Baking gluten free bread can be quite challenging. The ingredient list is often so long (and expensive!) that I 9 times out of 10 give up after reading it. It often calls for many different flours, flakes and seeds, and the process always seems to be So Very Complicated. I recently made a gluten free rye bread that took 3 days(!) to make and the ingredients cost me a fortune (it tasted d-i-v-i-n-e though). So, I dedicated this month to try out a variety of different recipes and share the healthiest, most delicious and easiest with you. Meet the Blue Bun, our new family favorite! It is easy to make and the ingredient list can be adjusted to whatever you have at home. We have also been experimenting with some different flavors for it. My favorite was when I added vegetable juice and thyme. David was crazy about the cardamom and raisin bun. Elsa doesn’t seem to have an opinion, she eats them all. Next time we talk about trying lavender and rosemary. Let us know if you try them with some other flavors.

Elsa has got a terrible cold, so I also came up with this Pink Super Food Smoothie for her. It is filled with C-vitamins and antioxidants. She loved it and so did we!

Blue Buns
Makes around 12 buns

You can substitute the brown rice flour and amaranth flour for a gluten free flour mixture or other gluten free flours; amaranth, millet, corn …

4 tbsp psyllium seeds husks
2 tsp natural xylitol, honey or stevia
a pinch of salt
25 g active yeast
3 3/4 cups (9 dl) lukewarm water (or half vegetable juice and half water)
1 1/2 cup (200 g) brown rice flour
1 1/2 cup (200 g) amaranth flour
150 g mixed seeds (we used pumpkin, sesame, flax, sunflower)
75 g dried coconut flakes
1 tsp ground spice (cardamom, thyme or turmeric)

3 tbsp blue poppy seeds, to sprinkle

Combine psyllium, natural xylitol, salt and yeast in bowl, add lukewarm water (and vegetable juice) and stir around until you get a gel like consistency. Measure all flours, seeds, coconut and spices and mix well. Add the dry mixture to the gel and stir around with a spoon for a couple of minutes and then kneed it by hand. Make 12 round buns and place them on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Sprinkle with the poppy seeds. Let them rise for 30 minutes and bake them for 1 hour and 10 minutes at 350°F/175°C. Let them cool before serving. We always make two batches of bread and throw one in the freezer, for emergencies.

Pink Super Food Smoothie

1 1/2 ripe banana
2 handful blackberries/raspberries
2 inches ginger
1 tbsp goji berries
1 tbsp flax seeds
2 tbsp dried nettle
1/2 tsp ground vanilla
1/2 cup cranberry juice (unsweetened)
1/2 cup water or young coconut water
1 cup milk (soy, almond, rice or oat)

Just mix it up in a blender! Pour into bottles, add ice and serve!

Did you know that the clear coconut water from young coconut is full of electrolytes (mineral salt)? The electrolyte balance found in coconut water is similar to that found in our blood, therefore great as a hydrating drink when you are sick. If you don’t live in parts of the world where you can get young green coconut in the vegetable department, you can buy them in small boxes in health stores.

And so we have left San Francisco. What a great time we have had in this city. Everyone has been friendly to us and we have found ourselves having long conversations with complete strangers on the streets and in food stores numerous times (which never happens in Sweden). We have constantly been eating good food and we even met a couple of new friends. And when we thought that the city couldn’t be sunnier or happier, the San Francisco Giants won the World Series in Baseball. Such a perfect ending.

Now we have rented a car and started driving down south. Highway 1 is beyond beautiful and we have made our first stop is Santa Cruz, but we’ll tell you more about that in our next post.

Before we left, we made this chocolate cake filled and topped with blackberries. Actually it’s not very difficult to make a normal chocolate cake, you can probably find 5 zillion good recipes on google and at least 70 on Martha Stewart. But our cake is made without eggs, butter, sugar and flour, which made everything a little bit more challenging. We tried three different versions of this cake before finding the right balance between fruit vs chocolate, sticky vs dry and sweet vs dark and rich.

In the end it feels like we nailed it. This cake is sticky on the inside, has got a quite fruity taste and a rich chocolate spread. It’s gluten free and it’s vegan. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it’s healthy, but it is definitely more nutritious than your regular Martha Stewart cake.

Chocolate & Blackberry Cake

1 1/2 cup walnuts
15 fresh dates
5 tbsp cacao powder (unsweetened)
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp coconut oil or olive oil
4 tbsp apple sauce (unsweetened)
2 cups blackberries (use 1 cup in the cake and the rest on top of it)

Chocolate frosting:
150 g dark chocolate (dairy free or regular)
1/2 avocado
1 tbsp agave syrup
a pinch of salt

Place the walnuts in a food processor and mix them until they get the consistency of a crunchy flour, add the dates and pulse for a minute so that they get mixed with the walnuts. Add cacao, cinnamon, oil, apple sauce and pulse everything for a couple of minutes. Add the blackberries and mix them shortly (you want them in pieces but not completely dissolved). Pour the mixture into an 8-inch non-stick spring pan and bake it for 40 – 50 minutes at 325° F / 175° C.

Let the cake cool off after it is baked. Meanwhile you can prepare the chocolate frosting. Melt the chocolate, pour it in a blender and mix with avocado, agave and a pinch of salt. Spread the frosting on top of the cooled chocolate cake. Decorate with the blackberries before serving. Enjoy!

We first adapted this recipe from the danish cookbook “Kernesund familie sådan”, and it’s something completely different from the normal whipped-cream-with-jam kind of cake that we often eat on birthdays in Sweden and Denmark. The meringue is sweetened with dates instead of sugar and baked with mixed almonds instead flour. It’s got a layer of hazelnut butter and is topped with a raspberry and mango cream and all together it’s sticky, nutty, sweet, fresh and fruity. Did we mention that it is gluten free?!

We brought the cakes to a dinner at our friends house the other evening and one mistake that we learnt from was to not put the raspberry cream on long before you serve the cake. It tends to become a bit lose after some time in room temperature and then they won’t look as appetizing.

One last thing. You can follow us on twitter to learn about our favorite food places in Stockholm, our kitchen failures, previews on our recipes and the upcoming baby …

Almond Meringue Cake with Raspberry Cream
10 round meringues

150 g almonds
175 g fresh dates
4 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla powder (not sugar)
a little bit of salt and pepper
mango & raspberry cream (scroll down for recipe)
hazelnut butter (or almond butter)

Heat the oven to 320°F. Mix almonds, dates and spices in a blender or food processor. Beat egg whites stiff and add the date/almonds mix slowly. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Drop meringue mixture by two tablespoonfuls and firm it round and flat with the spoon. Bake it for 15 minutes, when it’s done it should be soft and golden.

If you rather want one big cake, spread out the meringue mixture in what shape you like and bake for 20 to 30 minutes.

Mango & raspberry cream
1 mango
1 cup frozen raspberries
5 tbsp almond oil (you can use any kind of mild oil, sunflower oil, walnut oil, rapeseed oil)
a little bit of cardamom, cinnamon, vanilla powder

Mix all ingredients in a blender until thick creme consistence and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

When the meringues are cold, spread with hazelnut butter and top it with the mango raspberry cream. Serve and enjoy!

David was here …

We are making our own muesli or granola once a month. The recipe basically stays the same but we try to change one or two ingredients or spices every time.

When the muesli jar started looking empty this time we had just bought home a bag of puffed buckwheat and began talking about making the muesli gluten free. We needed to find some more gluten free ingredients and went for a shopping spree at this great market “Hötorgshallen“. An hour later we were equipped with quinoa flakes, amaranth puffs and hemp seeds. And a bunch of different nuts, fruits and seeds.

We made the muesli in the same way as we usually do; giving the seeds, flakes and nuts a light roast in the oven, before mixing them with the dried fruit, puffs and spices.

And what did we think of the result, can the gluten free muesli compete with our previous muesli?
Oh yes! The light amaranth and buckwheat puffs make a great contrast to all the chewy nuts, seeds and dried fruit. The hemp seeds can normally be a bit bitter but when roasted the bitterness disappears. And the apple syrup that we used as sweetener worked great with cinnamon.

