Vegan Pumpkin Pie Praline in Coconut-Pecan Crust

A slice of vegan pumpkin pie heaven. Chill overnight for best texture. 

Karina's Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pie with Praline and Coconut-Pecan Crust

By Karina Allrich November 2010.

The key to this version of vegan pumpkin pie is the cashew cream. It thickens the pumpkin custard filling without eggs. I kid you not. This is one beautiful pie. You'll love it. And so will your guests.

The trick is to make it ahead of time- and give the pie a chance to chill thoroughly.

Prepare a 9-inch Springform pan by lining the bottom with a piece of parchment paper. (Note: This recipe really needs a 9-inch pan- I mean it. Don't use a smaller pan, Babycakes. It might overflow.)

First, make the crust.

Crust ingredients:

1 cup flaked unsweetened organic coconut
1 cup pecan pieces
1/2 cup all purpose gluten-free flour blend
1/2 cup organic light brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
5 tablespoons vegan butter (I used Earth Balance)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Place all of the dry ingredients into a food processor bowl and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse sand. Add in the vegan butter and pulse several times in short bursts until the crumbs are moist and begin to fall away from the sides of the bowl.

Dump the crumbs into the cake pan and spread them evenly. Using your fingers gently press the crumbs across the bottom and up the sides- about 2/3 of the way up.

Bake in the center of the oven for about 7 minutes- to set.

Remove the pan and set aside.

Meanwhile... make your filling.

Ingredients:

2 14-oz. cans organic pumpkin puree
1 1/4 cups thick cashew cream- see below for instructions
1 1/4 cups organic light brown sugar
1/2 cup coconut milk
3 tablespoons molasses
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice or orange juice
2 teaspoons bourbon vanilla
2 tablespoons tapioca starch
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Instructions:

Combine all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Using a whisk attachment (if you have one- if not, use standard beaters) beat the ingredients on medium high until you have a smooth, creamy custard texture.

Pour the pumpkin custard into the Springform pan and smooth it out evenly. Your pan should be quite full- about 1-2 inches from the top. Place the pan into the center of the preheated 350 F degree oven. Bake for about one hour, till set, and up to 70 minutes or so, if necessary. If the cashew cream was very cold, for instance, you'll need to bake it longer. If the cashew cream was room temperature, the pie will set/bake sooner.

Check the pie at about 50 minutes, to make sure the top is not over-browning (some ovens may run hotter, etc). If the top gets too brown too soon, tent it with a piece of foil.

The pie should look set and slightly firm- though it will still shimmy a little if you shake the pan slightly. You want the center firmness to match the firmness near the outer edges. I baked mine for a full 67 minutes. Every oven is slightly different. Start with an hour in mind- and be willing to bake up to 70 minutes, if it the pie looks "loose".

That said- know that this pie firms up when chilled. It is the chilling of the cashew cream that replaces the eggs in this recipe.

Cool the pie on a wire rack until it is cool enough to handle. Place a piece of parchment paper across the top, and a dinner plate to keep it in place. Chill in the fridge for at least six hours- but preferably, overnight. It will slice best when thoroughly chilled.

Before serving, remove the outer ring of the Springform pan. Top the pie with Pecan-Pumpkin Seed Praline (recipe follows).

The pumpkin seed and pecan praline adds a delicious crunch.

Pumpkin-Pecan Praline

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons vegan butter
A couple of shakes of cinnamon
A pinch of sea salt
1/3 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds
2 tablespoons organic light brown sugar
2 tablespoons gluten-free brown rice syrup or maple syrup

Instructions:

Grease a baking sheet and set aside. Heat a well seasoned, lightly oiled iron skillet over medium heat and add the vegan butter, cinnamon, sea salt, pecans, pumpkin seeds and brown sugar. Stir for a minute or a two to toast the seeds and pecans. Add the brown rice syrup and stir till bubbling and sticky.

Remove from heat; spoon and spread the praline onto a greased baking sheet to cool. Break the praline into pieces for garnishing the top of the pie. I added the praline as a garnish to slices just before serving, but if you need to make this entirely ahead of time, you could top the whole chilled pie with cooled praline pieces.

Serves 16.

GFG Notes:

Folks are sure to ask me if you could make this pie with eggs. But it's not that kind of pie. The cashew cream is a star in this recipe. If you add eggs, I suspect it would create quite a mess.

If you would like to use real butter instead of vegan butter, that would work.

If you must avoid coconut milk, you could use your usual non-dairy substitution- if the milk is rich- like a good organic soy milk. I wouldn't use rice milk. Too thin. If I had to use rice milk as the only alternative, I would choose a vanilla rice yogurt instead.

Soaking raw cashews to make cashew cream.

How to Make Cashew Cream

Cashew cream is super easy to make, and keeps for several days in the fridge, stored in an airtight container, covered.

You'll need:

2 cups organic raw cashews
Fresh filtered water

Rinse the cashews in a colander and place them in a glass or ceramic bowl. Cover them with fresh filtered water. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and let them soak for two hours.

Drain the cashews and pour them into a Vita-Mix or blender.
or macho blender.

