Pizzelle, Gluten Free, Anise with Chocolate Variation

Gluten Free Pizzelle Cookies 

(Anise with Chocolate variation)

Adapted from Nick Malgieri by My Little Blue Heron

Pizzelle (pronounced: "peetsellay") are some of the older cookies around - like me. They're wafer cookies, traditionally made on the stovetop using an iron (think thin waffles). These are so easy to whip up and make - particularly in our modern times, since you can crank them out with ease, using an electric iron. I've tested out several electric devices, including the (classic) Palmer, as well as the Chef's Choice, but my fave , by far, is the simplest model that Cuisinart makes. It's compact, non-stick, quick, accurate, and reasonably priced. The manual iron, or stove top, is harder to locate.  I had one but gave it away. 

Traditionally, Pizzelle cookies can lay flat or can be rolled or curved (like tuilles cookies - French for tiles .. the clay ones that are on roofs). They can be dipped, filled, or dusted with sugar. 

You can fool around with flavors! Swap out anise for vanilla or lemon. Try adding some espresso powder (I love King Arthur Flour's) to the chocolate variation. 

Due to the absence of gluten (stretchy protein), manipulating these cookies is a little challenging. I stuck with flat - and that's what I recommend you do, too. King Arthur Flour's All Purpose Gluten Free Flour is excellent and worth the price. Look for sales. Wegman's (it's in NYC now!) is always competitive in its pricing. I don't recommend using  their (or any) "Measure for Measure" flour. My faux of choice is guar gum. For me (and I've read that this is true for others) it doesn't cause stomach upset, and it produces a finer, gentler product. You'll read that you shouldn't use guar gum when baking, but I say guar for it. You may have to alter (increase slightly) quantity with guar - but just a smidge. If you're serious about learning about xanthan v. guar, you can read up on it. Laurent Dran, a genius GF baker, exclusively uses guar gum in his recipes. Xanthan gum is a mold that grows on corn. (His books are in French, so should you decide to purchase, here's an instant translation tool that I found really easy and convenient.) (And it's possible that xanthan isn't available in France, but I kinda doubt it.) And to play it from the opposite corner: other chefs (read about it in Larsen's "Gluten-Free Baking at Home", tout xanthan gum as the binder of choice because it's not from a bean source and it won't cause stomach upset. You'll find convincing arguments for either. I suggest you experiment with both and decide what's best for you.

I adapted these Pizzelle recipes from Nick Malgieri's "Cookies Unlimited" book. You can find a used copy for about $6. If you live in NYC, you can often find used copies at good bookstores like The Strand (which is fun to visit when it's not during Christmas time).

What's impizzellitive is that you WEIGH ingredients for these recipes). PLEASE buy a kitchen scale. Here's Wirecutter Deal's budget pick, which .. if you ACT NOW is at an unbelievable low of ... $9.47 U.S.

MLBH truc: If you have star anise: Please take a glass jar: fill it with some granulated sugar, throw in some star anise, pour in more sugar, repeat. Let sit for several days to several weeks. This sugar will make your pizzelle do the tighten up: 

peace and love,
jane

🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊

Gluten Free Pizzelle Cookies (Anise with Chocolate variation)

Adapted from Nick Malgieri by My Little Blue Heron

Equipment:

An electric pizzelle iron. A kitchen scale.

Ingredients:

314 g. King Arthur all purpose gluten free flour (NOT WITH XANTHAN GUM)

2 g. guar gum

pinch of kosher salt

9 g. baking powder (gluten and aluminum free)

2 eggs, size large, room temperature

1 large egg yolk

2 Tbsp. anisette (or use anise extract, but much less)

160 g, granulated sugar (may be infused with star anise (see MLBH truc above and then see note below)

8 Tbsp./4 oz. unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

vegetable or palm oil for greasing the iron

Note: If you have anise seeds, you can grind them and throw in a Tbsp. or more, to taste – this is up to you and how much you adore anise. 

Procedure:

1.    In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. (You can place the bowl on the scale, taring after each addition and then remove from scale to whisk.)

2.    In a different bowl, whisk together the eggs, anisette, melted butter and sugar.

3.    Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mixture will be somewhat stiff.

