Recipe: Gluten Free Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cupcakes

My mom was diagnosed with Gluten Intolerance (thankfully NOT Celiac, but it's still pretty bad) a few years ago, so it's been an experience to figure out gluten free baked goods that she can handle. Having been able to eat things with flour for most of her life, the change has been challenging. So I am always on the look out for recipes that will work to help her not feel left out or having to eat something inferior tasting while we munch on good foods.

So in gearing up for our next movie theme (which is in two weeks, but I will announce another day) I went in search for the perfect GF cupcake recipe. I couldn't find anything that I liked, so I decided to modify existing recipes I've tried for other things and come up with my own. I have to say mom is a very happy camper with these, so I think this will be a success for anyone else wanting to bake them, too.

**This recipe makes a dozen regular sized cupcakes or 6 jumbo cupcakes**

Ingredients:

Cake:
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup butter
⅔ cup packed brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
¾ cup plus ½ tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
cupcake liners


Filling:
½ stick of butter, softened
1 cup of powdered sugar
¼ tsp of vanilla extract
½ cup of creamy peanut butter
½ tsp of milk
couple handfuls of heath toffee bits


Frosting:
¼ cup butter, softened
¼ cup creamy peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup powdered sugar
⅓ cup cocoa powder
1/8 cup heavy cream


Directions:

Cake:
Preheat oven to 375 F.
In a microwave-safe bowl, combine butter and chocolate and melt in 30 second increments until the butter is melted; whisk until the chocolate butter mixture is smooth.
Whisk in the brown sugar, then eggs - one at a time - and mix until smooth.
Sift the cocoa powder into the mixture mix until combined.
Fill each cupcake liner ⅔ full.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, until toothpick test comes out clean (15-20 minutes for smaller cupcakes).
Let fully cool before coring out the center of the cupcakes for filling.
**When cooling, the cupcakes may "deflate".**

Filling:
With a mixer mixer, on medium high, cream butter and peanut butter together for 2-5 minutes until mixture is creamy and smooth (it will be a lighter in color peanut butter look).
Add your powdered sugar and mix until fully incorporated (slowly).
Continue mixing on medium high for 1 minute
Add vanilla and milk, mix for another minute. Filling should be thick and creamy. If it is not the consistency you want, continue mixing until desired consistency.
Do NOT begin filling cupcakes until they are fully cooled.
Take pastry tip and bag to fill (ziplock bags can be cheaper than disposable pastry bags) cupcake. If you do not have pastry tip or bag, use small spoon. Fill to the level of the top of cupcake.

Frosting:
In large bowl, beat softened butter, peanut butter and vanilla extract until smooth.
Slowly mix in powdered sugar and cocoa until combined.
Add heavy cream and whip at least two minutes until light and fluffy.
You can either use a pastry bag and tip to frost, or just use a knife. Whatever you prefer. Top with more toffee bits.
**If frosting is too thick, add more cream one tablespoon at a time until desired consistency. If frosting is too thin, add more sugar one tablespoon at a time until desired consistency.**

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [Themed Dinner]

Banyan Beef Skewer, Turkish Stewed Green Beans, and rice.

When you think of Indiana Jones - what do you think of? Snakes? Rats? Nazi's melted faces? Monkey Brains? Yeah, it's not the easiest theme to go with... unless you like Monkey Brains and BBQ'd rat (I don't). So I went with a benign option. With it being The Last Crusade I thought middle eastern meets Germany somehow...

With our themed meals also working towards a countdown to a Disney trip (Disneyland this time) I also decided that we could use a recipe or two from the parks - which comes in handy with Indy as Adventureland's food cart is basically outside of the Indiana Jones ride. So off I went to scour the internet for inspiration.

I came away with the Banyan Beef Skewer recipe for our main course. Anytime beef is involved I'm pretty much there. And then I went with a Turkish stewed green beans dish and rice for the side dishes. It tied together very well. The family liked it (I didn't, but that's because I'm picky). There was just enough kick in the sauce to grab your attention and get you ready to fight off the Nazi's to save the world and find the Holy Grail.

The colors and smell were divine.

For dessert we traveled to Germany as I created a Bienenstich, which translated means Bee Sting Cake. I was very nervous on how it would turn out as I am not the best at doing cake layers with filling, but I was determined to get it right. I spent most of Friday afternoon and evening preparing it. After it set overnight I was excited (and still nervous) to serve it, but all things considered (I put a little TOO much filling) it came out great! And I even enjoyed the cake! We all agree it could easily be a frozen/ice cream like cake. YUM! Germany, you do things fantastically!

Because Mom is Gluten Intolerant she couldn't have the Bienenstich, so I made her a gluten free black forest type cake. She ate it before I could snap a picture.

Recipes used to create this menu:
Banyan Beef Skewers from Bengal BBQ
Turkish Stewed Green Beans
Bienenstich from EPCOT's Biergarten Restaurant
1-minute Black Forest Cake (Gluten Free)

Recipe: Strawberry Shortcake with Lemon Cornbread

Note: This is not my recipe. This is the recipe given out by Disney. 

This dessert will have your guests raving!

Ingredients:

Grand Marnier Strawberries
7.5 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
1/3 cup Grand Marnier*
3 tablespoons sugar

Lemon Cornbread
1/2 cup canola oil
1.25 cups whole milk
2 eggs
1/2 cup all purpose flour**
1.25 cups sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 cornmeal
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons fresh lemon zest

Lemon Syrup
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup lemon juice
Zest of 1/2 lemon

Fresh whipped cream, creme fraiche, or vanilla ice cream, for serving.

Directions:
For strawberries:1. Combine 1.5 cups strawberries, Grand Marnier, and sugar in a blender, blending until smooth.

2. Combine remaining strawberries with pureed mixture in a large mixing bowl. Set aside to marinate.

For cornbread:
1. Preheat oven to 300°F. Grease and flour a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan.

2. Beat oil, milk, and eggs in a large bowl using an electric mixer.

3. Sift together flour, sugar, and baking powder in a separate bowl. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet, stirring until smooth.

4. Stir in cornmeal, then lemon juice and zest. 

5. Transfer the batter to the prepared baking pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 40 minutes.

For lemon syrup:
1. Mix sugar and water in a small saucepan; bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 1 minute.

2. Remove from heat and add lemon juice and zest. If not using immediately, refrigerate in an airtight container.

To Serve:
1. Cut cooled cornbread into 12 squares, trimming off top crust.

2. Drizzle each square of cornbread with 1 tablespoon of lemon syrup. Allow syrup to soak in for 2 to 3 minutes.

3. In a buttered frying pan, sear both sides of cornbread until golden brown. 

4. Top cornbread square with Grand Marnier strawberries, then top with whipped cream, creme fraiche, or vanilla ice cream.



*We substituted water for the Grand Marnier to save $$
**Since we have gluten intolerance in our family we substituted with our favorite gluten free flour blend.

Recipe: Storytellers Corn Chowder

Note: This is not my recipe. This is the recipe given out by Disney. 

This chowder is so good, you won't just lick the bowl, you'll lick the pot!

Ingredients:

4 ears fresh corn, unshucked
2 slices bacon, diced
1 tablespoon diced onion
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1 Yukon Gold potato, peeled and diced
4 cups chicken stock
6 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour*
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup pulled chicken meat
2 slices bacon, for garnish
Coarse Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Hot sauce, to taste
2 teaspoons chopped cilantro, for garnish

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F

2. To roast corn, put whole ears in their husks into preheated oven for 25 minutes. Cool briefly, then peel back the husks and cut the kernels off the cobs, set aside.

3. Saute diced bacon. Drain all but 1 tablespoon of the fat and add onion and garlic and saute until transparent but not brown. Add the roasted corn, potato, and chicken stock. Bring to a simmer.

4. Meanwhile, in a separate saute pan, melt butter over medium heat. Add flour, incorporating with a wire whip until the mixture is smooth. Cook 3 to 4 minutes, stirring, until mixture begins to loosen slightly. Let cool.

5. Add the cooled butter/flour mixture to the simmering broth, incorporating with a whisk. Stir often to keep from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Simmer 30 to 40 minutes.

6. Add the cream and pulled chicken meat and simmer for another 10 minutes.

7. Meanwhile, cook the bacon for garnish until crisp. Drain and chop into small pieces. Set aside.

8. Add salt, pepper, and hot sauce, to taste. Ladle into bowls and top with garnish of bacon and cilantro.

Yields 4-8 servings.

*instead of flour, since we have family who is gluten intolerant, we used cornstarch, only using 4.5 tablespoons.

Coming Attraction: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

I am trying very hard to come up with a menu that centers around Indiana Jones. I know it’s not a *Disney* movie, but Disney owns the merchandising rights, and Indy is in the Disneyland Park as a dark ride that’s actually a lot of fun (for those only familiar with Walt Disney World, it’s the same ride as Dinosaur in Animal Kingdom, except Indy themed). It’s located in Adventureland, so I’m debating whether or not to just find Adventureland menus and try to copy some of their dishes. But dad wants Monkey Brains for dessert (see Temple of Doom if you don’t get the reference).

