This week we’ve got a cinnamon-apple-y bundt with great flavor and a normal (which is to say, not weird from being gf) texture that comes together easily, and works equally well for brunch and dessert. I made two changes from the original recipe, one adding a bit more butter (it tastes/feels right with it!), and the other using cinnamon applesauce instead of plain (there’s going to be cinnamon in the cake already, and who wants to have to eat the rest of a jar of unsweetened/plain applesauce?!). I will keep both changes when making this cake again in the future!
Ingredients:
- 3 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour blend (I used King Arthur Flour’s)
- 1 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if flour blend has xanthan or guar gum already)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup melted unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup cinnamon applesauce
- 3 eggs
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 3 cups peeled apple chunks (I used 2 Granny Smith)
- powdered sugar for finishing
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a bundt pan and set aside. Combine the flour, xanthan (if using), salt, baking soda, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Whisk together, then set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the sugar and brown sugar, melted butter, and applesauce.
A gloopy start!
Beat on medium about 2 minutes, until the mixture lightens in color, and approaches a buttercream texture. I was surprised how much it thickened based on how it started!
Add the eggs one at a time, beating on low after each until combined. Add the vanilla and beat again until just combined.
Slightly less pleasant appearing texture.
Add the dry goods and stir in by hand, then add the apple pieces and stir in by hand. 
Transfer the mixture to the prepared pan and smooth the surface.
Bake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with moist crumbs, not wet batter.
Let cool in the pan 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and let cool completely.
Hooray for cakes that come out nicely!
Sieve or sprinkle powdered sugar over the top of the cake, then slice and serve.
Gluten-Free Apple Bundt Cake
Adapted from My Gluten-Free Kitchen.
- 3 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour blend
- 1 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if flour blend has xanthan or guar gum already)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup melted unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup cinnamon applesauce
- 3 eggs
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 3 cups peeled apple chunks
- powdered sugar for finishing
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a bundt pan and set aside. Combine the flour, xanthan gum (if using), salt, baking soda, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Whisk together, then set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the sugar and brown sugar, melted butter, and applesauce. Beat on medium about 2 minutes, until the mixture lightens in color, and approaches a buttercream texture.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating on low after each until combined. Add the vanilla and beat again until just combined.
Add the dry goods and stir in by hand, then add the apple pieces and stir in by hand. Transfer the mixture to the prepared pan and smooth the surface. Bake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with moist crumbs, not wet batter. Let cool in the pan 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and let cool completely. Sieve or sprinkle powdered sugar over the top of the cake, then slice and serve.
Ingredients:
Melt the baking chocolate and beat into the cream cheese mixture, followed by the vanilla, salt, and powdered sugar. Beat until smooth.
Stir 1/2 cup of the mini chocolate chips and the mini marshmallows into the mixture by hand.
Line a small bowl with plastic wrap, and scoop the cream cheese mixture into it.
Use the plastic wrap to shape the mixture into a rough ball, pulling the plastic wrap around it. Refrigerate at least 2 hours to firm up.
After chilling the ball, unwrap and sprinkle heavily with chocolate chips, rolling the ball in additional chips to coat.
The chocolate chips will act like flour on a dough ball, allowing you to handle the ball without it sticking to your hands much, so you can finish shaping the ball more. You can serve immediately, or re-wrap in plastic wrap, place back in the small bowl, and put the bowl in a large ziplock until closer to time to serve. Serve with graham crackers for spreading on.
Ingredients:
Heat a small amount of oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Season the chicken with the salt and cook in the heated pan until almost cooked through, then remove from the pan and set aside.
In the same pan, heat a bit more oil, then add the onion, garlic, carrots, and celery.
Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, then add the ginger, paprika, cumin, oregano, cayenne, and tumeric. Cook about 1 minute, stirring frequently, then add the broth and tomatoes and stir to combine. Add the chicken back, reduce the heat, and simmer the mixture for 10 minutes.
Cook for 40 minutes, then turn the heat to 425 and cook for an additional 40 minutes, until golden brown and crisp. Ours took a while longer, perhaps because I let out all the heat taking forever rotating/swapping the two pans for the doubled batch… Let cool 5 minutes before serving.
While the chicken cooks, in a saucepan combine the vegetable oil, garlic, and ginger over medium heat until it begins to sizzle.
Add the juice and berries and bring to a simmer, scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen any stuck bits. Simmer, swirling occasionally, until the berries pop and soften, about 3 minutes.
Add the hoisin, honey, rice vinegar, and hot pepper sauce, and return to a simmer. Continue simmering until the cranberries are very soft, about 7 minutes, then use a wooden spoon and mash half the cranberries against the side of the pan and stir the squashed berries into the sauce.