4.    Heat the pizzelle iron to desired temperature. You’re going to have to experiment with this because every iron is different. Coat the iron lightly with vegetable or palm oil once. You won’t have to do this again unless the cookies begin to stick.

5.   Drop rounded spoonfuls of batter (my iron came with a measured spoon) onto the center of the iron, close the iron and they are usually ready when they stop steaming. The Cuisinart can be adjusted to different settings, and a light tells you when they’re baked. (I turn mine to pretty well done - almost the highest.) Easy!

6.    Remove immediately and place on a cooling rack. Repeat. Repeat .. until all batter is used. You can try rolling them while they’re still warm. Try using a French rolling pin or any cylinder as a mold. You can roll them into cones, dip them in chocolate and fill them with whipped cream!

7.  When cooled, store them in an airtight container. You can dust them with some powdered sugar – pretty.

Chocolate Variation:

1.    Remove 20 grams of gluten free flour

2.    Add 20 gram of unsweetened, dark cocoa powder

3.    Whisk flour and cocoa together well.

You may like the combo of Anise and Chocolate, or you may opt for vanilla extract (1 tsp. or ¼ tsp. Gluten Free vanilla powder made by Authentic Foods), and you could add a chocolate, hazelnut, orange or coffee liquor or extract.

Take care that you don’t overbake chocolate pizzelle cookies. Chocolate becomes bitter when burnt.

Gluten Free Spice Cookies

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Gluten Free Spice Cookies

Adapted from David Lebovitz and Alice Waters by My Little Blue Heron

David’s Lebovitz's blog is wonderful. From time to time he offers gluten free recipes or links to GF. This recipe is wasn't GF and was originally from Alice Waters (The Art of Simple Food). 

The spice profile is wonderful (thank you, Alice Waters!) The black pepper gives them a real zing, so if you want to de-zing them, reduce the black pepper. You can omit the black pepper and substitute with some allspice.

Spices are the playground area of baking. They won't effect the chemistry. Bundle up and go out and play! Reduce the black pepper, up the ginger, the cinnamon or down the cloves.  

I grind my cloves in an electric spice grinder. Buy an inexpensive coffee grinder and reserve it for spices.  I use two different varieties of ground cinnamon, both great. If cinnamon is fresh (less than a year old), it's perfect! Cassia or Ceylon - either will do.

GF flour (this is important): For this recipe, don't use a cup-4-cup blend or a blend that has added Xanthan or Guar gum. My favorite packaged blend in the U.S. is King Arthur Flour's Gluten Free All Purpose Flour (the one without 'gum'). It's not inexpensive. When you find it on sale, pick up a couple of boxes.

If you want your cookies to snap, make sure you bake these until they are quite brown. If you bake them light, they’ll be softer, more chewy. I like these chewy. In fact, if you throw in a cup of raisins, up the cinnamon and ginger and down the pepper, you'll have some lovely, chewy raisin-spice cookies* (variation below). Raisin cookies are comfort cookies.

Unbaked batter can be kept for a couple of days in the fridge or a month in the freezer. If they stick around, baked, they’ll keep in an airtight container for a week or more.. These freeze beautifully.

New Spice! New Year! Happy New Year!

Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbor is a friend
Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't we might as well lay down and die
You and I

peace and love,
jane

Ingredients:

4 c./480g. gluten free all purpose flour (King Arthur recommended) 
     (NOT "measure for measure" or "baking mix" or anything with added xanthan gum)
2 tsp. guar gum

2 1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

2 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

2 to 3 tsp. ground ginger

1 1/2 tsp.freshly ground black pepper 

1/2 tsp. ground cloves (freshly ground is best)

8 oz./225 g (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature 

1 1/2 c./227g. coconut sugar

1/4 c./80g. molasses 

1/2 tsp. vanilla powder or 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

2 eggs, size large, at room temperature

*Variation:
Add 1 cup/160g. of (organic) raisins at the end of mixing. You might alter spices: reduce or omit black pepper and increase cinnamon and/or ginger. Increasing cinnamon and omitting pepper will produce a milder tasting cookie. Increasing ginger will give more zing. 

Procedure:

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, guar gum, baking soda, salt and ground spices. Set aside.

