the chocolate coating crisp and the cookies fresh, then serve them up!

There they are, gluten free, and vegan. You'll never go back to Mallowmars again. Coming up next, back to Indian food, a kashmiri recipe for eggplant and apples that's a perfect side for a Meatless Monday feast follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Down and Dirty and Gluten Free...Edible Dirt

       
   The reason my posts have been a bit sporadic of late is I have been working for the CocoaPlanet people who are opening their new chocolate factory and Bistro here in Sonoma. A few months back they hired me to help develop gluten free items for their menu. This bistro is going to be totally and completely Gluten Free. Because the owners and their family are gluten free, their chocolate is gluten free. Because their factory is on the premises, the restaurant and tasting room attached will also be a completely gluten free facility. They're not messing around. Finally there will be an absolutely gluten free restaurant here in Sonoma.
 
   One of the things I like best about it is we're not trying to make things just plain gluten free, I'm used to working with a large variety of flours, and the things I'm making are naturally gluten free...in other words that's how they're made anyway, they just happen to be gluten free. No twists and turns, no jumping through hoops.
       
   One of the things that they are going to have on the menu are these charming little desserts. Deep Dark Truffle pots de creme topped with "edible dirt". Ever since I made edible dirt for a piece in Honest Cooking Magazine a few years back I've loved the concept. When we started talking about turning it from a savory to a sweet it just seemed like a natural fit. The base is a rich chocolaty mousse, the topping gluten free. The process super easy.
    

Edible Dirt

Here's What You Need:
8 chocolate shortbread gluten free cookies. (These  can also be made vegan. The dough for these cookies is very easy to make and stores well in the fridge or freezer. I usually have a roll of it on hand for cookie emergencies.)
3 discs of Cocoa Planet Deep Dark Truffle Chocolate
1/2 cup of toasted pumpkin seeds

Here's What to do:
Place the shortbread cookies in a food processor and pulse until it has the appearance of rough soil.

Set it aside in a mixing bowl.

Dry roast 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds in a cast iron skillet until they're lightly toasted.
Take the pumpkin seeds and place them in the food processor with the chocolate discs.

Pulse them until they also resemble soil.

Mix the ground up pumpkin seeds and chocolate with the ground up shortbread cookies and you have some pretty convincing looking dirt.

Now for the fun part.
Take your containers of chocolate mousse or pudding. (I used small heat resistant glass flowerpot shaped votive holders that I found on Amazon for about 11 bucks a dozen and filled them with delicious chocolate mousse.)
Add a few edible flowers. Our entire garden is organic so I went out and cut a few mini roses for decor.

Sprinkle a few spoonfuls of edible dirt on top of the chocolate mousse just before serving.

Stick a flower in it and bingo! Dessert!

 
Easy, fun, gluten free, and both the mousse and the cookies can be made vegan. Yes, this has been done with Oreos etc....but homemade is so much better!  Coming up next...we've just planted our vegetables for this season so more vegetarian Indian delights, and big news for beans. We're also introducing a new product The Chaunk Rubs and Flavors just in time for Summer grilling season.

Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

You Can Take The Girl Out Of Tuscany. Castagnaccio: Chestnut Skillet Cake, A Christmas Tradition.

     
   I grew up in a household that was very Italian. Tuscan to be precise. My mother's parents had been in the United States since around 1818, and there wasn't a lot of Italian culture going on there. My mother could speak, read, and write Italian, but she studied that at school. My father's parents however, were right off the boat. My father was the first generation born here and Italian was his first language. He learned English mixing it up with the other kids on his street. Whole parts of his family never spoke English, and since they wanted me to speak only English, I never had a real conversation with most of them. I remember sitting by the wood burning stove in the warm kitchen of the big Victorian house on Sacramento Street while the adults spoke Italian, sipped tiny cups of string coffee, or glasses of Vin Santo, and enjoyed slices of Castagnaccio aka Tuscan Chestnut Cake.

   Castagnaccio was a winter tradition in Northern Italy, that goes way back in time (they say) to the Ancient Romans. It's a simple cake, containing no sugar, baking powder, or dairy, so it's vegan. Because it only is made of chestnut flour, it's also totally gluten free. Even though I spend most of my time cooking Indian food, when this time of year rolls around and family and friends gather, I am always pulled back to my roots and the foods I grew up on.

   Even though this is a cake, it's not sweet. Castragnaccio is definitely an adult food best enjoyed with a sweet dessert wine or a cup of espresso. It's also super easy to make as long as one can find chestnut flour. I purchased some Italian chestnut flour via Amazon and I was in business.

So grab your pine nuts, fire up the espresso machine, and let's make skillet cake.

Here's What You Need: 

1  1/2 cups chestnut flour

1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup raisins
1/3 cup Vin Santo or good quality Sauterene
3 Tbs olive oil
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/2  orange, zested
1 long sprig rosemary, leaves stripped (optional)

Here's What To Do:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Pour 1/3 cup of Vin Santo or Sauterene  into a measuring cup.

Add in the golden raisins and the dark raisins.

Place the measuring cup in the microwave and cook for 30 seconds.
Drain the raisins. Save the wine, you'll be using it in a minute.
In a large bowl mix the chestnut flour, salt, and sugar.
Add in 1 cup of water...

...and the reserved raisin soaking liquid...aka wine.

Whisk everything together well.

Set aside.
Add the pine nuts to the bowl of drained raisins.

Zest 1/2  orange into the bowl.

