Keller Family Blog

YEAH we had Pancakes yesterday and they were not only edible but they were good too! Here is the recipe that I used. I will likely tweak a little more as I play with it some more, but it is very similar to our earlier recipe from the USA, but it was the scratch mix of individual flours instead of using any Australian GF Flour blend. Note this makes twice the normal Pancakes of our previous recipe. We did put the Chocolate Chips in most of what we made. The pancakes are on the thin side, but the inside was not wet as in my previous attempts. Needless to say there were NONE left over.

2/3 cup Buckwheat flour
2/3 cup Rice Flour
2/3 cup Besan (Chickpea) Flour
1/4 cup Potato Flour
2 Tablespoon Baking Powder
2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoon Applesauce
3 Tablespoons Canola Oil
2 Tablespoon Honey
2 Cup water (need to try straight Enriched Rice Milk or DariFree)
1/4 Cup Rice Milk (just needed a bit more liquid and I grabbed this instead of water figure it was more nutricious.

Put griddle / non-stick pan on burner and turn on Med to Med Hi. Mix dry ingredients with Wisk. Mix liquids: water, oil, applesauce, honey, Rice Milk. Pour liquid into the dry and mix thoroughly with wisk until everything is mixed well. The soda and baking powder will start working before done mixing. Pour by 1/3 to 1/4 cup on the griddle. Flip when edges are dry or start to lift off pan. Top with pure Maple Syrup or Nuttelex and powdered/icing/castor sugar and enjoy.

Variation / Substitutes / Possible Changes that have been tested.

• Sprinkle EnjoyLife Allergen Free Chocolate Chips into pancakes as soon as they have been poured onto the griddle.

So on Sunday evening Jaden ate his first ever Pizza.  We had bought an Orgran Pizza Crust mix several months ago. The kids were itching to make something last night for dinner instead of having leftovers so I mentioned to them that they could make a Jaden Safe Pizza.  Shay and Karlissa jumped on it.

We greased the pan with Nuttelex and sprinkled some Polenta (corn meal) on it.  Then we followed the directions to make the Pizza Crust. The kids did all of the kneading and such.  We rolled it out with a round drinking glass since we don’t have a rolling pin in Australia. Then all four helped pinch the sides, put sauce and meat on it. We used some left over roast chicken, some ham and some Green Capsicum (Green Pepper).  Wish we had had some more veggies in the house we could have put on. Of course there was no cheese put on the pizza as there is no dairy free cheese substitute that is free from Soy (at least not that we have found).

Anyway after 15 minutes in the oven Karlissa pulled out the pizza (and dropped it but we had a great save).   We carried it to the table and fed one very excited boy and an excited family.

Today we made some Allergy-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies. They were great.  I got the recipe from: http://www.mothersclick.com/recipes/kid-favorites/madelines-dairy-free-nut-free-egg-free-chocolate-chip-cookies 
I had to substitute Nuttelex for the margarine, Darifree for the milk and used Gluten-Free and Soy Free flour and of course our favorite Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips as they are truly the only Jaden Safe Chocolate chips on the planet that we know. Too bad the 10oz bag costs $15 at our favorite local Allergy Food store.  I think I will try changing the sugar to all brown sugar.  When I do I think I will have varied the recipe enough to post it myself, right now just make those changes to the link and you will be good.

Summary: Normal Chocolate chip cookies would have had a food cost of $5 or less in America and these would have cost perhaps $8-$9. Here they cost us over $20 for the ingredients.  (Don’t know how often we will be able to afford these, but at least we had some good ones.)  I might try making them with some Australian made dark chocolate that is safe for Jaden to see if they still taste OK.

My wife has made some fabulous smoothies with berries and coconut milk, with some having the consistency of a good American Milkshake / Aussie Thick Shake.  But today we made our first batch of a more traditional tasting Chocolate Ice Cream.  We have some adjustments to do to get it just right but so far it is modified from other recipes we found on the net.  Here it is:

3 Cups Vance’s Food Darifree
1/2 Cup powered Sugar (I wanted it to dissolve faster)
1/4 Cup  granulated Sugar
1 1/2  tsp  GF Vanilla
3/4 Cup Cocoa
1 tsp Sunflower oil (Darifree is like Skim Milk so this was added for fat)

First I made the Darifree according to label directions with cold water in the Blender with lots of leftover for another try in a couple of days or for other cooking.  I think next time I will  use warm water to make the Darifree and then cool it in the fridge overnight.  Then I put all of the ingredients above into a blender.  After it was well blended I added it to a 1.25L/5 Cup Ice Cream maker.  It took about 30 minutes to freeze and then we scooped it out and put it in the freezer to finish hardening.