Using the paddle attachment of your stand mixer, whip together the butter, sugar and molasses. Add the eggs and mix until lightened in color. Add the vanilla powder or extract. (MLBH truc: coat inside of glass measure cup with flavorless oil for an easy pour!) 

Dump in flour mixture and mix until completely incorporated and the batter is well-combined.

Transfer to a smaller bowl and refrigerate for an hour or more until the batter is firm.

Pre-heat oven to 350º F. (175º c), racks in upper and lower third of oven; and line two baking sheets with parchment. 

Using a small cookie scoop, or a tablespoon, place dough on baking sheets. Each sheet should have a dozen balls. Using your fingers (you can dampen then slightly with cold water), depending on how crisp you desire your cookies to become, flatten the balls into disks (start with 1/4"). After one batch, you'll be in the driver's seat.

Bake until the cookies are uniformly golden to dark brown, rotating cookies half way through the bake. This should take approximately 10-12 minutes. Darker will make them crispier, lighter will be softer.

Cool briefly on sheets and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Fishel's Chocolate-Pecan Cookies

Fishel’s Chocolate-Pecan Cookies

Gluten Free and Decadent

For my father

Adapted by My Little Blue Heron

from Molly O’Neill’s adaptation from Freds of Barney’s New York

Freds is the pricey restaurant at Barney’s Madison Avenue in New York City. Regular shoppers at Barney’s can afford to be regular customers at Freds (there is no apostrophe). I had a look at Freds's menus, and I liked Estelle’s Chicken Soup: “Grandma’s recipe to cure colds and stay thin”. It weighs in at $14. Donning no more than a $10 price tag, there's an "assorted cookie" selection on the dessert menu.

O'Neill adapted the recipe for her column in the Times and I adapted her adaptation for the GF crowd. 

I played around with the ratio of unsweetened and sweetened chocolates, and used vanilla-scented sugar (it's not at all required, but if you have it, it's a great addition.)

“Fishel” is Yiddish for “Fred”. My father’s middle name is "Fishel" or "Fred". My dad appreciates chocolate, pecans and good grammar. For him, a triple play.

Happy 2018!

May you be happy, healthy, peaceful, be well-accomplished in all you do,

and may you live with ease - in and out of the kitchen,

xojane

Fishel’s Chocolate-Pecan Cookies

Preparation:

Set racks to top and bottom third of oven and preheat to 325º F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Ingredients:

7.5 oz./212.6 g. semisweet chocolate

4 oz./113.5 g. unsweetened chocolate

3 oz./85 g./6 Tbsp. butter (unsalted)

3 eggs, size large, room temperature

200 g./7 oz./1 cup granulated white sugar (vanilla sugar, if you have it in your pantry)

¼ tsp. vanilla powder (Authentic Foods brand) or 1 tsp. GF vanilla extract

3 g./1 tsp. Kosher salt

5 g./1 tsp. baking powder (Aluminum-free preferred)

40 g./4 Tbsp. “cup for cup” Gluten Free flour, “King Arthur” brand recommended (WITH Xanthan gum)

177 g./6.25 oz. chocolate chips

100-125 g./1 c. pecans, toasted, cooled and coarsely chopped

Mis-en-place:

In a small bowl, whisk together: flour, salt, baking powder. Set aside.

When nuts are toasted (350º F. for about 6-8 minutes) and cooled, chop coarsely and set aside in a small bowl.

Measure out chocolate chips and set aside in a small bowl.

Crack eggs into a large glass or small bowl and set aside.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine chopped chocolates (don’t melt the chocolate chips!) and butter, and place over barely simmering water (make sure steam doesn’t get into the chocolate) and melt slowly, stirring often. Remove from heat and cool slightly.

Now you’re ready.

Procedure:

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the eggs until frothed. Add sugar and continue to beat until the mixture thickens and pales. Add vanilla powder (or extract.)

Add slightly cooled chocolate and mix until combined.

Add flour mixture until just combined.

Dump in nuts and chocolate chips and fold until incorporated.

Using a small cookie scoop, drop onto parchment-lined baking sheets and bake for 10-15 minutes, rotating top to bottom/front to back, half way through the bake. Bake until just set. There may be some cracks on the top. That's fine. Remove cookies from sheets and cool on racks.

Yield: varies depending on size of cookie, but figure about 60-80 cookies.