Add:

A small pinch of sea salt

A small splash of full fat coconut milk- maybe 2 tablespoons

Process the cashews for a minute or two until they form a paste, adding a tiny bit more of coconut milk, if necessary, to create a thick, rich cream. Don't thin it too much, however- you want it really thick for the pie filling.

Use immediately or store, covered, in the fridge until using.

Yields roughly two cups of cashew cream.

Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

All images & content are copyright protected, all rights reserved. Please do not use our images or content without prior permission. Thank you. 

Autumnal Gifts - and favorite pumpkin recipes

Catherine, with eggs from hens Fiona, Molly and Mona.

My Best Gluten-Free Pumpkin Recipes

From the archives, with a dash of autumnal pumpkin love... The bittersweet, textured beauty of Autumn has always gripped my heartstrings, pulling me in deeper, connecting with some invisible part of me, so much more so than Spring. Much more so than summer's flirtatious pleasures. And Winter, well. She is a dark and icy mistress. That relationship has always been complicated. So unlike my truly, madly deeply love of Fall.

And here am I. In L.A... Where Fall is just a pumpkin spice latte.

Los Angeles is without an Autumn. I know apologists who claim there is seasonal change (deciduous leaves do transform here- from dry green to crispy brown, sometime before Thanksgiving). But there is no Yankee eruption of brilliance- no reds, golds and coppery oranges. There is no softened, morning skyline heavy with balsam scented mist. Ardent Angelenos do not seem to bristle with three digit heat in October (it was 106ºF yesterday). They do not seem to crave L.L. Bean flannel shirts and cotton turtlenecks, like I do. Flip flops and tank tops are year round fashion choices. Along with hair dye, tanning lotions and injectables that promise eternal Spring. Los Angeles is a town of perpetual 21. In platform heels.

There are weeks (months?) on end I do not see a single woman sporting natural gray hair like mine. Never mind a natural neck- or- well. You know. That's another story. You get the picture. Not only do I feel invisible in sexualized So-Cal culture, I feel irrelevant, and bored. Restless. And unconnected. Year-round summer feels shockingly dull. Artificial. And uninspiring.

So I took my husband on a trip.

We spent a week on Cape Cod (my old stomping grounds, for decades). And I ate up every minute with a spoon. I spent entire days outside, wandering, hiking, drinking in the sea air, the peace and solitude, the creativity of the community (artists and writers, gardeners, crafters, gentlewomen farmers and furniture makers). Strong, independent women with silver streaked hair, and natural beauty that had never known a dermatologist's needle. Women not focused on a mirror. But focused on their curiosity. On creating something with their hands. Their spirit. It was grounding. And enlightening.

And it felt like home.

New Englander Ralph Waldo Emerson said, What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.

Not to wax too geo-pious, but New England does infuse your blood by birth. It roots you to its culture, its distinct sensibility. Its Yankee eye for simple elegance. An appreciation for patina. For thoughtfulness.

For me, my rural New England beginning fostered a life-long love of books. Music. Antiques. Landscape painting. Simple nourishing food. Walking in the woods. Quiet rather than noise.

Show rather than tell.


READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Bread

Karina's awesome new pumpkin bread recipe. Gluten-free.

Autumn in Portland, Oregon, is soft and rainy. Foggy. And slow to frost. The scents of Ponderosa pine and red cedar infuse our morning walk with a woodsy familiarity my New England soul craves, as yellow willow leaves flutter earthward, dreamlike, cinematic.

Time to pull on sweaters. Dig out a favorite scarf. Stack kindling and firewood. Choose a new book to love (I am reading Mink River by Brian Doyle- a lovely, lyrical, michievous book infused with Irish-American sensibility and Salish stories).

And best of all, it is finally time- for pumpkin lovers everywhere- to fill the pantry shelves with tins of our favorite curcurbit. Because, Dear Reader... it's time to bake. And I have a fabulous, flavorful, autumn-worthy gluten-free pumpkin bread recipe for you.

A huge, gorgeous pumpkin loaf.

Enjoy warm from the oven, with butter or cream cheese. Or make it ahead: Bake it. Wrap it. Freeze it.

And Babycakes, it will feed a crowd.


READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Pumpkin Bread Pudding - Gluten-Free

Pumpkin Inspired : Bread Pudding

Don't ask me where the craving came from. Because I honestly couldn't tell you. I haven't a clue. I rarely even think about food these days (I seem to have returned to my art school habits of running on fuel comprised of coffee, painting, and music). I don't daydream of desserts or breakfast, or intricate candlelit suppers. I do not spend much time at all on the Internet lately.

I am hungry instead for inspiration. For autumn's burnished light and shadow. Rusted jewel colors and texture. Pattern. And rhythm. I am walking the local woods and creeks, listening, breathing in. Fed by the foggy morning softness and water sounds, and leafy, wet wood smoke. Gathering images and emotions for markmaking and paint slinging. Food- for better or worse (I'm not a judger)- is simply not on my radar these days.

But this weekend I woke with a curiously strong hankering for old fashioned pumpkin bread pudding. And gluten-free goodness ensued.



READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Pumpkin Polenta Recipe with Tomatillo-Avocado Salsa

Vegetarian pumpkin polenta with salsa fresco.

The first gifts of Fall have arrived. Time to dig out the Crock Pot and your favorite flannel shirt. If you can find it, that is. It's got to be around here somewhere, right? You used it wore it to death last year. Or was that the year before?

The harvest moon is playing tricks with your memory again. The crows outside in the oak trees caw like the crows in tomorrow's dream. Days turn into weeks and lunch turns into next month's breakfast. Hours spill through worm holes of time like so many episodes of Lost. And the Buddha imagines the universe.

And gets it close to right.

We're talking atoms, people. Particles of teeny tiny specks of even tinier teenier fragments of a single point of something so small the naked eye perceives it as invisible. Yet the Buddha perceived this. In 528 BC.

I ponder this as I walk in a stream of brittle bronze oak leaves.

The succession of days that adds up to a life is only a blink. The moment when you started reading this sentence is already the past. You think about this stuff as you get older. When you squint into your future you see a shorter slope than the path that winds behind you. It can cause a slippery sense of vertigo. A tipping sideways melancholy that infuses every lost opportunity with meaning, bittersweet.

I remember a West Hollywood walk to the market past ninety-pound skateboarders and a gaggle of thin actors smoking outside the Lee Strasberg Institute. I think about the Russian speaking men with impossibly sad eyes brushing past me, their impeccably groomed wheat-blonde wives carrying shopping bags of kale. I smile at the memory of my brown-eyed neighbor sitting on his front wall listening to Miles Davis on a transistor radio.  

Great music, I tell him, feeling myself altering my cadence to the beat. It's JAZZ, Baby! he shouts, laughing as I pass by. I feel his joy in my chest. And I know he is exactly right. This whole life thing? This whole circuitous method of survival called living?

It's jazz, Baby.

And you just gotta go with it.


READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Cheesecake

Gluten-Free vegan pumpkin cheesecake- creamy and dairy-free.

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Cheesecake, Darling

Quick question. It is officially October. The annual Pumpkin Love Fest has begun in earnest. So. I ask you. Is this the time to shun dessert in favor of green kale chia fiber smoothies and ginger laced cabbage detox soup?

I can answer that.

The answer is no.

As in N. As in O. NO. Nope. Nada. Not gonna happen.

Because I, my darling, am a temptress. I am not going to write about healthy Fall desserts today, or some virtuous fat-free bean brownie with chicory fiber, or three-bean dirt-brown chili that will keep you tooting fumes for a week. Instead, Dearest Gluten-Sensitive One, I am going to tease you. I am going to lure you- with a silver fork-worthy dessert recipe totally worth baking this all-too-soon-to-be-upon-us holiday season 2014.

This is a silky, creamy pumpkin cheesecake that begs for a party. Or a family rumpus. One of many last hurrahs as daylight dwindles darkly toward the Winter Solstice low point, flickering her last sigh Northward before the pale glare of January dawns in all her cold and sober glory (and I step- ever so gingerly- on the reality check scale). And maybe sigh. A little hint of a sigh.

Because even though it is pre-Halloween, pre-Thanksgiving, pre-Christmas, pre-Hannukah (and all that pre-winter holiday jazz) I can already see that the annual jean shrinkage has begun. You know- that time of year when (mysteriously!) my favorite jeans come damp-dry out of the dryer a size too small. And that familiar jolly pie roll affectionately known as Doris is itching to start rolling her merry way up and out of my favorite black leggings. It's rather comical. And honestly, she makes me smile. I pat her affectionately.

Like a pet bunny.

Because the truth is I am not about to start counting calories.

Though I admit I may possibly probably definitely feel the need to cleanse my palette in the bright new year that lurks and leers around the post-holiday corner. Detox mulligatawny is surely in my future, come 2015.

If for nothing else, for the sheer love of shedding old stuck energy. A fresh start feels good.

If you do it with a big dash of humor.

And humility.

I know from experience that January will ignite the urge to clean out closets, chase those dust bunnies and walk off our collective Doris's. Or would that be Dori, for plural? We'll have ample time, come 2015, for detoxing and courting virtue with ginger laced green soup, and recipes that will encourage our lovely pinchable pie rolls to skedaddle. I promise. I'll be first second third in line with fresh whipped smoothies and cleansing soup recipes come January.

But this month? Nah.

There's a vegan pumpkin cheesecake recipe to share.



READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Icing

Gluten-free dairy-free pumpkin cupcakes for Fall.

I need to wander off a bit. Because it's who I am. A person who wanders. Ponders. Finds solace in books. I've been like this since girlhood. Curious. Serious. No good at catching balls. Or dressing dolls. I am beyond inept with hair. And eyeliner. Nail polish. I get anxious and non-verbal if I have to wear anything that isn't a pair of jeans.

I hold the opinion that there is more to life than collapsing in front of the television and microwaving hot dogs. I think that beauty- as Steve Jobs believed- is important, has value. That we are deeply interconnected. That life on Earth is precious- from the house sparrow to the living sea. That we are part of a vast and mysterious collective- not merely of our absurd egos (who natter inside our heads and squander our attention on drama, conflict, acquisition and the need to control)- but of a newly unfolding awareness of astonishing inner space and outer space. Infinity in every direction.