Analysis: It needs MORE fat and less cocoa.  We will probably use some Coconut milk next time for more fat. Typically we use some Coconut Milk with Rice Milk such as when making Mashed Potatoes to get the right fat content. But I don’t want to use Rice Milk for this as I just think the Darifree is more like the taste of Cow Milk and I will get a bit more picky with my ice cream. I LOVE Homemade ice cream and have grown up on the stuff.  We used to make Homemade Ice Cream in Florida at least once a week a few years ago and have really missed it in the past 3 years.

We probably would have made some ice cream earlier, but we really don’t have much room in the freezer to store the ice cream maker container and just happened to have some room lately.  We really need to get a larger fridge/freezer here.

What does Jaden say: Well he liked it until it melted. It just was melting too fast for him. But all of the family thought it was good though a little too much cocoa in it.

Our Allergen-Free Chocolate Cake recipe works well in Oz.  I modified the original entry to update for cooking in Australia. Now it shows the flours I have used here.  It seems the All-Purpose Gluten-Free flours here work much better for baking instead of Pancakes. Also we used Apple-Cider Vinegar too without it affecting the taste adversely.

Well, my Pancake Recipe looks like it is specific to Bob’s Red Mill flour only.  I have modified those posts to specifically say for Bob’s Red Mill.  I have tried it with Orgran All Purpose Flour here in Australia with very dissappointing results.  Basically the pancake gets done on the outside but the inside is as wet as the batter in the mixing bowl.  Kind of disgusting.  I’ll keep trying until I get a decent recipe here.

I found an article a while back about US Government Scientists formulating a recipe for Gluten-Free pancakes that were indistinguishable from Pancakes with Gluten (Wheat) in them. The article is here. The biggest problem was that they talked about it, but NEVER published the recipe online.  Then several weeks later the journal that they published in put the issue online.  Now I can see the recipe as part of their scientific analysis of the pancakes. However it does call for putting the Sweet Potatoes in Liquid Nitrogen as a step in making the flour.

And it looks like they studied the pancakes for every type of quality with lots of scientific tests.  The only thing that is not mentioned in the article was whether the pancakes TASTED ANY GOOD or not!

Well we will find it out when we make our own.  We’ll let you know.

After some trial, my family agrees that using Olive Oil instead of Canola Oil makes the pancakes taste better.  So I ammended the Recipe Posts to say Canola or Olive.  Also frying the pancakes in a stainless steel skillet with a little Olive Oil (just below the smoking point of the oil) makes the pancakes a little better then using a non-stick skillet.

This is an improvement to our Allergen Free Pancake Recipe. This is possibly the best Pancake Recipe yet without Wheat, Egg, Soy, and Dairy.

We usually double the recipe for our family.
2/3 cup Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose GF flour
1/3 cup Buckwheat flour
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda (see note below)
1/4 Teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon Applesauce (Motts Natural works fine. Gerber’s Baby Food works too just more expensive.)
1-2 Tablespoons Olive Oil or Canola Oil
1 Tablespoon Honey (see note below)
1 Cup water

Put griddle on Stove and turn on to Med to Med Hi. Mix dry ingredients with Wisk. Add Oil, applesauce, honey and then water. Mix thoroughly with wisk until everything is mixed well. The soda and baking powder will start working before done mixing. Pour by 1/3 to 1/4 cup on the griddle. When edges are dry flip. Top with pure Maple Syrup and enjoy.

Variation/Substitutes / Possible Changes

• Sprinkle EnjoyLife Allergen Free Chocolate Chips into pancakes as soon as they have been poured onto the griddle.
• Add 1 - 2 mashed ripe bananas to add banana flavor. In that case the Chocolate Chips cease to be optional.
• If not using Honey, consider dropping Baking Soda and increasing Baking Powder by 1/2 Tablespoon as there may not be enough acid for the Baking Soda, plus you may want to add a teaspoon or two of sugar though not necessary.
• 1 Tablespoon of Mashed Ripe Bananas (Gerber’s Baby Food is perfect) can be used instead of Applesauce but then also consider dropping Baking Soda and increasing Baking Powder by 1/2 Tablespoon as there may not be enough acid for the Baking Soda. 1 Tablespoon when used instead of the Applesause does not add much if any banana taste.

1 lb Ground Meat
16 oz Salsa (more if you like a saucier base)
15 oz can Black Beans-drain and rinse
15 oz can Corn
1 1/2 tsp. Chili Powder
1 tsp. dried Cilantra
1/2 tsp. Cumin
1/2 tsp. Garlic Powder
Salt and Pepper to taste

Brown ground meat and drain grease. Stir rest of ingredients into browned meat. Heat on medium until mixture bubbles, then cover and simmer on low heat for approx. 15 minutes. Serve with your favorite corn chips. We like Fritos and Blue Corn Chips.