Saturday 25 February 2017

Coming up: 10th annual Charlotte GFAF Event!

It's that time of year again: the first GFAF Event of the season is March 18th - that's just three weeks away! This will be the 10th annual event in Charlotte NC, so I bet there will be some especially cool stuff going on. (Check out my post covering last year's event for a taste of what you might find.) As always, there will be lots of delicious food to sample, all 100% gluten-free and often free of one or more other allergens as well. This is a great way to find out about local allergy-friendly food businesses in the area as well as plenty of larger brands and products, and to meet all sorts of other people who have experience living with food sensitivity. Don't have a ticket yet? Not to worry, I have 6 tickets to give away!  For a chance to win tickets, leave a comment on this post or contact me by email (I will need your name so you can claim your tickets at the door). I hope to see some of you there!

Tuesday 14 February 2017

Cocoa crepes

Guess what today is? Yes, of course, it's Valentine's day...but it's also my Blog-iversary! Today, my blog turns 7! I wanted to mark the occasion by making something special. And because it is also Valentine's day, after all, maybe something also a little romantic to share. 

The very first recipe I posted was for crepes, so when I found a recipe for cocoa crepes, they seemed fitting for the occasion. No, these are not traditional by any means...but they are sweet and simple and rather festive. 

These are adapted loosely from the teff flour cocoa crepes in Alice Medrich's Flavor Flours. Changes I made from the original:

- I replaced half of the liquid (originally milk and a little water) with cherry juice, inspired by this recipe, for flavor and a touch of red color
- I replaced approx. 10% of the flour (originally all teff) with glutinous rice flour for extra tender texture
- I reduced the sugar substantially due to the sugar in the cherry juice
- I cut the recipe in half; normally, one wouldn't halve a three-egg recipe, but since I already had half an egg hanging out in my fridge left over from an experiment the other day, I decided using 1 1/2 eggs would be just right since I was cooking for just 2 people. If you want to use 3 whole eggs like the original, just double the other quantities written below.

Full disclosure: These didn't turn out as nicely as the book indicated they should - the batter did not spread neatly despite being the proper consistency, so the crepes were smaller than they were supposed to be and also quite fragile. I am not sure if this is due to the recipe itself, my changes (i.e. less milk protein), my teff flour being not fine enough, smaller-than-average eggs, my pan, an overall lack of crepe skills... Normally I would insist on working out these kinks before considering a recipe blog-worthy. But they were pretty tasty and (let's be honest) I'm not likely to make these again soon, so I'm just sharing this experiment as-is! Feel free to adjust it if you have any ideas!   

Red Velvet Cocoa Crepes

58 g teff flour + 7 g Thai glutinous rice flour (or just use all 65 g teff flour, as per the original)
6 g cocoa powder
15 g sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 eggs, room temperature
1 T (14 g) butter, melted
90 g milk
90 g cherry juice

Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl. Beat in butter and eggs until smooth, then gradually add milk, then gradually add cherry juice. Cover and refrigerate batter overnight.
Stir batter well before cooking and in between each crepe. Cook crepes on a lightly buttered pan, about 1 minute on the first side, then flip and cook another ~20 seconds. (The book instructs to use 2 T batter per 8" crepe - I did not find this possible even though my batter was very thin! I got the best crepes using about 3 T batter, but even then they were much smaller than they were supposed to be.) Serve with toppings of your choice: powdered sugar, whipped cream, fruit, jam, etc., according to whether you want them for breakfast or dessert.