Which begs the question.

Who am I? Really. I know I am not the car I drive or the laundry detergent I use. I know I am not what I identify with. I am not what I embrace- or reject. Though for years I thought so. I believed my opinions created a self. Made me Me. Now that I am old enough to have lived through countless opinion reversals, I realize opinions are temporary. And not defining.

Just as I am not my baby teeth. Or my once lactating voluptuousness. Or my sprouting silver hair. Or what music I listen to. Or what jeans I outgrow. I am not even the woman baking pumpkin cupcakes for her readers. Or am I? Well, maybe I am. Just a little. But wait. Doesn't that make me the sum of what I do? I bake therefore I am?

I am trying lately not to be so much of a human doing. And more of a human being.

It's not as easy as one might think.

And therein lies the trouble. The whole thinking thing. Our brain. Our wired hardware. It disconnects us. It addicts us. It overrides the heart and soul of what is really going on. The being we really are. Beneath the seductive and glossy surface of things. The spark that burns from the greater whole.

I see that spark in you.

It's why I made you cupcakes.


READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Best Gluten-Free Pumpkin Bars Recipe

Frosted gluten-free pumpkin bars with a secret ingredient.

Tuning in to the particular (and fleeting) pleasures of each changing season as we ride the wheel of the year may be my favorite spiritual practice. A practice that requires one simple thing. Attention. Which turns out to be not so simple, inevitably. Because life is anything but simple, with its whitewater rush of mind numbing distractions that demand less and less of our soul and more and more of our mental focus on exterior minutia. Micro decisions. Cleaning out our email in-box. Catching up with Facebook feeds and Twitter streams and Google+. Texting about grocery lists. Scanning streaming video options- thousands of choices may glitter and ooze their high definition glow but I find I am not feeling the abundance.

I am less and less enamored with more.

I know. It's showing. My age. My childhood brain was wired for mud and bird calls, blackberry thickets and butterscotch pine. Hours spent reading in a grove of birch trees dug their neural groove. The wild luxuries of inner connection, rather than social networking. And TIME. That plastic, misunderstood, precious commodity that shape-shifts experience from an endless afternoon of liquid daylight into a heart clutching warp speed tumble of confusion. Decades become tiny sandwiches of memory you can barely taste anymore.

Weeks blink by with alarming velocity.

And here we are again.

In pumpkin season.

And so. I stop. And notice the way the late day sun drops low and shimmers golden in the treeline. The crows are gathering earlier. Glossy black and strutting with authority. The smell of burnished leaves scuttling across a wet Cape sidewalk is the same smell I inhaled on a road trip in Vermont fifteen years ago, standing on a wooden bridge above a clear shallow creek while our sons balanced on the slick rocks below us, fishing for smooth round stones.

Do they remember this? Do they remember the same hours I do, in the sand on Skaket Beach? Do they ever have a sudden itch to feed their senses with the scents and sounds of a freshwater riverbed, a sun warmed tide pool? Do they crave a winding path through apple trees? Were their brains hardwired for this connection, too?

I ponder this as I stir a new pumpkin batter.

And breathe in the scents of ginger and cinnamon, listening to the leafy rustle of an almond flour bag as I fold up the cellophane and pinch it closed with a clothespin.


READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Best Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins

These wheat-free pumpkin muffins feature coconut flour and almond flour.

Favorite Companion

We found canned organic pumpkin on the store shelves this week. So be prepared for pumpkin recipes. I, for one, Darling, can't get enough. Pumpkin is my favorite fall ingredient. Maybe because it cozies up to gluten-free flours so well. It adds moisture and depth to g-free baked goods. It flirts with cinnamon and ginger like the sexiest, inscrutable movie star. You know what I'm talking about. It's not overt. Or blatant. It's not over the top. It is subtle. Secure.

Pumpkin doesn't demand to be admired.

Because it doesn't have to prove itself.

It's not a bully flavor that crushes gentler flavors in its wake. It doesn't bark and claw to be Top Dog 24/7. It doesn't have a deep seated need to own the room, to dominate, to control the ingredients it shares a bowl with.

Pumpkin goes with the flow.

It likes vanilla.

And it likes chocolate.

You could say, it's bi-flavorful.

Which happens to be a quality I admire. Even embody and embrace. Because life is brimming with diversity. Life is rich and complicated, sticky and glorious. And for every preference I may think I cherish, there are sure to be a dazzling array of alternative preferences twinkling beyond my peripheral vision like so many bokeh jewels.


READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pancakes

Pumpkin pancakes with apricot jam and pepitas.

Pumpkin Pancakes, Yes.

I haven't made gluten-free pancakes in a long time. I am- typically- not a big breakfast person. A solo slice of golden gluten-free toast glistening with melting cashew butter and a big mug of hot coconut milk chai usually does it for me.

So what possessed me to change my routine? Why did I suddenly have a deep growling desire for pancakes?

In a word: pumpkin.

My favorite cucurbit.

I could wax ridiculously poetic about this humble gourd and what it brings to the grit littered landscape of gluten-free land. I could draw you a map of flavor that curves through a forest of cinnamon and nutmeg. I could don a teacher's cardigan and chart the impact of pumpkin's inherent cellular moisture on milled non-gluten grains. I could sport an orange baseball cap and pitch you a three act plot line where pumpkin is the hero rescuing the wan, deprived princess in the Kingdom of Celiac.

But instead? I'll just share the recipe.


READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Donuts

Tender and light, gluten-free pumpkin donuts, darling.

Pumpkin Crazy

You might think I'm on a pumpkin bender, glancing through recent recipes here on Gluten-Free Goddess®. And you'd be right. I do this. Every October. I go on one long, crazy, pumpkin love affair. I am head-over-heels nuts about it. Because pumpkin is magic. In fact, if pumpkin was in a fairy tale, it would be the Fairy Godmother- not the humble buggy. It makes gluten-free baking transform, you see, as if touched by a star-tipped sparkling wand.

That's why I knew I had to tackle pumpkin donuts. Because donuts can be tough to replicate gluten-free. But I knew pumpkin would bring me luck, and sprinkle good fortune on my baking endeavors today. So, yes. I am pumpkin crazy. Crazy in love.

And you know what?

If pumpkin be the food of love, play on.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Fabulous pumpkin cookies, gluten-free + delicious.

My restless spirit has been wandering far and wide and away from dreams of butternut chili and baked rice casseroles toward the tempting, sweeter things in life. As in cookies. Like the character Ana Pascal confesses in one of my favorite movies, Stranger Than Fiction, I decided that if I was going to help make the world a better place this week, I'd do it with cookies.

So today's post, Dear Reader, is brief and sweet. Just like the treat I baked this weekend when I began with the idea of a pumpkin cookie. I craved something different than my Pumpkin Pecan Cookies and my nutmeg icing drizzled Pumpkin Quinoa Cookies. I craved dark chocolate. And peanut butter. So I threw them in the bowl with pumpkin and coconut flour and, well.

There was a happy ending to the story.


READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

Karina's fabulous gluten-free pumpkin streusel muffins.

Did someone say streusel?

This isn't a Halloween post. Or a Thanksgiving post. Technically. Though Thanksgiving is just a stone's throw away- if you somehow conjure a metaphorical stone to metaphorically hurl into the time-space continuum, piercing the veil of eight and a half weeks that blows by in a singular exhale, surely faster than light. And this exhale, it was only following a previous breath- a breath I took yesterday- which turns out to be one year ago. A year since that Pumpkin Praline Pie I baked. I have a hard time wrapping my brain around this.

This is a post about time.

Some days I feel as if I am slave to the calendar, an unwitting cog in the wheel of the year with Sundays and holidays appointed by proxy, designated by some superior force that rules my random wandering nature with an unforgiving fist, demanding obedience. Charting the course of my life.

Then I remember the truth.

Time is an invention born of the Big Bang. Debris hurtling through space- at increasing velocity. And here we are, hurtling along with it. Stuck to a rock spinning its own orbital logic. Logic so tiny in the fantastical face of infinity, the depth and breadth of vast, hollow, endless space. In the beyond-comprehension scheme of things, we are all walking talking miracles. It is truly beyond extraordinary that we are here at all, with all the subatomic quantum level things that could go wrong. With all the near misses. And all that never was.

Life is breathtakingly rare, intricately fragile, and so surprising.

Perhaps that's why we set apart a season to ponder the harvest, to cultivate gratitude. I'm all for it. I'm all for it because of all the petty, surface level annoyances we endure, all the itches and aches and heartbreaks and mundane difficulties, all the tricks and rationalizations we serve ourselves to distract ourselves, just to survive. To get through the day. To endure until tomorrow. To re-imagine what is possible. Or ignore the inevitable. To flirt with meaning. To invite love in. To create a connection. To let go of something toxic. To embrace something raw or something tender. To risk something wonderful. Or scary. Because the risk gleams with promise.

The microcosm of this past year has been the microcosm of my life. Contractions and expansions. Sloughing off and gathering in. There's been some blooming. And some fading. Inner strength toughened. Muscles softened. Authenticity inches one step closer. Understanding melts into compassion. For myself, first of all.

I am learning to hold my imperfections to the light and examine them with less acidity. This single choice alone creates more room for compassion toward others. It's true what the sages say about loving yourself first. I no longer care to be my own worst enemy.

I'll leave that purpose to someone else.

Life Aging burnishes you. And tenderizes your heart. And things fall away. Often by themselves. So many concerns I once worried about- and obsessed over- are beginning to lose their charm, their once magnetic hold on me. What is important is spinning a new magic, a silvery soft magic that you can almost inhale just before dark, when the sky deepens into that particular November blue and tastes like snow.

I am grateful for so many things this year. For the ongoing privilege of motherhood. For the new family joined to us now in marriage and through heart strings. For old and new friends. For a warm bed shared. For the means to put food on the table (thank you Blogger). For these six years of gypsy living, taking the long way home. For this opportunity to string words together in cyberspace, and share recipes and ramblings with you.

