Since going gluten free 3 years ago, I've been searching for a good sticky bun or caramel roll recipe. Interesting that with all my looking for a good recipe, there was a great one in a cookbook on my shelf that I just hadn't noticed. This recipe is from this book and is totally awesome. That's the same book I found the bread recipe in and there are a few other awesome recipes in there as well.
The buns are sweetened with banana and honey, so healthy, no? But the glaze on top is sinfully good and totally makes the buns. I used Spectrum shortening in place of the butter to make it dairy free and we didn't miss the butter at all. You could probably use oil as well.
Banana Pecan Sticky Buns
2/3 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup rice flour
1/3 cup potato starch
1/4 cup tapioca starch
2 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp bread machine yeast
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup water
3/4 cup mashed banana
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp cider vinegar
1/4 cup butter, or Spectrum shortening
2 eggs
Pan Glaze
1/3 cup melted butter, or melted Spectrum shortening
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup pecan halves
1/2 cup raisins
In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients together. Mix well and set aside. In another large bowl, using a heavy-duty mixer with paddle attachment, beat water, banana, honey, vinegar, shortening and eggs until well blended.
Add the dry ingredients, with mixer on the lowest speed until combined. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Then turn the mixer to the highest speed and beat for 4 minutes.
Pan Glaze:
In a 8x8 baking pan, combine melted shortening, brown sugar and corn syrup. Sprinkle with pecans and raisins. Drop the dough by nine heaping spoonfuls on top of the pan glaze. Dough will be sticky, do not smooth tops. Let rise in a warm draft-free place for 40-50 minutes or until dough has nearly doubled in volume. Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes. Immediately invert pan over a serving platter. Allow to stand for a couple minutes before removing pan. Serve warm and enjoy.
If you would have told me 5 years ago that I would have kids with food allergies, I wouldn't have believed you. My son has celiac disease and my daughter has a milk protein sensitivity that she should grow out of...just hasn't yet. We have decided that we would all be gluten free, unless we eat out. Buying gluten free items are terribly expensive. We have a gluten free bakery in town that makes some good stuff, but 1 small loaf of bread is over $5. Yikes! I haven't ever baked bread in my life, but have always wanted to so decided maybe now was the time to try. Baking gluten free is as opposite of baking wheat bread as it can get (I know this from watching other people bake wheat bread). I have the hang of it now and bake two loaves a week. The bread tastes really good, it's the closest match to wheat bread that I have found yet. I found the original recipe from this book and is called Brown Rice Bread.
Brown Rice Bread
- 1 3/4 cups brown rice flour
- 1/2 cup sorghum flour
- 1/2 cup potato starch
- 1 Tbsp xanthan gum
- 1 Tbsp bread machine or instant yeast
- 1 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup water
- 1 tsp cider vinegar
- 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 Tbsp liquid honey
- 1 Tbsp molasses
- 3 eggs
In a large bowl, combine brown rice flour, sorghum flour, potato starch, xanthan gum, yeast and salt. Mix well and set aside.
In a separate bowl, using a electric mixer, like a Kitchen Aide with a paddle attachment, combine water, vinegar, oil, honey, molasses and eggs until well blended.
With the mixer on the lowest speed, slowly add the dry ingredients to the honey mixture until combined and forms a ball. With a rubber spatula, scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl. Turn the mixer on the highest speed and mix for at least 4 minutes (this is a very crucial step. If you do not beat the dough long enough, your bread will be dry).
Spoon into lightly greased pan. Place in oven with oven light and let rise for 60 to 75 minutes or until the dough has risen to the top of the pan. Once dough has risen adequately, leave in the oven and start preheating the oven to 350 degrees. Start your timer for 45 minutes at the same time you start preheating your oven. Bread is done when the loaf sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.
The bread is best if left on the counter and will keep for a week if your house isn't too warm. Otherwise it freezes very well, but does get a bit dry if you put it in the fridge.
*****If my baking instructions do not make sense, let me know and I will try to explain it better*****
Friday, June 5th was donut day. I guess Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme were giving out free donuts that day. My hubby came home with donuts on his brain and a gluten free recipe in hand. (My hubby switched to a gluten free diet a few months ago and feels much better.) So last Saturday we decided to try to make some gluten free donuts. And who says gluten free/dairy free is no fun?!? Ha. We used this recipe. It's supposed to be for jelly donuts, but we used it for cake donuts. YUM. They turned out awesome. I haven't really had good donuts since I quit working when P was born. Patients would bring in some top notch donuts, guess to keep the nurses fat and happy. :) These ranked right up at the top. I could not tell they were gluten free. They just tasted like an awesome donut, coated with cinnamon and sugar. MMMMmmmmm so good.Since we have a little boy in the house, we decided to use cookie cutters for the donuts. Of course he chose a car, airplane, fire truck and fish. So that's what we made, along with some donut holes and regular donuts. We ended up with a lot of donuts. We actually froze most of them. We had a few this morning and they were just as good after being frozen. We'll definitely be making donuts again.
Here are the changes I made to make these dairy free. For the buttermilk, I used 2 cups almond milk and 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. For the butter, you can use any butter substitute or shortening.
Here's some pics for you to drool over. ;)
Ever see an airplane donut? Neither had I.
The car donut
And the fish. No pictures of the fire truck, cuz it ended up looking a little weird. Hard to tell what it was supposed to be.
Mmmmmmm think I'll go eat a donut now.
