Sweet Potato Corn Bread GFCF, and egg free

Curiosity has it's price. I should have remembered the movie The Matrix before having my kids blood tested for food intolerances. Why, oh why, didn't I just take the blue pill? Now I know. It's too late.
 I suppose I could ignore all the results by just continuing to give them the food they want to eat, but my conscience would haunt me even in my sleep. Not kidding by the way.
So on top of food preservatives, colorings, Gluten and Casein, which upon seeing it listed amongst their intolerances I uttered a satisfied "ha, I knew it", I can now add eggs and nuts to the Do-Not-Eat list. Ezra can also not eat most acidic fruits (like lemon, orange, melons, kiwi, apricots, etc). Surprisingly the boys are also very intolerant to oats, coconuts, garlic, flaxseed, sesame, and coffee. Pretty random. I thought, well at least that leaves some baked goods and fries, but Ezra can't have vanilla bean, and Micah can't have white potatoes. Ugh. Blue pill! I should have taken the blue pill!

Now I feel the responsibility to respect those intolerances and come up with new food they can and WANT to eat. It would all be very simple if I could just feed them meat and vegetables. In fact, that would be awesome, because it would help my persistent lbs melt away too. Instead of cooking three different types of foods for Aaron, kids, and myself I could just make the same thing for everyone, and we would all be slender and healthy! However, my picky little friends eat no veggies, and Ezra despises most forms of meat except the unhealthy ones like Hot Dogs and bacon. He's not yet stopped throwing unwanted food across the table or screaming at his salad bowl, so I'm not really keen on introducing him to all chicken and meatloaf.

Tonight, I browsed through some recipes and found one that was quite tasty. I substituted some flours, because I didn't have enough corn on hand and it came out very moist, and yummy.

Sweet Potato Corn Squares


Ingredients

1        cup   yellow corn meal
1/2     cup   rice flour
1/2     cup   sorghum flour
2        tsp    baking powder
1        tsp    xantham gum
1        tsp   salt
1        cup  mashed sweet potatoes
1                egg  (I used Egg Replacer)
1         cup  rice milk
1/3      cup white sugar and molasses (1/3 cup total, I just filled the measuring cup with half molasses,  half sugar)
2         tbsp  sunflower oil


1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Mix dry ingredients
3. Mix wet ingredients until well blended
4. Mix them all together and either put in muffin cups or a square cake tin sprayed with PAM
5. Bake for about 30 min or until firm
6. Cut into squares and serve with butter/jam, or even soup or savory meal

Totally awesome Cinnamon Roll Recipe for Gluten and Casein Free Families

My mom makes the absolute best cinnamon rolls. I hate and love when she makes them, because there is nothing more delicious, and nothing worse for me than to have to deny my kids the same yummy treat that I love to eat. And besides, enjoying the company with the treat, is have to fun of having it. I've been looking for a GFCF recipe that would mirror my moms fluffy, white flour, butter soaked cinnamon rolls.
A few days ago I came across a GFCF pizza dough recipe, and thought to myself, if I tweak it might make a decent cinnamon roll. It worked on the first try.
I'm not gonna lie, and pretend that these are just as good, and exactly like the ones made with flour and butter. I secretly always laugh at the food bloggers, who claim that it tastes just as good or better than "the real deal". I kind of assume it's been too long for them to remember what flour and butter taste like. However, what I will say about these rolls is that they are delicious, they are soft, fluffy, and they don't have that weird GFCF aftertaste. If your kids (and you) are GFCF you have nothing to lose in trying them. If you don't have these handicaps, you'll still enjoy them, if you happen to be offered some. And hey, my kids can have them, and I can have one of my favorite treats and share it with them. I still have no ambitions of becoming a food blogger, and so have not yet gotten into the habit of taking pictures. I will make them again and hopefully take some decent pictures.

Vanessa's GFCF Cinnamon Rolls

Proof the yeast:

1 1/4 cup warm water
1 tsp white sugar (or any other sweetener you want, of course the taste will alter)
1 tbsp dry yeast

Let stand and make sure it foams, while you mix the dry ingredients.






In a large mixing bowl first sieve, and then stir together these dry ingredients:

Dry ingredients:
3/4 cup  tapioca flour
1/4 cup  corn starch  (or arrow root powder, or potato starch)
1/2 cup almond flour (or substitute with either sorghum or white rice flour if you're allergic)
1/2 cup millet flour
1 cup sorghum flour (also called Juvar flour in Indian markets)
1 cup white rice flour
1 tsp  salt
2 tsp xanthan gum
1/3 cup white sugar  (experiment with other sweeteners if you don't use sugar. If it's fluid, you might want to add more flour though)
3 tsp baking powder
1 grated lemon zest (optional)














Fluid ingredients:
1/4 cup sunflower oil (or any good oil with no flavor)
1 egg beaten
1/4 tsp rice vinegar

Filling:
1/2 cup sugar
oil to brush
cinnamon
raisins (optional)

1. Mix all ingredients together, using dough hooks on your hand mixer. Mix about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth. It will be sticky, but still firm enough so it doesn't stick to your hands too much.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Take a piece of parchment paper and spray with Pam. 
3. Pat down the dough onto the paper to form a large rectangle.
4. Brush the whole surface with oil (or butter if you have no issue with casein). 
5. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon, whatever is your preference. If you like you can also grate another lemon peel on top of the roll, and then add raisins. Personally I think everything tastes better with raisins.
   
   
   
6. Grasping the corners of the long side of the parchment paper, gently roll the dough over, until it's all rolled up.
   
   
   
7. Cut into about 3 inch rolls.
8. Spray a round cake pan with Pam, and arrange the rolls in them.
   

   

   By the way, I didn't have enough dough to fill the pan, otherwise there would be a nice big roll in the middle here.

   
   

   
   
9. Let rise only once in a warm environment (I put them at 40 Celsius in our oven for 40 minutes).
   
   
10. Bake them at 180 Celsius (350 degrees fahrenheit) for about 40 minutes. 

The baking time will vary greatly depending on your oven. Just test it by hand. If you push on it, it should firm, and a bit browned on top, neither squishy on the bottom, nor too hard.
Pour over your favorite icing. Personally I enjoy them just plain, or with a lemon juice & powder sugar glaze, but I know there are some cream cheese icing lovers out there, so go for it.

If you do end up trying them, and find some better versions feel free to comment.

This dough can make either pizza crust or cinnamon roll. For the pizza crust I just omitted so much sugar. Then I divided the dough and added sugar to the rest of it for the cinnamon rolls.