Thank you.

Have a beautiful week. And while we're at it- a spooky-lovely Halloween. A heartwarming Thanksgiving. Small and quiet or big and boisterous. Be well fed, in every way.

On to the Muffins... 

A friend was coming by to visit. So I wanted to create a new pumpkin muffin based on my moist and tender Pumpkin Pie Bread. I thought I'd add walnuts and a streusel topping. And cinnamon. I played around with my recipe and baked a batch of these little golden lovelies.

You could substitute pecans for the walnuts, if you like.

And then go read a page or two of A Short History of Everything. And we can talk about the whole time-space continuum thing.

It'll blow your mind.


READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Crumb Cake

A light, pumpkin coffee cake for your holiday brunch.

Cinnamon Pumpkin Coffee Cake

The Winter Solstice will be here soon. The holiday frenzy of gift buying and light stringing and cookie making is officially upon us. Everywhere I cast my gaze I am pummeled with messages. SHOP! BAKE! SPARKLE!

And that's okay.

Because I understand the hoopla. I know where this urge comes from. The itch to make a ruckus in the dark. To sing, brave and clear, cupping our tiny flames against Midwinter's long night.

The California sun hangs soft and low in the sky, as pale as ice cream. Hours feel clipped. Afternoons are shorter and shorter. Night creeps ever closer. Darkness will soon reign over light.

But only for a moment. One single, solitary, longest night of the year.

No wonder we gather to celebrate. The rebirth of light is no small thing. And a brand new year awaits. Front loaded with promise, and changes hoped for.

I had hoped to finally conquer gluten-free sugar cookies. But after tasting more than one middling batch (I also have to bake without butter, remember) I became more interested in reading a new book than wrestling with sugar cookie dough. Yes, I miss rolling out sugar cookies. And yes, I would be (more than!) thrilled to sign on here today and boast about the best gluten-free sugar cookie ever. But. It's not gonna happen. This week anyway.

I had two sad, cracked (and complaining) teeth yanked this week. (Celiac disease is not kind to teeth and bones. My childhood was riddled with amalgam and the torture inducing whine of belt-driven drills, cementing a lifelong terror of dentists.)

So that gave me the perfect excuse to nap. And read in bed.

I am reading Carolyn G. Heilbrun- The Last Gift of Time. I read a chapter on memory- and the seduction of nostalgia (a favorite subject of mine, you may remember). And I read this...

"Every time those of us in our last decades allow a memory to occur, we forget to look at what is in front of us, at the new ideas and pleasures we might, if firmly in the present, encounter and enjoy."

Carolyn (in her seventies when she wrote this book) urges us to stay present in the here and now as we age, and not drift into the mental trap of nostalgia and memories. I wholeheartedly agree. I love learning something new- every day- turning not to an assumption, a belief or a habit, but toward the thrill of a new skill, and new technologies (iphoneography is a new passion of mine- an art form in its infancy). Keeping myself open, engaged in the here and now means keeping things fresh. Letting go of the old, the stale past, the so-called good old days. Because as good as they were, they are not now. And as bad as some days may have been, today can be different.

Now is new.

And in this spirit, Steve and I baked a pumpkin crumb cake instead of recreating cookies. A new Christmas tradition, perhaps? Why not?

Cake for breakfast.

Sweet.


READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pie Bread

Tender, delicious tea bread that tastes like pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin Bread That Tastes Like Pie

I'm feeling a tad, shall we say, under the weather, lately. Nothing serious. Just an autumnal cold that has knocked the stuffing out of me. I feel like a rag doll. An achy, cranky, ratty old rag doll with matted squirrelly hair and baggy sweatpants.

It ain't pretty is all I'm sayin'.

So forgive my delay in sharing the promised new pumpkin bars recipe. Soon, Babycakes. Soon.

In the meantime, here's an easy gluten-free pumpkin bread recipe- a lovely tea bread you can bake in a bread machine. Or in your oven, if you prefer.

As mentioned earlier the oven here in our temporary studio isn't exactly a cook's dream. So I was inspired by a reader who mentioned baking my banana muffin recipe as a banana bread in her bread machine (how brilliant is that?).

For my first excursion into bread machine tea bread baking, I converted my Big Banana Muffins recipe to a banana bread. And holy tap-dancing zombies- it worked! The trick (for a vegan egg-free bread, at least) is to use two teaspoons of baking powder. For those of you using eggs in your gluten-free baking, you may not need the extra oomph of a little more baking powder- but, please, as always, use your best judgment.

For this scrumptious pumpkin pie flavored pumpkin bread, I used a Breadman bread machine, but I don't see why any bread machine wouldn't work- as long as it has a rapid cycle and can accommodate a 2-lb loaf. Double check your manufacturer's instructions for baking an un-yeasted sweet bread.

Pumpkin pie bread.

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pie Bread Recipe

Originally published October 2009.

I kept tasting pumpkin pie with every bite of this moist and delicious tea bread, hence the name. I baked it in my Breadman bread machine but you could also bake it in a conventional oven. Just be sure it bakes long enough- I'm guessing, about 50 to 55 minutes up to an hour at 350ºF. This is a large loaf.

Ingredients:

Add to the bread machine:

1 cup packed organic light brown sugar

4 tablespoons pure maple syrup

1/4 cup light olive oil

1 tablespoon Ener-G Egg Replacer whisked with 1/4 cup warm water (or two large eggs, beaten)

1 tablespoon bourbon vanilla extract

1 cup pumpkin puree (canned pumpkin is fine)

1/4 teaspoon light tasting apple cider vinegar or lemon juice

1/2 cup GF buckwheat flour

1/4 cup GF millet flour

1/4 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup tapioca starch or potato starch

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon or gluten-free Pumpkin Pie Spice blend

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

As needed for liquid as it mixes:

Pure apricot or peach juice

Instructions:

Using the 2-pound setting with light or medium crust (not the dark setting or it may create a tough crust) program the bread machine for the Super Rapid setting.

As it begins to mix the ingredients, use a soft silicone spatula to scrape down the sides. After a minute or two of mixing check the consistency. If the batter is at all like my batter, it will be a bit thick and stiff. Add a tablespoon at a time of your favorite unsweetened pure apricot or peach juice until the batter becomes slightly thinner than muffin batter but thicker than cake batter. Not too thin, but not too thick. You'll know it when you see it. When you are happy with the consistency, close the lid and let the paddle beat the batter.

When it pauses to let the batter rest and rise, reach in and remove the paddle; smooth the top. Cover and let the rapid cycle do its thing (rest and bake the loaf).

When it beeps done reset the program to Bake. Set a timer and bake for an additional 10 minutes. It's a large loaf.

*(Now, if for some unknown reason your bread looks ready at this point, test it before you add on ten more minutes baking time; I'm at sea level now, so I imagine my baking times are in the normal range, but as we all know, humidity and temperature and ambient weirdness- not to mention, the fickle baking faeries- can affect gluten-free baking times.)

When the top is domed and the loaf is firm to the touch, and a wooden pick inserted into the center emerges clean, this is a good sign it's done. Using a pot holder, remove the bread pan from the machine and cool it on a wire rack for five minutes or so, until it's a tad cooler to handle.

Using a clean tea towel and a pot holder, grasp the pan and carefully tip it upside down to release the pumpkin bread onto the wire rack; set the loaf upright on the rack and continue to cool.

Although you'll be tempted to slice and eat it warm, wait if you can. This moist bread only gets better as it cools. In fact, I did an experiment.

Half the bread- we ate that day. It was tender and moist. The other half we wrapped in foil, bagged and froze. Although the fresh loaf was tasty, I thought the frozen and thawed half tasted even better, and had an improved (less fall-apart) texture.

Makes one generous loaf.

Karina's Gluten-Free Bread Tips:

If you'd rather bake this pumpkin bread in the oven, use a large loaf pan and  bake in a preheated 350ºF oven, for 50 to 55 minutes, until the top is firm but gives slightly to a gentle touch.

If your gluten-free baking is gummy in the middle, try cutting back on the amount of liquid- one tablespoon at a time. Your flours may be damp from humid weather (or from storing them in the refrigerator).

I also find that using too much agave or honey can create gumminess. When I develop a recipe with fruit puree (such as pumpkin or banana) I prefer to use a little less olive oil in the recipe, and no agave or honey. This improves the texture.

At sea level you need less honey or agave than you would need at dry higher altitudes; adjust the liquid-to-dry ratio to see what works best for you.

If your ingredients are cold, allow the batter to rest and come to room temperature.

Check your oven calibration; several readers have reported that their pre-heated ovens had not- in fact- reached baking temperature when they tested their ovens with an oven thermometer.

I'm now using less brown rice and brown rice flour, and eating fewer rice cakes, etc. Here's why- there is elevated arsenic in rice.

Enjoy sugary treats in moderation. Gluten-Free Goddess advises consuming no more than 2 tablespoons of sugar a day. 

Pumpkin Quinoa Cookies - For Breakfast?

Pumpkin cookies with quinoa flakes. Like oatmeal- but better.

Karina's Pumpkin Quinoa Cookies - For breakfast?

Dear Reader (yes, Babycakes, I'm talking to you)- you know how I feel about you, right? I'm crazy about you. I read your kind and thoughtful comments on Facebook. I am humbled by your generous,  warm and giving e-mails (I save them). 

Your feedback and support keeps me going and inspires me.

I started this whole crazy blogging adventure back in a village on Cape Cod famous for quaint. One of those slow paced leafy communities with whitewashed churches and a town grist mill. Salt weathered shingles and white picket fences and roses in June. You know, historic. Beachy. The magical stuff of regional painters and windswept poets prone to melancholy.

Then an empty nest ignited the urge for going and my husband and I moved west to the rural high desert of New Mexico where the cobalt beauty of an oceanic sky met the hot iron of isolation and a certain individual's proclivity toward brittle bones. My broken hip changed my body forever.

