This and that: Prom, frugal-style and Gluten-free Brownie Bites

This . . . Prom, frugal-style

I guess they do look a bit alike.
Someone asked them the other day if they were sisters. Ya think?

I was talking with my sister on the phone the other day. She has a son and two step-sons, no daughters. Her girlfriends, who do have daughters, were telling her that prom was a huge expense these days. Dresses can run several hundred dollars. Professional hair stylists and make-up artists are hired. Jewelry and shoes are purchased just for the event. You get the picture. Anyways, my sister was asking me if prom was expensive for our two daughters. Oh, did I ever get a laugh out of that. I hadn't really thought about staying within a budget for prom. We just did prom the way we do most things, frugal-style.

So, this is prom, frugal-style.

One daughter wore a dress that she had sewn for herself last summer. She wore sandals and a pair of my pantyhose. She used a gift card (Christmas present from her brother) to buy some costume jewelry. She borrowed my electric curlers, and used a touch of her own lip gloss.

My other daughter went to Value Village (thrift shop) on 50% off day, and spent a whopping $5 for a dress. She, too, wore sandals, but chose to go bare-legged. She borrowed a bit of eye-liner, used her own mascara and lip gloss (my girls are not into make-up yet). She wore earrings that I gave to her for her birthday and a necklace that belonged to my mom as a girl.

Tickets were $25 per student. My daughters' school does prom really cool, I think. Everyone comes single, so that it doesn't feel like a couples-only thing. Then, for the price of the ticket, they provide a catered dinner, karaoke, talent competition, video dance games and dancing. It's a very fun night, and not at all pricey.

Anyway, I just had to laugh a bit, when my sister asked if prom was expensive for us. We weren't trying to do this frugally. It just turned out that way.

And that . . .

Now, for the other thing on my list today -- the recipe for Gluten-free Dark Chocolate Brownie Bites.

Basically I've just adjusted my regular brownie recipe. As these are strictly for me (sorry, I don't share my chocolate), I make them how I like them, less sweet and more chocolate. This recipe makes 12 mini-muffin size brownie bites. I've made these with both home-ground rice flour and commercial rice flour. The commercial ones are definitely smoother. But in a pinch, I'm happy to have the grain-ier home-ground ones as well. My brownie bites are not chewy, but closer to torte-like.

1 egg
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup gluten-free flour blend (brown rice flour, millet flour and xanthan or guar gum -- my blend is here, if you need an approximation, use 2 tablespoons rice flour, 2 tablespoons millet flour, 1/16th teaspoon xanthan or guar gum)
3/8 cup cocoa powder

In a small bowl, beat together egg, sugar, salt and vanilla, until light. 

Add melted butter. Continue beating until thoroughly blended.

Mix in GF flour blend and cocoa powder.

Place cupcake papers into a mini muffin tin. I also like to spray the papers with non-stick cooking spray, so that not a speck of the brownies stick to the paper (I take my chocolate seriously, and don't want any wasted). This is probably not totally necessary. But it's what I do.

We all know why we really make brownies, to eat the batter, right? Brownie batter is one of the best kitchen creations, IMO. But, unless you're going to eat all that batter today, you might as well bake some of these up.  So, scoop a spoonful of the batter into each muffin section.

I have no self-control -- I ate one right away, before I could get a picture
these are done cake-style, btw

Bake at 350 degrees F, for 12-13 minutes for gooey brownies, or 14 minutes for cake brownies. The cake brownies are still dense, due to the extra cocoa powder, not light and airy, as some cake-like brownies can be.

Store in a covered container. I've enjoyed these a week after baking, but never later than that. They don't last any longer with me around!

Grinding brown rice into flour with a coffee mill or blender

home-ground brown rice flour, using my coffee mill

Twenty-five years ago, when my doctor first suggested an elimination diet, you couldn't buy rice flour in a regular grocery store, let alone all the other varieties of non-glutinous grains. You had to go to a specialty health food store to buy these grains, as well as non-dairy milks. And even so, rice flour was packaged in small bags, and very expensive, compared to wheat flour. Almond milk, soy milk, rice milk, hemp milk and hazel milk were non-existent in the regular grocery store, with the exception of soy-based infant formula.

What was I to do? Well, I went to the local library and found the one and only book about food allergies and intolerances. I poured through the book as quickly as I could. The first half of the book outlined elimination diets, most common allergens, and how to reintroduce foods back into my diet. The second half was what became very valuable to me. It covered how to make your own nut milks and rice flour, in your own kitchen, using basic home-kitchen equipment.

I made my own almond milk and rice flour, using my blender. And this made satisfactory milk and flour. Without an actual grain mill, it's hard to get flour to a fine grind. So my rice flour did have a bit of graininess to it, but really, after what I'd been through for many months of tummy troubles, I was just so glad to be able to eat anything and feel okay.

I have since discovered that I can use my coffee grinder, combined with a sifter, to grind brown rice and millet into flour. It's a little quicker, and maybe slightly less grainy, than the blender. Here's how I make brown rice flour at home. (You can still just use a blender for grinding the rice, if you don't have a coffee grinder.)

In the coffee mill, I grind about 2 tablespoons of brown rice at a time. 

After a minute of running the grinder, I have a product that looks like the above photo. I pour this coarse flour into a bowl as I go, and continue until I have about a cup of flour.

I, then, pass all of the coarse flour through a sifter. The particles that don't go through the sifter get reground in the coffee mill, until all material passes through the fine holes of the sifter. 

What I am left with is an ever-so-slightly grainy, brown rice flour. For texture's sake, I like to combine home-ground rice flour with a commercial millet flour in recipes. This gives me a fairly decent flour blend for home-style muffins, pancakes and cookies. And I save about $1.50 per pound on the rice flour by grinding it myself. If I am wanting a baked product with a less grainy texture (even I get picky at times), then I just splurge and buy the brown rice flour at the bulk bin, health food store.

Initially, I really disliked xanthan gum. I felt it left an off taste and gummy texture to the finished product. Then I discovered that I was using much more than I needed. I began using less than recipes often called for, and still had good results. For quick breads, my ratio of xanthan gum to flour is 1/4 teaspoon of xanthan gum to 1 cup of non-glutinous flour.

I've streamlined my GF baking process a bit, by mixing a batch of flours and gum, and storing in a container ready for baking.

My current flour "recipe" is 1 cup of brown rice flour, 1 cup of millet flour, 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum. I blend this all together with a whisk to insure the gum is well-distributed. I use this, measure for measure, in quick bread recipes. 

If you are serious about a GF, or other food allergy, diet, you should know what xanthan gum is and from what it's derived.Xanthan gum is a fermented product combining a specific bacteria most often with a corn-based product. The bacteria can also be combined with a wheat, dairy or soy product. It's advisable to find out the source of the xanthan gum before using, in case it happens to be on your list of foods to avoid. If you're buying a prepackaged bag of xanthan gum, that info should be on the label. If you are purchasing from a bulk bin, the shop should be able to find out the source for you. If you have a sensitivity to corn, or the source for your xanthan gum is one of the foods on your sensitivity list, then guar gum may be a better binding agent for your GF baking. Guar gum comes from a legume seed. It's often less expensive than xanthan gum, and is used in the same proportions as xanthan gum.

I currently am using xanthan gum as, over the course of 7 or 8 years, I've never had a problem with it, and I happened to still have some in the cupboard for this go round with an elimination diet. I'll give the guar gum a try when I run out of the xanthan gum. Aside from individual sensitivities to these products, some people experience digestive upsets, especially when consumed in large quantities. All the more reason for me to want to use as little as possible in baking. When looking over most GF recipes, I'd say that I use about half the amount of xanthan gum than is called for. And so far, my baked goods, pancakes and waffles all turn out well.

I still bake all the regular breads and desserts for our family. But I also bake up a small stash of things that I can eat, and keep most of them in the freezer. This week I've made myself some banana muffins, biscuits and brownies. Banana breads/muffins do particularly well with gluten-free baking, as the fruit gives moisture which binds the dry ingredients together. And I really like my brownie bites -- individual, dark chocolate brownies, baked in a mini muffin tin. I'll post my recipe for GF Brownie Bites tomorrow. Right now, I've got to run and get my daughters from school.

This is a huge week in the life of our family. It's not just the end of the school year for us. But my 2 babies graduate from high school on Friday night. Saturday, they have their last 2 performances with their high school dance groups. And Sunday, we're driving north to visit my kids' 91 year old grandpa, for Father's Day.

I have mixed feelings about my daughters growing up. On the one hand, I'm excited for them, for new opportunities in their futures. But also, this is the end of a phase of my life. I won't be driving any of my kids to and from school any more. I'll miss our daily conversations. Car time means I have a captive audience. We've discussed fashion, international conflicts, boys, elections, walks with God, menu planning, career planning, allowance (and how to earn more, always a popular subject), friendships, family joys and sorrows, hobbies, music, art, dance and much more. I'm not sure what the future holds for me. But I know that it's just around the corner.

Till next time, have a great day!