Reduce the heat to medium-low and add black pepper, to taste, and the butter, and stir as the butter melts to incorporate it into the sauce. Taste, and add additional pepper or hot pepper sauce as desired. Serve poured over the wings, or on the side for dipping.
Ingredients:
Cover and cook on high for 4 hours, or low for 8.
In the crockpot, use a potato masher to roughly mash the potatoes, leaving some small chunks.
Nice and warm, and extra carb-y when you wind up serving it with crusty bread!
Ingredients:
In a medium bowl, combine all remaining meatball ingredients and stir together until well combined.
With wet hands, shape the mixture into 24 meatballs. If the meat is too soft to shape, refrigerate for 15 minutes and try again. Roll each meatball in the rice to coat, rolling gently so that rice remains only on the outside of the balls.
While the meatballs steam, stir together all dipping sauce ingredients. Once the meatballs have cooked, serve hot with the dipping sauce. Maybe if you’re not forgetful, make some snow peas or something for greenery, but hey, you do you!
Ingredients:
Roast for 30 minutes. Towards the end of the 30 minutes, bring the stock to a simmer in a large pot.
Let simmer for a few minutes, then blend using an immersion blender until smooth.
If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can let the soup cool somewhat, then transfer in batches to a regular blender to blend, but with how often I pour things next to what I was aiming for, the immersion blender’s the way to go for me!
Stir in the cream, and serve. This soup pretty much begs to be served with a nice crusty bread, so keep that in mind while you’re at the store!
Ingredients:
Remove from the heat and quickly stir in 1 1/2 teaspoons of the cinnamon and the vanilla, then pour over the crackers. Stir the sugar mixture and crackers until the crackers are evenly coated.
Bake 10 minutes.
While the crackers bake, combine the sugar, remaining 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and the salt in a small dish.
Once the crackers are baked, remove from the oven and quickly sprinkle the sugar mixture evenly over the hot crackers.
Let cool completely, then peel the crackers off the foil, breaking the sugar back up so you have individual crackers. Serve, or store in an airtight container.
This stuff is really, really tasty, especially for something so simple!
My mom and I looked at a few cookbooks and took/ignored what we wanted from multiple recipes (5 eggs? Really?? I could see maybe 2, but 5 is a whooole lotta egg!) and the result tasted exactly like I remembered/wanted. In the future I would probably try using the food processor more sparingly, to leave a tiny bit of texture, but if you’re into super smooth, that’s easy enough to achieve too!
Clean the chicken livers (cut out the connective tissue looking bits).
Add another 3 tablespoons of schmaltz to the pan and return it to the heat, lowering to medium. Add as many livers as can fit in a single layer to your pan, and cook until cooked through, then place in the bowl with the onions and continue with the remaining livers, adding more schmaltz as needed if the pan looks dry.
Once all the livers are cooked, add the egg and a pinch of salt.
Process for another few seconds until well combined, and the texture you prefer. Transfer to a container and refrigerate until cool, then serve with bread or crackers.
We put half straight into the freezer as we weren’t going to eat THAT MUCH LIVER any time soon. We haven’t defrosted it yet, but it’s supposed to be good if you move it to the refrigerator the day before you want to eat it.
When I made this, we used way more rice cakes than chicken, because I didn’t bother measuring at all, but I’m going to give the original measurements because realistically more chicken than rice cake probably is the proper proportion. We still were really into this, though, and all the leftovers disappeared very quickly.
While the chicken marinates, stir together all the sauce ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside. Heat the cooking oil in a deep saucepan/wok to about 350 degrees. Line 2 plates with paper towel, and have more paper towels nearby.
Once the oil is hot, deep fry the rice cakes in batches, cooking until the outer layer turns crispy (about 30 seconds). The change isn’t visible while they’re in the oil, but when you strain them out if you poke them carefully, they will be crisp. Place the fried rice cakes on a paper towel-lined plate.
Once all the rice cakes are fried, give the oil a moment to heat again, in case the cool rice cakes lowered its temperature, and then begin frying the chicken in batches, cooking 2-3 minutes until lightly browned, and setting the drained chicken on a paper towel-lined plate to drain. For this step, it’s possible to do it alone, but significantly easier if you have one person to have gross chicken-hands dropping the starch-coated chicken into the hot oil, and a second person with clean hands fishing them back out with a large strainer-spoon.
Once all the chicken has been fried once, fry a second time, again 2-3 minutes, until a deeper golden brown. At the end of each 2-3 minute period the chicken begin bubbling more frantically, which is a good sign they’re ready to come out. Set aside the cooked chicken.
Heat a large skillet, then add the prepared sauce, boiling 1-2 minutes while stirring constantly. Add the chicken and rice cakes, stirring to coat.