Four years later (relocated to Los Angeles) I am profoundly grateful to live by the ocean again. I am wrestling with new ideas and facing certain limitations (still waiting for Margaret Mead's promise of zest). Days are often a stew of conflicting realities, losses and gains stirred so close together they emulsify.

There are days I feel thirty and days I feel eighty. Sometimes in the same single moment. 

Forgive my habitual drift into philosophical territory here, but here's the thing. A growing, deepening awareness of how little we actually control has sparked my need to surrender. And shake loose some assumptions. Including the perception of Other (risking a messy and complicated expansion of the heart, the awareness of Yeah, I am that too). Which startles you with a sharp clean view of what is valuable and true. 

What is bare bones rock bottom important.

Important not in some airy-fairy New Agey or even dyed-in-the-wool religious way. I chafe inside any system and its man-made rules (key word: man-made). I'm old enough now to look back upon decades with an estrogen-free seasoned eye. I see the need behind belief. I see the old paradigm. I see why people judge and separate, critique and belittle. I see the reason why unruly concepts are snipped down to size and labeled and tucked safely into rehearsed little packages of fear whisked with a pinch of faith. The Ego rules. And the Ego loves conflict.

I also see the powerful few doling out platitudes to the millions who struggle with so much less. And we are not blameless, either, we who are so willing to consume what masquerades as inclusion when it is anything but.

So here's the thing.

Before I share my recipe today, before I conjure words about cookies and yummy flavors and how much vanilla to beat into the dough, allow me some food for thought, if you will.

We are all given moments of grace.

Far too many of these moments are missed, floating by the fuzzy edges of momentum, a stream of invisible assumptions. And needs. Life guarantees change, but really, what else? Opportunity (what are you going to do with what you've got?). Choice. Self explanatory, right? We cut a swath of choices every single day. Trivial choices (would you like whipped cream on that?). And loaded choices (some requiring nothing less than moral courage to execute). Each and every choice spins us off in a direction, a trajectory with consequences.

And what I am coming to realize, even cherish, now more than ever, is this. The choices boil down to a choice between love (connection) or fear (separation). So what will you choose today?

Think about it.

As for me?

I vote for love.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Scones

Gluten-free pumpkin scones with maple nutmeg icing.

I know what you're craving. Because I'm craving it, too. Something indulgent. But not overly indulgent. Sweet. But not too sweet. Something warm and tender, and laced with all of the holiday spices you've been shaking and dashing and pinching with abandon. Something using up that leftover half cup of pumpkin sitting in the fridge.

Are you with me?  Are ya feelin' me? 

Then let's get sconed.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Waffles

Gluten-free pumpkin waffles with maple syrup.

Pumpkin waffles for breakfast. Yes, please.

Karina's Gluten-Free Pumpkin Waffles

Recipe originally published October 2008.

For the pumpkin season- a waffle. I'm experimenting with grains higher in protein than your average gluten-free flour mix, but if you'd rather use your favorite gluten-free blend or wheat-free waffle and pancake slash baking mix, please feel free. You'll need 2 to 2 and 2/3 cups flour or baking and pancake mix.

First-

Whisk together your dry ingredients in a mixing bowl:

1 cup sorghum flour or certified gluten-free oat flour
1 cup organic buckwheat flour
1/3 cup millet flour
1/3 cup tapioca starch (this adds a bit of crispness to the waffle)
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt, to taste
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Add in your wet ingredients:

3/4 cup pumpkin puree
4 tablespoons light olive oil
4 to 6 tablespoons raw agave nectar
2 teaspoons bourbon vanilla extract
2 organic free-range eggs or Ener-G Egg Replacer
1 1/2 to 2 cups hemp, almond, rice or dairy milk, as needed- start with less

Instructions:

Beat the wet into the dry ingredients to combine. Add enough liquid to make a batter that is a tad thicker than pancake batter.

Heat and prepare your waffle iron according to manufacturer's instructions. Note: even though my waffle iron is non-stick I oiled it lightly before using.

Serve with real maple syrup or agave nectar.

Try these waffles with my Maple Apple Breakfast Sausages for a real treat.

Makes 8 to 10 large waffles.

Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

All images & content are copyright protected, all rights reserved. Please do not use our images or content without prior permission. Thank you. 

Karina's Notes:

When I poured my first two waffles I had not yet added the tapioca starch; I was trying to create a whole grain waffle and was snubbing starches in my formula. The result was, Meh. They were soft and fell apart. When I added the tapioca starch the waffles turned out perfectly.

I made mine vegan and egg-free, so the addition of tapioca may have helped replace the eggs, even with my Ener-G Egg Replacer. I'm noting this to myself- with egg-free baking, tapioca seems to be a starch that helps keep the vegan baked good intact, and adds texture.

Those of you who use eggs- if you try this recipe with eggs and choose not to include the tapioca starch, please leave a note in Comments and share with fellow readers: what worked, didn't work.

Gluten-free waffles are finicky and affected by humidity and flour choices. Adjust batter as you go- adding more liquid if it thickens too much; more flour if it becomes too runny.

Check out my recipe for Savory Waffles (for sandwiches, panini and bread crumbs).

For substitutions, please see my guide to baking with substitutions here.