I know I still need to type up the recipes from the last themed dinner menu, I had to house sit so I didn’t have access to the cookbooks. I forgot to pack them. I should have as I didn’t have internet to hook into with my computer so it would have given me something to do! Oh well, I’ll get to working on it probably this weekend. If I get everything else done that I have on the books to do. Several photo shoots plus a wedding still need finishing after all.

I believe the movie we will watch is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I think it’d be the one we’d all enjoy most. Hopefully we’ll get to eat and watch this time considering last time it went astray. Here’s hoping. Dinner will be July 16. Post to come soon after.

Have some ideas for an Indy themed dinner? Share them in the comments! I want to hear from you!

Disney's Planes 2 [Themed Dinner]

This theme is a little on the *corny* side.

I hate when things don’t go as expected. We were planning a family dinner and movie night. Dad knew that. He knew. And he decided to at the very last minute invite a friend over. Okay, no problem, thankfully we made enough (though normally this friend is so stupidly picky that he makes me look adventurous, and we had all of his least favorites in the menu I was in the process of preparing). Food went pretty well, and I will detail that a little later, but it meant we weren’t going to watch the movie. Even if the friend would agree to watching it, he talks through the whole thing and it just ruins the mood.

Needless to say I was not a happy camper as they walked into the kitchen, friend barking orders for me to drop everything and help them pack fish. Um. No. Not my job. I’m cooking. And I’m in a really bad mood. Thankfully mom was able to jump in and diffuse the situation because I was contemplating homicide at that point.

However, the menu was a success – for the most part – so I will definitely share it here.

Remember, this is for the movie Planes 2 – we went with a corn theme because of the film taking place close to the annual Corn Cob Festival the region the movie takes place in holds.

At least the batter looked good, right? Maybe the problem
was too much corn?

For starters we had Corn Fritters – or, rather, corn pancakes because the Gluten Free recipe I had was a dud. I’m not sure if it was because we couldn’t find the cornmeal mix that the recipe called for (it was very specific and mom couldn’t find it in any of the stores she went to) or if it was the recipe itself (I’m prone to believe it was the recipe). Either way there was a lot of frustration and very nearly tears as I tried again and again to get it to work in the pot of oil. It didn’t, so mom to the rescue. She came up with the pancake idea. Whew!

I am not a fan of corn fritters… or corn pancakes… but I love the idea of them. Next time I’m just going to use a real corn fritter recipe and mom can go without… or we can come up with our own flour mixture or something. Maybe I should play around with it and come up with me own and then I can share it for all the world to use. There’s a thought.

We paired the “fritters” with the Cinnamon Butter Texas Roadhouse Copycat Recipe – which made my dad very, very happy. He loves their butter. LOVES it. I don’t get what makes it so special. It’s just one or two whips away from Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting.

For our main course we had a Corn, Tomato, and Avocado salad that was fresh and summery looking, and Corn Chowder. Oh my word, the Chowder was SUPER yummy. The recipe comes from Disney’s Storyteller’s Café located in the Grand Californian at the Disneyland Resort. It says it takes about 2 hours of prep time, but I prepared it much earlier than that for dinner to really let the flavors meld. Everyone, including my 90-year-old grandfather, went back for seconds.

Because I didn’t eat but one of the fritters, I toasted some sourdough bread to go with my chowder – and that is definitely the way to go. I really was thinking next time I make this dish (and I will be making it again) that I would have to do it bread bowl style (which would still work with the Disneyland theme what with Pacific Wharf there at California Adventure, so if you’re going for that theme DO IT).

I did not try the salad (remember, I’m picky), but there was just a couple of spoonful left at the end of the night. My family’s from California, they loved everything about that salad.

The Dessert Course I am probably proudest of. The recipe comes from the Grand Californian as well, this time from their Napa Rose restaurant. I did a little tweaking to make it gluten free, but it worked well. I started by baking the cake part, and making the Strawberry topping. Then after that was finished began work on the main meal.

Over all a success. Since I don’t have links for the two Disney recipes, I will type them up later in the weekend on the blog.

Try out this menu in part or in full and tell me how it went in the comments section! If you have a suggestion for a GF Corn Fritter recipe I’d love to try it as well!

Menu Recipe Links:

Corn, Avocado, and Tomato Salad
Storytellers Corn Chowder
Strawberry Shortcake with Lemon Cornbread