Except for being gluten free this muesli is super nutritious in many more ways. Golden inca berries, goji berries, walnuts, hemp seeds and mulberries are all rich in protein, iron, vitamins and antioxidants. We eat it with “filmjölk”, yogurt, oat milk or a fruit salad.

Oh, one more thing. While shopping for ingredients I had this fun idea on how to do another muesli. Green!
I’ve got pistachio nuts, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds and green raisins so far. Need to find a few more green ingredients, all ideas are welcome.

Gluten Free Muesli
2 big glass jars

2 cups quinoa flakes
1 cup hemp seeds
1 cup almonds (chopped)
1 cup pumpkin seeds
1 cup walnuts (chopped)
1 cup dried coconut flakes

4 tbsp apple syrup (with no added sugar or sweetener)
3 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Mix the dry ingredients with apple syrup and cinnamon. Spread them out on the baking sheets and let it roast in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Stir around a couple of times to keep it from getting burnt.

100 g dried mulberries (chopped)
200 g dried apricots (chopped)
100 g dried golden inca berries
100 g goji berries
100 g raisins
100 g green raisins

1 cup puffed buckwheat
1 cup puffed amaranth

While the dry ingredients are in the oven, chop the soft ingredients roughly and put in a large bowl. Let the roasted dry ingredients cool of before stirring it all together.
Store the muesli in large glass jars.

Making these nut crackers was a different story. On our first try we used to many eggs, second try they became to thick, third try to thin (and burned). On our fourth try (and 1,2 kg of nuts later) they finally came out as we hoped. Thin, crispy, salty and gluten free. And you only need a handful of ingredients to make them! No yeast, no flour and no butter. They are one of those rare kind of snacks that only contains good stuff, are simple to make and taste really, really good.

You can make them with any kind of nuts and seeds. We mainly used cashew and almonds together with some pumpkin seeds and flax seeds, but it would probably taste great with hazelnuts and walnuts as well. They work perfectly as snacks for a party or together with a cheese platter after dinner. If you skip the salt and top them with sesame seeds, you can have them for breakfast as well.

We have actually also made a quick goat cheese dip that you could serve together with them. Recipe is here!

Gluten Free Nut Crackers
Makes around 30-40 (depending on how large you make them)

2 cups (300 g) of mixed nuts (we used cashew, almonds, pumpkin seeds and flax seeds)
1 egg
2 tbsp water
1 tsp sea salt

Top with: sea salt, anise seeds, nigella seeds or some other seeds of your choice

Preheat the oven at 360°F (180°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment papers. Mix nuts into flour in a blender. Add egg, water and sea salt and stir around with a wooden spoon until the mixture comes together in a quite stiff dough. Divide the dough into two and place them directly on the parchment papers. Roll them out to two rectangles, about 0,1 inches (2-3 mm) thick. If the dough sticks to the rolling pin you could roll it with a parchment paper covering the dough. Use a knife to cut them in slices or squares. Spray some water on them and top with the seeds. Bake for about 10 minutes. Always keep an eye on the oven, they burn easily. Store them in jars or out in the open if you eat them within the first days.

The amazing thing with this mousse is that it is only made on bananas, cacao powder and some almond butter! And it only takes about 2 minutes (maybe less) to make.
I know we will upset some chocolatiers out there by calling it a chocolate mousse. Of course it’s more of a banana-cacao mousse, but it actually tastes a lot like chocolate mousse (it is both bitter, sweet and creamy). And consider this once again: No heavy cream. No chocolate. No eggs. No butter. Just your everyday banana and 2 minutes of your time.

You can vary this recipe in a million different ways. We’ve added soya milk to make it creamier, coffee to make it stronger, vanilla powder to make it sweeter, peanut butter instead of almond butter to make it more american …
Oh, and remember not to use black bananas! If they look a bit old they will taste too distinct.

Chocolate Mousse (adapted from danish ‘Kernesund‘)
4 small portions (or 2 large …)

2 bananas
4-5 tbsp cacao powder (unsweetened)
4 tbsp almond butter or hazelnut butter

Mix it all in a blender until it becomes a mousse. Pour into glasses and put in the fridge before serving.