Peanut & Pretzeled Gluten-Free Texas Sheet Cake

 


The excitement is building! Already recipes are thoughtfully being created! The next Annapolis Food With Friends event is only a month away and there is MUCH to do. The theme? Barbecue. Barbeque? BBQ? Whatever you call it, just be sure to call ME when it's ready, okay?  

BBQ experts are heading down from the far north of Canada and up from the deep south of Georgia to smoke up some of the best 'Cue out there. The experts? Two of our very own members: Adrienne, a BBQ competition judge who also heads up a BBQ competition team that has won awards across the U. S. A. She's the Canadian member, eh. 

Greg is our Southern barbecuer who is a caterer, barbecue judge and is part of a amazing group of barbecue humanitarians working under the auspices of Operation BBQ Relief. What's that? What do they do? 

Operation BBQ Relief (http://www.operationbbqrelief.org/) sends teams of BBQ competitors, along with their BBQ rigs, from at least nine states into disaster areas. They first organized to feed victims of the F5 tornado that devastated Joplin, Missouri in 2011.  Since that time, they've set up operations in Alabama, New Jersey, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Kansas...just to name a few.

The rigs are self-sufficient fuel-wise, which allows the mobile cooking teams to serve up good food with or without power. Along with food, they serve up much needed hugs and friendship to victims and workers alike. (Check out the link above to find out more about the work this group does...make a donation if you wish!)

Back to Food With Friends, folks. The theme (BBQ) being established and the proteins being decided by Adrienne and Greg, the rest of us teamed up to create the rest of the menu. Marti, Brian and Carol are on appetizers. Donna and Maria are working on side dishes and Sherron and I are doing dessert(s). Other members head up other items and still others will lend a hand...not everything has been decided yet! 

Sherron, food blogger AND food photographer  (http://www.simply-gourmet.com/) AND one amazing individual and I quickly got our heads together behind the scenes to decide on a few BBQ-friendly desserts. I can't tell you what the big dessert items will be right now (I don't want to spoil the surprise), but I can tell you gluten-free Texas Sheet Cake is part of it. 

In researching gluten-free recipes out there, I found most used a different method of preparation and much different proportions of traditional cocoa, butter, water, flour, sugar, etc. Hmmm...does gluten-free flour react differently to heat? Is that why they use a mixer instead of whisking up the ingredients in a pot on the stove?

I trusted the "experts" on the internet and changed my regular recipe. The result? Not so wonderful. Instead of being fudgy, the cake was dense and heavy. The normally thick batter was runny. Instead of baking up into a beautiful cake, it ran over the sides and onto the bottom of the oven. And instead of taking the very precise 22 minutes to bake, it took over an hour before it set. Back to the drawing board. 

So I reverted to my old recipe and simply substituted a commercial gluten-free flour blend (Jules' All Purpose Gluten-free flour blend to be specific) instead of all the changes that clearly didn't (no pun intended) pan out. And it worked. Beautifully. So well that my taste testers at work couldn't tell it was even gluten-free. Success! The old and trusted recipe was a winner!

In addition to making the old recipe gluten-free, I turned it into a salty/sweet treat by crowning the fudgy frosting with crushed pretzels and salted peanuts. Nice. And I won't make you wait until next month for the recipe.  Here it is.

Peanut & Pretzeled Gluten-free Texas Sheet Cake  

(Not gluten-free? Just use regular all purpose flour!)

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup water
• 4 tablespoons cocoa, heaping (REALLY heaping!)
• 2 cups Jules' gluten-free flour blend (or regular all purpose flour if gluten isn't an issue!)
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon baking soda (dissolve this in sour cream above)
• 2 eggs

• 1/2 cup butter
• 4 tablespoons cocoa, level
• 6 tablespoons skim milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 pound box powdered sugar

• 2 cups gluten-free pretzels (or regular if gluten isn't an issue), measured before gently crushing
• 1 cup salted peanuts

Put butter, water and cocoa into pot; bring to full boil.  Remove from heat and add flour, sugar and salt; beat until smooth and add sour cream (with soda in it) and eggs.  Mix well and pour into greased 17" X 9" X 1" high cookie sheet with rim.  Bake for 22 minutes at 375.

In same pot the cake was made in (and you don't even wash the pot!) add 1/2 cup butter, 4 level T. cocoa and milk and bring to a full boil.  Remove and add rest of ingredients.  Beat well.

Spread the frosting over cake as SOON as it comes out of the oven.  Evenly sprinkle the peanuts and crushed pretzels over the top of the frosting, pressing gently into the frosting to set them in place.

Refrigerate cake, cut into squares and serve.  Best when cold.   

Before cutting into squares - I just liked this pic!

 

Beer and Pretzel Pork Chops

What do most men happily dream about? What do they crave? Now come on...not THAT! The correct answer in this case is beer. And what do they enjoy most with their beer? Pretzels, of course...with mustard! (None of you had an inappropriate answer, did you? Tsk, tsk.)  

Now that we've established the proper answers, let's make a dish any man (or woman) will love. Oh, and how about adding pork chops into that equation?  Yeah, I didn't think you'd say no.

You know, of course, that I used gluten-free pretzels - Snyder makes a really good gf pretzel that you can find in just about any grocery store.  If gluten isn't a problem, just use whatever brand you like the best. Same with the beer...use a nice dark or a light or whatever makes you happy.  It's beer!  How can you go wrong?! 

These pork chops aren't just hearty, they're easy, too.  Only a few ingredients total up to a whole lot hell of a lot of goodness.  You just can't go wrong with pretzels and beer...and a damned good mustard. Here's the recipe:

 Beer and Pretzel Pork Chops

• 4 pork loin chops, center cut, 3/4" thick
• 1/2 cup beer, your fave (gluten-free to make this GF)
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

• 1/2 cup honey mustard, a good one that's more honey-looking than mustard-looking...I like French's Honey Dijon
• 2 cups pretzel sticks, crushed relatively fine, but not into dust (gluten-free to make this GF)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons butter

• 1/2 cup beer, your fave (gluten-free to make this GF)

The night before, combine beer and dry mustard in a zip top bag and mix well.  Add the pork chops, squeeze out all the air and seal tightly.
 
Before you want to serve.  Crush the pretzels and put them in a plastic bag.  Remove the chops from the bag and dry them well.  Coat both sides of each chop liberally with honey mustard.  Put the chops into the bag with the crushed pretzels.  Coat each chop thoroughly. 
 
Melt butter and oil together in a large skillet.  When hot, add the chops.  Cook over medium heat until the chops are browned on the first side, turn and brown on the other.  Test for doneness before removing from pan. 
 
Pour 1/2 cup of the beer into the skillet and stir until the sauce thickens slightly and all the browned bits from the bottom are incorporated.
 
Plate the chops and pour the sauce over top.
 
      

Halloween Pumpkin Bark (Barf?)

Pumpkin Bark

Nope, there's no pumpkin in this candy bark, but there's lots of Halloween candy and other goodies...all spilling out of the pumpkin. 

Just carve a craft pumpkin (buy one of these at the craft store) into a barfing pumpkin face and serve.   Happy Halloween!

• 2 lbs. white chocolate
• 1 c. or more M&Ms - Halloween ones!
• 1/2 c. Craisins
• 2 c. candy corn
• 1 1/2 c. broken small pretzels - use gluten-free pretzels to make this gf
• 1/2 c. cashews
• Plus extra of all of the above to sprinkle on afterward

Spray 2 cookie sheets (with rims!) with Pam and scatter all of the above ingredients (except white chocolate) evenly across each cookie sheet.  Melt white chocolate according to package directions. 

Once the chocolate is melted, pour it evenly over the contents of both cookie sheets.  Using a small plastic bag, insert your hand into it and butter the palm of your hand on the outside of the bag.  Moving quickly, spread the chocolate over the stuff on the pans - using more Pam, if necessary.

Once the mixture is spread out well, sprinkle with additional candy, craisins, pretzels and cashews and press lightly into the still soft chocolate.  Let sit until the candy is completely set and cooled.  Break up into pieces to serve.  Store in sealable plastic bag.

Note:  To make this gluten-free (and I do!) check all your ingredients to be sure all candy, chocolate and pretzels are GF.  And enjoy!