Ginger Biscuits with Candied Rhubarb

Strawberry shortcake is all over picnic tables. I love strawberries: their plumping red hearts herald summer’s beginning every year. I’m still that grinning 2-year-old with a mouth full of mashed berry.

But this year I’m also a rhubarb girl.

I think it started a couple of weeks ago at the farmer’s market. Those brilliant red stalks, stacked high like culinary tinker toys, spoke of new desserts. I made a lot of biscuits for those stalks until I found a method that finally worked. All my biscuit trials over the years came to this: the gluten-free vegan ginger biscuit, designed for a candied rhubarb crown. It’s like strawberry shortcake grew up and bought a leopard-print bra.

Pine Nut Oatcakes

When I was growing up, my mother made oatcakes according to her own recipe every week. These were our breakfast, accompanied by tea, every morning for my entire childhood. Sometimes we'd come home from school to sheets of oatcakes fresh out of the oven; then, my mother would cover a few in chocolate chips and spread the chocolate all over as they melted.

Pine nuts are my own addition, inspired by the fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin. They add an earthy, savory element, redolent of rocky paths through mossy forests. It isn’t hard to imagine an epic trek over a wintry landscape, fueled by these hearty oatcakes. They certainly make a morning bus commute more fantastical.

Pine Nut Oatcakes

Makes about 2 dozen

60g (1/2 cup) sweet rice flour

60g (1/2 cup) sorghum, amaranth, or brown rice flour

110g (1 cup) gluten-free rolled oats

60g (1/2 cup) rice bran

60g (1/2 cup) almond meal, pecan meal, or other ground nuts*

30g (1/4 cup) ground flaxseeds

65g (1/2 cup) cane sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

2/3 cup shortening, palm oil, OR vegan butter (145g vegan butter)

1/4 cup boiling water, more as needed

50g (1/3 cup) raw pine nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix together flours, oats, bran, almond meal, sugar, salt, baking soda, and ground flaxseeds.

Cut in shortening or palm oil or butter until dough resembles coarse meal. Add pine nuts if using. Pour boiling water over dough and mix in thoroughly, adding more as needed to form a solid dough that is damp but not too sticky to work with. (I usually add between 1/8 - 1/4 cup more, depending on the moisture in the air.) Add more amaranth flour if you make it too wet.

Dust a large flat surface with sweet rice flour. Split dough in half and roll out one section at a time till thin (about 1/8 - 1/4 inch). Cut into rectangles and arrange on a cookie sheet. Bake 15-20 minutes, or until oatcakes are lightly browned on edges.

Serve plain or with peanut butter, jam, Nutella, vegetable spread, cheese, or anything else that strikes your fancy. Keep in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. They keep well at room temperature up to 5 days or so.

Notes: If your dough is too dry, the oatcakes will be very delicate and crumbly. If it’s too wet, you’ll have a hard time working with it and they’ll bake very tough. You want the dough to be like pie crust. Don’t worry if the texture is off the first time you make them; they’ll still be enjoyable.

*If you want to make this recipe nut-free, add about 1/3 cup of another gluten-free flour in place of the almond meal: buckwheat, millet, and soy will all work. I’ve found teff to be too delicate for this recipe.

Dodee Cookies

My great great grandmother, Dodee, would sit out on the porch and drink a beer with my grandfather. She taught my grandmother how to cook meat and kept a sharp wooden three-pronged fork for turning pork chops, which she’d serve with homemade applesauce and sauerkraut. Around her memory hover little unsubstantiated tales involving occasional cigars and outright profanity. She was the best of all idealized grandmothers and even if the facts are a little stretched, her character remains a family legend of love.

I think we would’ve gotten along swimmingly.

Dodee’s cookies are a Christmas tradition for my family. The holiday isn’t right until these emerge golden from the oven, topped with their shining maraschino jewels. I don’t know how long her recipe took to perfect. It probably suffered pinches and prods in her kitchen for years until she honed it into flawlessness. My gluten-free version took ten Decembers.

When a cookie is mostly butter, the slightest tweak to gluten-free flours and starches shakes the recipe to its core. These cookies have been responsible for more oven cleanups than any other recipe I’ve ever created or converted. Now I can’t stop smiling as I write this, having eaten four perfect Dodee cookies that each hold the flavor I remember from way back in my gluten-filled childhood.

I like to think I know a part of Dodee through her cookies. It’s been a long decade of baking chats with her as I change starches, add or subtract ingredients, and strive towards her cookie’s simple genius. This is a flavor meant for sharing.

Happy Baking!

Dodee Cookies

Makes 2 dozen

1 stick real butter or vegan butter (1/2 cup)

85g brown sugar

50g sweet rice flour

45g amaranth flour

55g tapioca starch

raw pecans or maraschino or amarena cherries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Cream together butter and brown sugar in a medium bowl. Stir in flours until dough forms and everything is well-mixed. Scoop out about 1 tsp of dough at a time and roll it into balls. Arrange on cookie sheet about 1-2 inches apart. Press a fork into each ball just once, then top with either a pecan piece or half a cherry.

Bake about 10-12 minutes, until cookies are golden and just beginning to brown on the edges. Cool at least 5 minutes before removing from sheet. Cookies will be soft when just baked, but will become crunchy as they cool. Cookies with cherries will turn soft again the next day. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.

Note: Using vegan butter in these cookies works, though their edges will be feathery instead of smooth.

Grammie and me, during a past holiday season

Gingerbread

Gingerbread.

Everyone always thinks about the sassy little man who prances around in fairy tales, running from the baker or little old lady. They forget about the walls of the witch’s house. That thin crispy cookie couldn’t hold up a roof if his raisin-dotted buttons depended on it.

Fairy tale houses require thick molasses-dark slabs of hearty sweet cake. Dense, moist, and soaked with rich vanilla glaze, it’ll keep the deep woods lonely outside and your holiday fire burning bright against the night as you savor each bite. Even if the mini cakes are cute as a gingerbread man’s buttons.

Step into a vegan gluten-free fairy tale with me this holiday season. We shall feast.

Hot Frosted Gingerbread

Makes 2 dozen mini cakes

100g (½ cup) white sugar

50g sweet rice flour

30g sorghum flour

50g brown rice flour

20g potato flour

60g tapioca starch

2 tsp baking soda

1 ½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp sea salt

½ cup canola oil

½ cup strong coffee

1/3 cup molasses

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 ½ Tbls apple cider vinegar

Grated fresh ginger (1-inch long, 1.5-inch wide)

Glaze:

55g (½ cup) powdered sugar

1 Tbls coconut milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 2 mini muffin tins with coconut oil, canola oil, or vegetable shortening. Set aside.

In a large bowl, sift together sugar, flours, baking soda, ground ginger, and salt. In a separate bowl or measuring cup, combine oil, coffee, molasses, vanilla, vinegar, and grated fresh ginger.  Stir wet into dry until thoroughly mixed and molasses is fully incorporated. Quickly spoon into prepared tins and pop into the hot oven.

Bake about 15-20 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. While they bake, stir together glaze and set aside. When gingerbread is done, remove from oven and immediately drizzle 

Ginger Apple Cider

Last weekend, I pressed apples with my father-in-law. He’s devoted to his apple trees and the whole family benefits. Fresh apple cider featured prominently at the annual Halloween party and we all look forward to the cork cheerfully popping off his homemade hard apple cider in a few months.

His apples are a taste of history itself. Roxbury Russet, Ashmead’s Kernel, Liberty, and Spartan all nestle happily in the backyard orchard. I’ve never see these varieties outside of his yard. They’re uncommon to find grown in commercial orchards because their appearance makes them less likely to sell. It’s interesting how much of the apple’s history was written by its outside appearance. (Read The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan, if you’re curious.)

Oh, and his cider press? It’ll top your head with a mob cap and drop you in colonial Boston if you look at it askance.

Apples and cider hark back to the American frontier, when families came together for the harvest and stayed to celebrate its finish with a mug of the best. I suppose that’s what I love so much about cider: it brings people together and encourages conversation. Put down the iphones and computers for a moment to sip and talk. Laugh with each other. The work for today is done. Laugh.

Ginger Apple Cider

Makes enough for everyone

In a large pot, heat a gallon or so fresh apple cider over medium heat. As it warms, add a lemon sliced into rounds, as much fresh ginger as you think you can handle (skinned and sliced), 10-15 allspice berries, 5 black peppercorns, 5 whole cloves, 4 crushed pods green cardamom, and 1 cup (or more) orange juice. Hold it at a near simmer for a half hour, then keep it warm on low as you ladle it into mugs for your guests. Drink it plain or add a splash of brandy on those chilly nights.

Pumpkin Caramel Sauce

I first saw Cheese1227's recipe last year on Food52: Salted Pumpkin Caramels. Doesn’t it just glow with the possibilities of autumn? Every year, my parents-in-law throw a huge Halloween party and this year I’m going to bring these caramels. The only problem is the cream. I can’t eat it and neither will the vegans.

Coconut milk to the rescue! At least, that’s what I was thinking a few days ago.

I made this recipe, substituting a heavy-fat coconut milk for the cream, then proceeded to cook it without a candy thermometer. I have the most spectacular pumpkin caramel sauce, but not firmly set caramels.

May I recommend that when a recipe asks you to use a candy thermometer, you follow their instructions? The author usually knows what they’re talking about.

I have since acquired a candy thermometer and I’ll be trying this again. In the meantime, that spectacular pumpkin caramel sauce is excellent on Coconut Bliss Vanilla island ice cream. It also makes a delicious dip for apples, fresh from the tree, in the center of a circle of friends playing board games.

That’s what autumn’s all about anyway: circling up with friends for toasty snacks and games.

Apple Harvest

It’s amazing what you can glean from an apple.

Every time I peel a Gravenstein, its scent reminds me of my grandparent’s Bonny Doon house in the Santa Cruz Mountains. With the cupboard full of spam and the rocking chairs in front of the wood stove. The cedar and lightly mildewy scents on the back deck. The damp early morning grass and the bluejays who'd call you out to confront you about the state of the weather and their trees.

Apples in Bonny Doon started outside with Granddad, a ladder, and his applepicker stick. He’d fastened an old tin can onto the end of a long pole and would lift the can high, nestle a likely apple into it, and give it a lift and twist. The apples plucked neatly into the can to be lowered and set in the bucket. Granddad was an engineer. He ran the cider press on the back deck, cranking buckets of apples through the old wooden contraption and serving us more mugs of fresh apple juice than was strictly wise to drink.

Grammie ruled the Apple Kitchen. I helped her peel bowls upon bowls as we mounded them into homemade pie crusts and stirred enough sugar into the applesauce to make it dessert. We drank her hot instant flavored coffee, sitting on stools, racing to see who could make the longest single peel.

I still hate to break the peel’s journey around an apple. It’s like tearing a roadmap.

Apple Harvest Salad

Serves 10-12

1 small butternut squash (2-3lb)

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1/2 tsp ground chipotle

1/2 - 1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground allspice

9 apples, preferably Braeburn or Gravenstein

2 1/2 cup pecans

1/2 - 3/4 cup dried currants (to preference)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Halve butternut squash, scoop out seeds, skin, and chop into 1-inch cubes. Arrange on a baking sheet, drizzle with a small amount of olive oil, and roast in hot oven until tender (about 20 - 30 minutes).

In a large bowl, make the dressing by combining olive oil, balsamic vinegar, chipotle, salt, ginger, and allspice. Set aside.

While squash is roasting, spread pecans out on baking sheet and toast them in the same oven until fragrant. Keep an eye on them; they'll be done in about 5 - 8 minutes. Toss hot roasted pecans directly into dressing and listen to the delightful sizzle (this will cook off some of the vinegar so it doesn't get too strong).

Cut apples into quarters, remove the cores, and slice lengthwise into moderately thin slices (about 1/8-inch). Add apple slices and toss into dressing as you go to prevent them from discoloring. Toss in currants with the apples.

When butternut squash is tender, remove from oven and let it rest about 10 minutes. Toss it in with the rest of the salad and serve warm or cold, depending on preference. This salad will be best if you allow the apples, nuts, and spices to cure together at least 20 minutes while the squash is roasting.

How to Starter Zucchini Sourdough Rolls

A good starter is the opening chapter to a book, the story of how bread came to sit on your table. It’s one of the oldest kitchen tales, full of science, yes, but also a hefty measure of whimsy. You’re building an edible net to catch wild yeast from the air—what isn’t rather fey about that?

A gluten-free sourdough starter just has to rewrite the magic a little.

I’ve been making “experiments” in the kitchen since I was two years old—old enough to be up to my elbows in bread dough alongside my mother. When my gluten allergy kicked in years later, sourdough seemed a lovely mirage on a horizon I’d never touch again. Regardless, I’ve been walking towards it ever since. This year, I finally set foot in its field once again. This year, we’re working on my own terms.

It’s a good idea to read this recipe through all the way before you jump in. Remember: there’s science behind the whimsy and science likes its methods to be followed. The first time I tried this starter, I sealed the plastic bag completely and it raised one of the shelves in my cupboard with its gasses, knocking over cans and jars alike. The second time I tried this, I filled the jars too full and my husband got that worried note in his voice as he asked what was growing over the refrigerator shelves. It’s okay to be rusty.

These Zucchini Sourdough Rolls belong between summer and autumn. Use up the last of your late summer zucchini surplus and curl up to a warm roll as evenings grow chilly. Make a batch of Tomato Jam and lather it on. Enjoy the quiet way these rolls fill every corner of your kitchen with their scent, a secret whispered to an ever-earlier sunset.

Gluten-free Sourdough Starter

Makes enough for 2-4 quart jars

.8oz active dry yeast

12oz water at 100 degrees Fahrenheit

115g sweet rice flour

115g millet flour

110g brown rice flour

110g amaranth flour

1 yellow onion, skinned and cut in half

Heat 12oz water to 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit. If you don’t have a thermometer to measure it with, the water should be warm if touched to the inside of your wrist, but shouldn’t feel much warmer than your skin. If it burns, it’s too hot. You must be very careful about the temperature of your water because if it’s too hot, it’ll kill the yeast and your starter will never live.

Dissolve yeast in warmed water and set aside to proof. After a few minutes, it should form bubbles and foam up. If it does nothing, throw it out and get new yeast.

Sift together all flours in a large bowl. Whisk in water and yeast mixture until all flour pockets are incorporated. Either pour into a clean new bowl or a gallon plastic bag. Push onion halves partway into starter. Cover loosely with plastic or a towel, or partially close the plastic bag. Set in a corner of your kitchen where it won’t be disturbed and leave it for 24 hours. I use a dark cupboard by the stove, so it stays somewhat warm. Do not completely seal bag or tightly wrap your bowl! You want to leave room for the gasses to escape.

After 24 hours, bring out the starter and remove onion halves. Wash glass quart jars very well. Scoop starter into jars, filling about 1/3 full. Leave plenty of room for the starter to grow because it’s going to do just that. At this point, you have a choice. Fill 2 jars and throw the rest away. Or, fill 4 jars and keep it all. Keep in mind that every time you feed your starter it will grow. This quickly becomes a losing battle if you try to use all of it every time, so either get used to some waste or find a lot of friends who want your endless supply of gluten-free starter. (I’ve found that I don’t like to use the first leftover from the starter for recipes; it’s a little young and needs a week or so to develop its perfect sourdough flavors.)

Cover the mouths of your jars loosely with plastic wrap and let them sit out on the counter for 2-4 hours. This gives them some time to grow and also to pull wild yeast from the air. Wild yeast will change the flavor profile of your starter, so it’s nice to set it out to catch some wild yeast every few weeks. After the starter has set for a couple of hours (and grown considerably), wrap the mouths tightly and store them in the fridge. You may notice your starter separating a little while it’s stored in the fridge. This is normal, but you want to pour off the water from the top before using. Don’t mix it in. It’s a good idea to use and feed the starter at least once a week. You can feed it every day if you prefer. Take care of it and it’ll last you a lifetime.

Feed your starter with 1 part flour, 1 part water. My recipe below is broken down into the flour mix I use specifically for my starter.

Starter Food

50g sweet rice flour

50g brown rice flour

50g amaranth flour

50g millet flour

1 ½ cup water at 100 degrees Fahrenheit

Sift flours together. Whisk in warm water until thoroughly mixed. Whisk in your starter, divide among clean jars, leave out for wild yeast, and store in the fridge. Repeat at least once a week for a healthy starter.

Zucchini Sourdough Rolls

Makes 10-12 muffin size

40g (1/3 cup) tapioca starch

60g (1/2 cup) gluten-free oat or quinoa flour

30g (1/4 cup) gluten-free rolled oats

1 ½ tsp baking soda

1 ¼ tsp sea salt

2 tsp brown sugar

¼ cup olive oil

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 tsp lemon juice

45g (1/4 cup) flaxseeds, ground

1 cup loosely packed grated zucchini

250g (1 cup) gluten-free sourdough starter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin.

Sift together flours, baking soda, salt, and brown sugar into a large bowl. Add oats and set aside. Measure olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and lemon juice together. Stir in ground flaxseeds until the oil is thick and gooey.

Add grated zucchini to flours and toss to coat. Stir in oil mixture, slowly adding sourdough starter as you go. When everything is incorporated, scoop batter into prepared muffin tin. Fill either ¾ full or all the way to the top, depending on how large you want your rolls.

Bake at 375F for about 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve warm with butter, honey, maple syrup, or tomato jam.

Blackberry Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

Gluten-free vegan dark chocolate cupcakes frosted in blackberry cashew cream, laced with a bit of white chocolate ganache. One of my good friends is getting married next month and I’m making the cupcakes for the gluten-free and vegan guests.

What fun, right?

I love to bring out my pastry bag, mound up the frosting, and dream of the day I’ll have a café and make my living once more in the kitchen. This is where every bad day or frustration grows into dried cherry oatmeal cookies, blueberry lemon madeleines, jerk-roasted carrots, berbere lentils, sunset shepherd’s pies, and dark chocolate cupcakes. This is where I belong.

Cocoa butter is an amazing ingredient. During our weekend in Vancouver, B.C. a few weeks ago, I found pure cocoa butter in a grocery store. I’m a sucker for untried ingredients. It jumped from my cupboard a couple days ago and worked its way into my first attempt at vegan white chocolate ganache. Not bad. It mixed well with the frosting, but I know it could be better. I’ll be working on this again soon.

The blackberry cashew cream frosting makes these dark chocolate cupcakes stand up straighter, as proud of their royal purple caps as a child is of her berry-stained picking fingers. Does it replace butter cream frosting? Well, no. But no one will miss it.

The trick to this frosting is to blend the cashews till they’re completely smooth. Don’t stop too soon the way I did with my first batch. You want cream, and the fat in the cashews will give it to you if you’re patient. Turn on the food processor and dream a little. Hum a tune. Conjure up the smiles you’ll see when your friends taste these cupcakes.

Build your café on a magical little corner of the city.

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes*

Makes 12 cupcakes or 1 9” round

50g sweet rice flour

80g brown rice flour

20g potato flour

60g tapioca starch

50g baking cocoa

1 ½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp sea salt

150g cane sugar or vanilla sugar

½ cup canola oil

¼ cup coffee or coconut milk

¾ cup water

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp molasses

1 ½ Tbls apple cider vinegar

12 whole fresh blackberries

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease muffin tin with coconut oil.

In a large bowl, sift together flours, cocoa, baking soda, sea salt, and sugar. Mix well and break up any clumps of cocoa. In a separate measuring cup or bowl, beat together oil, coffee, water, vanilla, molasses, and apple cider vinegar. Thoroughly and quickly mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin, filling each cup about ¾ full. Push a single whole blackberry down into the center of each cupcake so just the top of it is visible. Bake immediately, about 25 minutes. Cool at least 10 minutes before removing from tin. Chill in refrigerator at least ½ hour before frosting with Blackberry Cashew Cream Frosting.


*Recipe inspired by Moosewood Restaurant's Vegan Chocolate Cake

Blackberry Cashew Cream Frosting

Makes about 3 cups

2 cups raw unsalted cashews

½ cup high-fat coconut milk

½ cup vanilla sugar

24 blackberries

¼ cup maple syrup

Arrange cashews in a deep bowl and fill the bowl with water till about 2 inches above the surface of the cashews. Soak 3 hours or more.

Drain water from cashews and put them in a food processor or blender. Pulse 5-6 times to break up the cashews, then push all the pieces back down towards the blades. Stir together coconut milk, vanilla sugar, and maple syrup. While blending on medium speed, pour this mixture in a steady stream into the cashews. Stop once midway through to push cashew pieces back down towards the blades. When all the liquid is gone, add the blackberries while the food processor continues to run. Keep blending, stopping every now and then to push larger pieces back down, about 5-10 minutes. You want the cream to be silky smooth without any bits of nuts detectable in the texture.

Transfer to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, pushing it onto the surface of the frosting. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before using.

Z Pickles

I’m late to the #pickleparty, but that’s okay.

Friends gave us some zucchinis from their garden the other day and I’ve been dying to do something fun with them. When I realized today was #pickleparty, I knew it was time for the zucchini to shine.

I’ve never pickled zucchini before. So I made this up, basing it on Gluten-free Girl’s recipe for carrot pickles. That’s kind of similar to zucchini, right?

I don’t usually post a recipe here that I haven’t tasted yet. These zucchini pickles might not be as delicious as I think they are. Alas, it’ll be a few days before I can taste them it's #pickleparty now. So I break one of my rules and post it here. I’ll let you know how they turn out.

Now? I wait.

[update] These pickles turned out pretty darn good!

Z Pickles

Makes 2 half pint jars

5oz zucchini slices, in crinkles if you like

1 cup white vinegar

½ cup white wine vinegar

1 ½ cup water

1 Tbls salt

1 tsp black peppercorns

½ tsp whole mustard seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

3 allspice berries

2 dried tart cherries

1 tsp lemon juice

Boil your jars in your canning pot at least 10 minutes.

Combine all but the zucchini slices in a small pot and bring to a boil. Reduce to a small simmer to hold hot while you get your jars ready. Remove your hot jars from the canning water and stuff with zucchini slices, about 2 ½ ounces per jar. Pour canning liquid over the zucchini up to ¼ inch from the top. Spoon in some of the whole spices. Put 1 dried cherry in each jar. Make sure zucchini slices are completely submerged.

Screw your lids down tight, then back them off ever so slightly. Process 20 minutes. Remove from water and wait for the pop to tell you your canning has been successful. If the lids are sealed tight (no give in the center), you can keep them unrefrigerated. If not, just keep in the refrigerator and eat within about 1 month.

Wait at least 3 days to open Z Pickles.

Beer-Battered Mesquite Onion Rings

I have a new toy: mesquite flour. A little sweet, a little nutty, and a little smoky, the moment I tasted it, I knew I’d make onion rings. Mesquite flour and onions gazed at each other across the kitchen and started to dance.

So what if they’re not the healthiest snack? I try not to deny my ingredients their whims. These make a wonderful spontaneous addition to a summer afternoon spent with friends in the sun.

This recipe is great with a yellow onion, but it’s awesome with a Walla Walla sweet onion. Try it. They’re in season right now. I also like to add a little coconut oil to my frying oil, in about a 1:4 ratio, coconut oil to canola oil. The coconut oil gives the onion rings just a hint of coconut, a sort of ghost in the background.

I’ve used Redbridge Sorghum beer with this recipe, but most recently made it with Estrella Damm Daura. (My husband surprised me with it one evening!) Any gluten-free beer will work, but Daura certainly gave the best flavor. Daura seems to be a little controversial among celiacs in the States, mainly because it’s made from barley and states on the bottle “Less Than 6 PPM Gluten.” We aren’t used to seeing gluten-free products claim to contain any amount of gluten, let alone be made from barley (usually off-limits), but the reality is that most gluten-free products are simply meeting guidelines for 20 ppm or less. Daura is significantly below that. Its brewing process strips the gluten protein from the barley, but leaves that true beer taste. Here's a review on celiac-disease.com, for more information. It’s delicious and I had no trouble whatsoever tolerating one. Individual reactions to gluten vary; however, Estrella Damm has done some very thorough research into this process to make their beer safe for celiacs. I encourage you to give it a chance.

Beer-Battered Mesquite Onion Rings

Makes about 30

1 yellow onion (Walla Walla or yellow)

60g (1/2 cup) sweet rice flour

60g (1/2 cup) mesquite flour

30g (1/4 cup) tapioca starch

30g (1/4 cup) amaranth flour, plus more as needed

1 Tbls brown sugar

1 tsp salt

dash black pepper (about 4-5 turns of a grinder)

12oz gluten-free beer

Canola and coconut oil for frying

Slice onion into 4-5 sections, depending on how thick you want the rings. Separate rings and set aside, discarding the onion center. Heat canola and coconut oil in a deep pot to medium-high heat. You'll need about 3 inches of oil.

In a medium bowl, combine all flours with sugar and salt. Gradually whisk in beer until the batter is the consistency of pancake batter. Add more amaranth flour as needed to create that consistency. The last inch or so of the beer is for the cook (you probably won’t quite use it all).

When oil is fully heated, dip onion rings in batter to coat and fry about 2 at a time, depending on the size of your pot. You don't want them to touch and stick together. Turn once while frying. Fry about 3 minutes total, or until rings are a deep golden brown. Lift out of the oil, shake off excess, and arrange on a plate covered in 1-2 paper towels. Dust with sea salt. Serve hot, while they're still crispy. The longer they sit, the more likely they are to get soggy.