Yorkshire's and Brownies... All in a Days Work!

Brownies!!

To get my Ms. Kayleigh to go to bed the other night I promised her that we would make blueberry muffins the next day. Don't worry, this is NOT about blueberry muffins, you did read the title right! However, before we went to bake the next day I realized that my muffin tray was at my Mom's house from our fabulous prime rib dinner last weekend, where we used it for yorkshires. So we decided to try our first gluten free brownies.


Now that I have my two secret gluten free weapons, rice flour and xanthan gum, I feel that anything is possible! I picked these both up from Thrifty foods and both are made by Bob's Red Mill. Thanks to Bob for creating wonderful things for gluten free folk!


We took my favourite most wonderful brownie recipe and just substituted the regular flour with rice flour, and added some xanthan gum. I also substituted the butter with vegan butter, as we are dairy free around here too for Ms. Kayleigh. This recipe is the very best brownie recipe I have ever made. The brownies end up fudgy and soft, so yummy!

Here it is.


1/2 cup butter (or vegan butter)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 cup sugar (brown or white, I have used both with success)
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup flour (with the rice flour I added 1/4 tsp xanthan gum)
1/2 tsp baking powder


Preheat oven to 350
In a saucepan melt the butter then remove from heat.

Add the cocoa powder and whisk till mixed. Then add the eggs and sugar and beat until shiny and smooth. Add the dry goods and mix again until all blended.

Pour into a greased pan and bake for about 15 minutes.

Don't overbake!! Its ok if its still soft in the middle because after it sets it will be perfect.

I also pour chocolate chips on the top when it comes out the oven, then after they go soft I spread it around. But seeing as we aren't doing dairy, we skipped that step today.
The only difference I noticed with the gluten free was that it didn't rise and wasn't as fluffy as with regular flour. But it was equally as tasty and I don't think anyone around here noticed the difference! After all, chocolate is chocolate, right?

Yorkshires!!

Ahhhhh, the yorkshire.... It's always a gamble. Will it rise? Will they fail? Well, this time my friends we nailed it! They were golden fluffy and scrumptious.
Now, as with the brownies, these were a bit impromptu. My Husband brought home a roast last minute and my Mom made an appearance with my muffin tray (because we were going to do the blueberry muffins...). So as I stared at the roast and they muffin tray on the counter the light bulb went off!


Now we made yorkshires last weekend at my Mom's house under instructions from my Uncle, who just happens to be a chef and creator of most wonderful things! The recipe is similar to what I would normally do except it had one little difference, baking soda. Perhaps the reason for the perfectness??


An important part of yorkshires is to have all ingredients at room temperature. So, plan to make up the batter a couple of hours before you cook them.


1 cup flour
1 cup of milk
4 eggs
pinch of baking soda


Mix up the eggs, flour and about half the milk. Then put your pinch of baking soda in the rest of the milk and whisk up till frothy. Add this to your other ingredients and mix up. It should resemble runny pancake batter. Add more milk or flour as needed to get to that consistency.
Let sit!!  A couple of hours if you can.
Fill your muffin tray with about 1/2 inch of vegetable oil in the bottom of each cup. Preheat oven to 425, when heated pop the muffin tray with the oil in the oven to heat up nice and hot, it took about 10-15 minutes in my oven.
Then take out of the oven and fill up your cups with the batter, each one should be about 3/4 full. Get the pan back in the oven and watch......
After about 20 minutes I turned it down to 375 and from there they cooked another 5-10 minutes.
They should be golden brown and HUGE! (hopefully). In the past I always have pulled them too early, and they would kind of collapse. So thanks to Uncle Terry for telling me about the baking soda and for teaching me to let them stay in the oven longer than I thought!!


Gluten free yorkshires? Not so successful.... I whipped some up for Kayleigh with almond milk and rice flour but they turned out undercooked and not so hot. I kind of just peeled off the cooked outside and served it with her gluten free gravy, and of course she didn't mind! But I will save my detailed blog for when I nail it and can pass my wisdom along!

Best of luck in your yorkshire adventure! Tis the season for roasts, gravy and hot yorkshires, yum!