Gluten Free Rice Flour Tortillas

As I've mentioned before on the blog, my grandkids have major food allergies. They were coming to visit us on the boat and I had to come up with some new recipes for them. One of them is allergic to wheat, the other to all forms of dairy, both of them have sensitivities to corn and potatoes. All of the starches and the xanthum gum used in typical gluten free flour mixes cause them problems. The only completely safe flour for them at the moment is rice. Trying to find a 100% rice flour tortilla recipe was daunting. I began to experiment with a few and ended up combining a couple of them to end up with this successful one. Most of the ones I tried left me with a sort of tostada crunchy tortilla, one that would not roll up or fold without cracking. This modified recipe leaves you with a soft, rollable tortilla with great flavor and consistency. 

Rice flour tortillas must be made pretty soon before eating and they don't really keep very well, so plan accordingly. Do not use white rice or sweet rice flour for these tortillas. Only brown rice flour will work. I apologize for the lack of step-by-step photos in this post, but I had three small children "helping" me so it limited my picture taking!

Ingredients:

2 c water

1 tsp salt

1-2 tsp olive oil

2 c brown rice flour

Directions:

Heat the water, salt, and oil in a small saucepan until not quite boiling. Add the flour all at once and stir vigorously with a heavy wooden spoon. The mixture will form into a stiff dough quickly and will make a ball. If it doesn't, add a bit more flour and continue to mix until a ball is formed.

Cover the ball with plastic wrap and let it stand for 10 minutes.

Knead the dough until it's smooth and consistent in texture.

Break off a plum-sized ball and roll it between sheets of parchment until it's very thin. You will need to remove the parchment, replace it loosely, flip, remove the parchment on the other side, replace it loosely, then roll again. Do this several times during the course of the rolling to prevent the dough from shrinking the paper into wrinkles.

When the dough is thin, peel one side of the paper off and flip the paper over, transferring the tortilla to a medium hot griddle or iron skillet. Peel the paper off the top and allow the tortilla to cook until bubbles form on the surface and small golden areas appear on the underside. Flip and cook until the other side is the same.

Transfer the tortilla to a plate lined with parchment. Place another parchment square on top of the tortilla and invert another plate on top. Continue to stack the tortillas between squares of parchment under the plate. The two plates will trap the moisture and the tortillas will absorb the moisture back into them, giving you soft tortillas. 

Note: There is one exception to using white rice flour. If you need a sticky tortilla to roll for chimi changas, then use sweet rice flour. The tortillas are very much harder to roll and to transfer, but they stick well to themselves with a brush of water and stretch a bit easier to contain the fillings before you fry them. The brown rice flour tortillas work best for hand held burritos and tacos, but for anything fried, they cracked when rolled tight enough. The chimi changas with the white rice flour were delicious!

Versatile Flour Tortillas

We eat a lot of Mexican on the boat. It's tasty, it's easy, and the ingredients are easy to store. A good many of our recipes use flour tortillas. If you've never made them yourself, you may not want to - they are so good that you will have a very difficult time going back to store bought after that, so be prepared to make a lot of tortillas! Just remember that these tortillas don't have the preservatives in them that the store bought ones do that make them last an unnaturally long time without molding. Make small enough batches that you can use them in a day or two, or store them in the fridge for about a week max. A note on ingredients: I have not tried these with whole wheat flour yet, but if you do you will need to cut it about 1/2 and 1/2 with white flour and you may need substantially more liquid. You can also cook some spinach and use the drained, pressed-out water for the water in these. Use your imagination. On the shortening, lard or butter - I personally abhor shortening. The Mexicans use lard exclusively for their tortillas and I find it makes a better one.

 
Ingredients:

2-1/2 cups of white flour
1 Tbl shortening or lard or butter.
1 tsp. of baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4-1 cup boiling water


Directions:

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together. Cut in the shortening until it resembles very fine cornmeal.

Add 1/2 cup of the boiling water and then begin to mix it with a fork. Add the remaining water a very little at a time and continue mixing until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pan. You may not need all the water. The dough should be soft but not sticky at all.

Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until it's smooth and elastic, usually just a few minutes.

Oil the surface of the dough and put it back in the bowl and let it rest, covered, for 10 minutes.

Break off golf ball sized hunks of dough and roll them into balls. Keep the balls covered while you work the tortillas so the dough doesn't dry out.  Roll a ball out with a rolling pin until it's very thin but you can still handle it without tearing it.

Preheat a cast iron skillet to medium high and lower the tortilla into the pan carefully so you don't fold it over on itself. Cook it until bubbles start to form.

Flip it and continue to cook it until it has brown spots on the bottom. Move the tortillas to a plate and cover with another plate. The moisture from the warm tortilla will help to soften it. Continue to stack the warm tortillas, but rearrange them periodically so they become evenly moist and soft. If you are making tacos, you can begin to fry the tortillas in oil right away . Use tongs to hold the taco shape as you fry them.Serve warm or cool completely and store in a plastic bag with a paper towel inside the bag to absorb excess moisture.

Orange Coconut Rolls

There's something about warm breakfast rolls straight from the oven. They give me those warm, fuzzy comfort feelings, probably because they take me back to mornings with my kids when they were smaller and life was not so complicated. These rolls came about because some coconuts floated by our boat at anchor and I spent an afternoon cleaning them, grating the coconut, and toasting it. The next morning I just happened to have an extra orange in the fruit basket, so orange coconut rolls it was. The recipe is out of the Red Star Yeast Centennial Bread Sampler cookbook, probably my favorite, but it's out of print. If you even find one and you like bread you should pick it up.

Ingredients

2-1/4 to2-1/2 cups all-purpose or bread flour
1 package of instant yeast
3 Tbl sugar
2 tsp freshly grated orange rind
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup water
3 Tbl butter
1 small egg

Topping:
3/4 cup sugar
3 Tbl butter
2 Tbl freshly squeezed orange juice
1 Tbl honey
1/2 cup coconut, divided
1/4 cup sliced almonds

Directions:

I don't have pictures for these earlier steps, honestly because some times I get making things and then realize, oh yeah I should be posting this one. You can read basic dough directions and see pictures in my Vienna Snack Loaves post if you need help.

In a large mixer bowl, mix one cup of the flour, the yeast, sugar, orange rind and salt. Mix it well.

In a saucepan heat up the milk, water and butter until it's 120°.  I use one of those infrared thermometers to measure the temperature because it's pretty critical. You can easily kill yeast if your liquids are too hot.

Add the liquids to the flour/yeast mixture and blend it at low speed by mixer or by hand until all the flour is incorporated. Add the egg and beat it for 3 minutes, either by hand or by mixer

Gradually add enough of the rest of the flour to make a soft but not sticky dough. If you're making this on a boat, the amount of flour can vary widely depending on the humidity. The dough should not be sticky.
Knead the dough on a floured surface until it's smooth and elastic, about 5-8 minutes. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest for 10 minutes.

While you're letting it rest, make the topping. Combine the sugar, butter, juice and honey and heat it until it's blended and the sugar is dissolved. Reserve 3 tablespoons of it and put the rest of it in a greased 9-inch square pan. Sprinkle half of the coconut and the almonds over the topping. Keep the remaining sauce warm.

After the dough has rested, pat it out into a 12 x 9 inch rectangle. Brush it with the remaining warm sauce and sprinkle the remaining coconut over it.

Roll it up long side first, pinching it down in the crease with your fingers.

Pinch the edge to the main roll to seal it.

Using some dental floss or sewing thread wrapped around the loaf, cut slices from the roll. This recipe makes 9 large rolls and it helps to mark the slice points in the dough before you begin cutting.
The dental floss or thread makes nice cuts. If you try to cut it with a knife it will crush the loaf and you won't have nice, round rolls.

Arrange the rolls evenly in the pan on top of the topping mix.

Cover loosely with a towel and let them raise till almost doubled, about 30 minutes. It can take less or more depending on the temperature and humidity of your raising environment. Keep them away from drafts! A draft will make them fall. I usually set them on my stove while I preheat the oven.

Bake them at 400° for 15-20 minutes. Again, if you're doing this on a boat the times can vary widely due to different ovens.

Cover them immediately with foil and invert them onto a rack. Do not let them cool first as the topping will stick to the pan and not to the rolls. I have added a powdered sugar glaze here although it's not in the original recipe. You can make some with a 1/2 cup of powdered sugar and just a few drops of milk. Drizzle it over and serve warm.

Sweet Potato Chips

If you can't remember what snack food has the tag line, "betcha can't eat just one", you can probably stop reading now. These are the most delectable, addicting, snack foods on the whole earth. They are time consuming, but not hard to do, and they will impress your sundowner crowd to no end.  Just don't come back to me complaining about the few extra pounds you're carrying! Here are the ingredients, simple as they can be. If you're worried about using a lot of oil for frying, I keep mine in a jar and reuse it over and over again. Just filter it through a coffee filter when it's still a bit warm and then refrigerate it to keep it fresh. You can get at least 4-6 uses out of it before you have to throw it out. Use a smaller pan if you want to use less oil, and do more batches. If you use a low-smoking oil like peanut oil then you won't smoke up the inside of the boat.

Ingredients:

3-4 medium sweet potatoes, not peeled
cinnamon sugar for a sweet snack or
Sweet and smokey spice mix for savory
Enough peanut oil to fry in a 10" skillet, 3-5 cups.

Directions:

Wash the sweet potatoes well, scrubbing with a brush. Slice them thinly. You can use a mandolin if you have one, but I just use my potato peeler which is a very good, sharp one. A good, sharp knife will do the trick as well if you're patient.

Heat your oil to 350°. As I've mentioned before, I use a Harbor Freight infrared thermometer to check oil temp as well as most other temps in my galley like bread liquids and pizza pan temp. You may have to adjust your oil temp as you work your batches as different oils and different pans and different stoves react, well, differently.

Lower enough chips into the oil with a slotted spoon to cover the surface in a single layer. Cook them until they begin to brown but be careful because once they start to brown, they go from golden to burnt in seconds. Remove them to a cookie sheet lined with paper towels and season them before they cool. Serve immediately. These do not keep well, and will begin to soften within hours due to the high humidity environment of a boat, so enjoy them right away.

Pumpkin Coco-Nut Muffins

When we were in the Bahamas this winter, coconuts were everywhere for the taking. Any walk could yield a dozen coconuts if you were so inclined to clean them. We really like fresh coconut and snack on it like we do peanuts and fresh coconut, in particular, lends a sweetness and moistness to baking that you just can't find anywhere else. Toward the end of our two month stay (the reason for lack of posts here since internet there is not fast enough for pictures), we picked up an extra coconut and cleaned the outer husk off but kept the hard shell inside and took it with us back to the States. One of our good friends came to Nassau to make the crossing back over with us and the coconut happened to be residing in the aft cabin where he was staying. He happened to comment one day that the coconut seemed to be staring at him, and after taking a good look I had to agree. One thing led to another, and soon the coconut had a face drawn on and a name, "Coco". Well Coco met his demise this week since my food-allergy-prone grandsons arrived and required some coconut-laden breakfast treats.

Muffins are one of the easiest baked goods to make gluten-free so we have them pretty frequently when the kids are around. These muffins are extremely moist and flavorful and will be our favorite one now, changed occasionally with the addition of seasonal fruit, raisins, or dates. Whether you're gluten sensitive or not, these muffins are a great way to start out the day.

Ingredients
1-1/2 cups oat bran
1/2 cup fine cornmeal
1 cup freshly grated coconut, divided in half
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 rounded tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup almond milk + 2 Tbl
2 Tbl coconut oil



Directions

Preheat oven to 400°. Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and set aside.













Mix the egg, pumpkin, milk, and oil in another bowl and set aside.












Lightly grease the bottoms of 12 muffin tins with extra coconut oil.  Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir only until combined and the dry ingredients are incorporated. If the batter is dry, add the extra 2 Tbl of milk. Humidity plays a huge factor in muffin recipes and the amount of liquid required. Do not over mix. This is the number one mistake people make when baking muffins. If you over mix the batter, the muffins will be dense instead of tender.

Spoon the batter evenly into 12 muffin cups. Sprinkle the remaining half cup of coconut on top. Bake at 400° for 18-20 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. If your oven runs hot, check at 15 minutes. On the boat, it takes me 20-22 minutes. Ovens vary.

Coco, may you rest in peace.

Vienna Snack Loaves

This recipe is one of my absolute favorites. It's a versatile boat bread recipe that can be shaped into 2 large italian style loaves, 3 medium everyday cut bread with butter and cheese loaves, 4 large hoagie buns, or 8 sandwich rolls. I usually make a half recipe, which is what follows, mostly because if you're in warm weather the bread will mold before you can eat it all if you do a whole recipe. You can double it though if you have fridge space, or you're having company, or you just feel like being nice by delivering a warm loaf to someone. The recipe comes out of my favorite bread cookbook, The Red Star Centennial Bread Sampler, which is out of print but if you ever find it at a used bookstore I highly recommend you pick it up. Mine is heavily taped up from all the years of use.

Ingredients:

2-3/4 to 3 cups bread flour
1 package instant yeast
1-1/2 tsp sugar
1-1/2 tsp slt
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbl water
1/2 cup milk
1 Tbl butter







Directions:

In a large mixing bowl stir together1-1/4 cups of the flour, yeast, salt and sugar. Set aside.

 Heat water, milk and butter in a small saucepan until it reaches 120°. The butter does not need to melt. I've been using a trigger style infrared thermometer to test the liquid with, one that we bought to use on the engine but it works really great for bread as well.

Mix the heated liquids into the dry ingredients and beat for 3 minutes with either a hand mixer or a wooden spoon. It should get totally smooth and bubbles should begin to appear. I've been using a kitchen timer app on my phone that works pretty well.

Add enough of the rest of the flour in by hand to make a soft dough. It will be sticky as you work it with the spoon but should begin to take the shape of a ball and to clean off the sides of the bowl. Put a little flour onto your work surface and begin to knead the bread. Knead it for 5-8 minutes or until it gets elastic and smooth. If you have never kneaded bread you can watch my video and instructions in the Thin Crust Pizza Recipe for help. Clean your bowl and oil the inside of it. Put your ball of dough in the bowl and turn it over so the top is oiled. Cover the bowl with foil and then keep it somewhere warm and free of drafts until it doubles in bulk. You can make a warm space by turning on your oven for a few minutes and then turning it off and putting the bowl inside, or by setting it on a heating pad or a hot water bottle. It will take 30-60 minutes to double depending on the ambient temperature. It should look like this.

 After the dough has doubled, take your fist and punch it down in the middle. Then take the edges and fold them to the middle and work around until all the air bubbles are gone.

 Cut the dough into two pieces. Press one piece into a rectangle about ten inches long by 5 inches wide.

Start rolling the long edge toward you and press it into the remaining dough along the bottom ede of the roll. Try not to trap any air bubbles into the roll.

When it's all rolled up, turn it over and pinch the edge together.

 Place the pinched edge down on a square of parchment paper cut to fit your pan and sprinkled with cornmeal. Cut diagonal slits into the top with a sharp knife.

Take the other half of dough and cut it into 4 equal pieces. Press each piece out into a small rectangle and roll it toward you like the loaves. If you want longish rolls then stop there. If you want rounder rolls then take that mini loaf and begin to roll it from one end to the other, pinching as you go and sealing it like the loaf on the bottom.

 Grease the tops of the loaves and/or rolls with olive oil or cooking spray.

Put them in a warm place free of drafts until they're almost doubled in size. If you are not preheating your oven in order to save propane, then you want to start to bake them when they are a little less raised. They will finish raising as the oven preheats. This can take some experimenting on time so I suggest that the first time you make this recipe that you preheat your oven.

 

Bake them from 20-35 minutes, again depending on your oven. Cool completely before slicing or they will crush. This is a very tender, moist bread.

If you have troubles, know that yeast bread failures are usually a fault of one of these situations: your liquids are too hot and you have killed the yeast, you are using old yeast, you are using self-rising flour, or you have tried to raise the bread somewhere drafty. 

If you have any other difficulties please feel free to email me, svkintala att gmail dott com.

French Breakfast Puffs

The key word in the title of this blog is "Comforts". The food on here is comfort food, pure and simple. Emotionally healthy, but diet food? Not so much. So there is the disclaimer. Now, on to breakfast this morning.

In my defense, it was cold on the boat. 43° outside, and 47° inside with no heater. Certainly not the vicious -20° wind chills my daughter eldest was experiencing in Iowa City, IA, but it called for some heat nonetheless. So rather than cold cereal, or even oatmeal, some sort of baked good was called for.

This recipe was given to me by my nephew years ago as part of a church youth group recipe book. I haven't made it in years due to our attempt to eat healthier, but I drew it out of the recipe stash today and simply refused to think about healthy and decided to focus on warm. Comfort food folks...

French Breakfast Puffs

3 cups all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup shortening
1/3 cup butter
2 eggs
1 cup milk

Coating:
6 Tbl butter, melted
3/4 cup sugar
3 tsp cinnamon


Mix flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg in one bowl. Set aside.












Cream butter and shortening until light and fluffy. Add sugar. Cream again. Add eggs and blend till mixed.











These puffs are mixed using an alternating method. Add 1/3 of flour mixture and mix until dry ingredients are incorporated...













Then add 1/3 cup of the milk and mix well. Repeat, alternating flour and milk, mixing well in between.









Divide into 12 greased muffin cups. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until just turning golden and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.











While puffs are baking, mix cinnamon and sugar and set aside. Melt butter.

Remove puffs from oven when done and transfer to wire rack. While still warm, roll tops in melted butter and then cinnamon sugar.

Serve warm.

Aunt Betty's Pumpkin Bread

Disclaimer: If you are on a diet, if you are only eating healthy, or if you're an Al Gore fan and are trying to be a vegan, stop here and go to another post.

Every holiday in my family as I was growing up involved trips to my Aunt Betty's and she is, to this day, one of the best homestyle cooks I have ever known. As kids we would eat the obligatory plateful of turkey, potatoes, stuffing and green beans, but it was only so that we could be allowed the only treat we really wanted, Aunt Betty's pumpkin bread. It would plop on our plate thickly sliced and, as we grew older, with a dollop of lemon curd or a thick spread of cream cheese slathered on top. The tradition continues in my own family, where pumpkin pie almost always takes a back seat to pumpkin bread.

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, mainly because you get the benefit of family presence without the aggravation and stress of presents and the money behind them. This Thanksgiving will be one of the few that we aren't with our kids and grandkids, although it seems to be happening more often as they get older and have other families involved in their holiday celebrations, so it seemed fitting to remember the holiday with a rainy baking afternoon. I hope that this recipe will become a tradition of yours as well.

If you're not a baker, the secret to all quick breads and muffins is what is called the two bowl method. This means that you mix all of your dry ingredients in one bowl and all of your wet ingredients in another bowl. You preheat your oven and get your pans ready and then the instant that you're ready to bake you mix those two bowls together quickly, just until the dry ingredients are mixed in and aren't visible anymore then put them immediately into the oven. If you overmix the bread or muffins will come out tough, and if you let it set for awhile they will be dense.

 Aunt Betty's Pumpkin Bread

3-1/2 C flour
2 tsp baking soda
1-1/2 tsp salt
1 rounded tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
3 C sugar
1 C chopped pecans or walnuts
4 eggs
1-1/2 C canned pumpkin
1 C vegetable oil
2/3 C water

 Place all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. When I make this on the boat I cut the recipe into 3/4 or it won't fit in either my bowl or my oven. A  half recipe will make two small 8 x 4 loaves, a full recipe will make three 9 x 5 loaves or four 8 x 4 loaves. I also sometimes make these in 13oz coffee cans which for some reason leaves the bread without a hard crust and makes nice loaves to wrap and give away. A full recipe will make 3 of those cans. Be sure to wash well and grease well and remove any plastic film labeling.

 Mix all the wet ingredients in another bowl with a whisk. Sorry for the blurry picture here but we're having a bit of bad weather and it's hard to keep the camera still when the boat is rocking all over the place.

Prepare your pans. When I'm using foil pans or regular bread pans I spray them with non-stick spray and then line the with waxed paper and spray lightly again. If I'm using the coffee cans I spray them well and dust them lightly with flour.

Preheat your oven to 350°

 When the oven is preheated, mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir quickly with a wooden spoon, just till the dry ingredients are no longer visible.

Divide the batter evenly among your pans and put them in the oven.  Bake them until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. This can vary wildly depending on the pans you used and your oven. If you use dark pans it will take less time and you may have to lower the oven temp just a little. If you use aluminum pans it will take longer, as will the coffee cans. It will take somewhere between 45 and 60 minutes.



Cool the loaves on a wire rack until just barely warm to the touch  and then turn them out and peel off the waxed paper. Resist the temptation to turn them out early as they will crack. These can be frozen and will actually taste better after being frozen, so I often bake a half dozen or more loaves and keep them in the freezer for gift giving at Christmas. Enjoy!