Add in the chopped rosemary if you are using it.
When the oven is up to 400 degrees, pour 3 Tbs of olive oil into a 10 inch cast iron pan.

Swirl the pan around so the oil is evenly distributed.

Pop the oiled pan into the 400 degree oven for 5 minutes.
After 5 minutes take it out and pour the batter into the hot cast iron pan.

Scatter the raisins, pine nuts, orange zest, and rosemary on top of the batter.

Pop the whole thing into the oven for about 15 minutes. When it's firm and the surface is lightly cracked, it's done.
Serve it up.

You can serve it right out of the pan or using a spatula, un-mold it and put it on a cake plate.

   All you need now is a roaring blaze in the fireplace and some Puccini on Pandora or watch Fellinis great film Amarcord.



  Coming up next, a very simple dish perfect for your holiday table, vegan and glultenfree! Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Gluten Free, Chocolate Shortbread Cookies With CocoaPlanet Chocolate Ganache Icing. PS: They Can Be Vegan Too!

   This is cookie season, aka, The Holidays. No matter what you're celebrating there's always room for a cookie or two, and this is a cookie recipe that can be enjoyed by anyone no matter what their dietary requirements.

   I've been working with the folks at CocoaPlanet for a couple of years now and I'm thoroughly in love with their chocolate. Because the owners of the business cannot eat gluten, their chocolate is entirely gluten free, lactose free, non GMO, and fair trade. Anne McKibben, the creator of CocoaPlanet is of French ancestry, and learned chocolate making from her mom. This stuff is GOOD! Seriously old school. They're opening their CocoaPlanet factory here in Sonoma next January and it's also going to house a cafe and also garden dining where one can do chocolate tastings and grab a meal at the same time. I'm working with them developing gluten free and vegan dishes for the menu. This is the most fun food assignment I've had in quite a while.
 
   One of the things I've come up with for CocoaPlanet are these chocolate shortbread cookies. They're easy to make at home. The dough keeps well in the fridge or freezer when properly wrapped which makes them perfect for last minute holiday guests. They can also be made vegan, with one simple shortening change. This recipe uses butter, but one can easily switch that out for any vegan shortening. I've been making quite a few batches of these while we've been "testing" (technical word for pigging out) them. This is a delicious and easily made cookie, so in case you can't get out to CocoaPlanet in person, you can buy their chocolate and make these at home. In fact all of the ingredients are easily found at any Whole Foods or natural foods market.

Gluten Free Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Here's What You Need:
 
For the Cookies
2 cups plus 4 Tbsp of teff flour
12 Tbsp white rice flour
1/2 cup of good quality dark unsweetened cocoa powder
2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature or an equal amount (1 cup) of vegan shortening
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
1/4 tsp kosher salt

For the Ganache 
1/2 cup of whipping cream, or full fat coconut milk
10 oz of CocoaPlanet Mandarin Orange Chocolate.

Here's What to Do: 

Mix together the rice flour and teff flour. I always keep a container of this rice flour/ teff flour mix in the house ever since Alice Medrich came to lunch at our place and turned me on to it. As Alice has pointed out in her book Flavor Flours, Teff flour is a killer mix with chocolate. This stuff is a good thing to have around if you are a gluten free chocolate lover.

Scoop out 1 and 1/2 cups of the teff / rice flour mix you made.
Sift this flour mix together with the cocoa powder, and kosher salt and set it aside.

In an electric mixer or with a hand mixer beat the butter or shortening for about 4 minutes or until it's nice and fluffy.

Add in the sugar.

Beat it for about another 2 minutes.
Adjust your speed to low and add in the flour cocoa mixture.

Mix it together on a low speed until everything in combined and the dough sticks together.
Lay down some waxed paper.
Place the cookie dough on it and shape it into a disc.

Lay more waxed paper on top and flatten the dough until it's about 1/4 inch thick. I do this because the dough is going to be cut with a cookie cutter when it's firm.

Place the cookie dough into the fridge to firm up. This takes about 1 hour.

You can also roll the dough into a log shape and wrap it in waxed paper. Doing it that way allows you to just cut pieces off the log and bake them whenever you'd like. 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
After the dough has firmed up, take it from the fridge and smooth it out a bit with a rolling pin to get it to the thickness you'd like. Always keep waxed paper between the dough and the rolling pin so nothing sticks.
Place a piece of parchment paper or a silicone baking mat on a cookie sheet.
Using a small round cookie or biscuit cutter, punch out round cookies and place them about an inch apart on the sheet. They will spread while baking.

You want them to be about this thick.

When they're all on the cookie sheet place them in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes.

Take them out and let them cool on the cookie sheet for about 5 minutes or so and then transfer them to a cooling rack.

Meanwhile mix the Ganache according to this recipe.
When the cookies have cooled ice them on one half of one side.

Place them on a cooling rack so the ganache can set.

Don't refrigerate these cookies, just keep them in an airtight container to store them. You likely won't be keeping them too long, as these don't last especially around kids! Here's a delicate serving suggestion..but who am I kidding?

Just reach in a grab a fistful. Your gluten free/ vegan friends will thank you, and those that aren't will never know the difference unless you tell them. Right now there's only one place to get these and that's my house..but as soon as CocoaPlanet opens here in Sonoma...they'll be on the menu.

   We're pretty excited here about another project we're doing that's going to be coming up on the day after Thanksgiving aka Black Friday when The Colors of Indian Cooking comes to the Ferry Building in San Francisco courtesy of Steve Sando and Rancho Gordo Beans.... details very soon.
 Coming up next. Winter vegetables and Indian comfort food. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori