Babycakes Covers the Classics: Gluten-Free Vegan Recipes From Donuts to Snickerdoodles (13 page)

Put on sanitary rubber gloves and add a dime-sized dollop of coconut oil in the
palm of one hand. Rub your hands together until your palms are lightly coated and
shape the popcorn mixture into 3-inch balls.

Makes 20

Square-Pan Tomato Pizza

Have you noticed all the gluten-free pizza parlors popping up in major cities lately? I have, and pizza makes me incredibly excited! The end result of my version is simple and traditional—tomatoes, garlic, and a little basil atop a thin crust—even if the crust’s instructions do take some careful minding. Above all else, be absolutely sure to get the finest tomatoes you can find. If you must (and often I must), throw some cheese on top and start piling on as many vegetables as you like—just make sure to roll your dough a little thicker to bear any extra weight. For you traditionalists out there, I have included a time-tested
tomato sauce
as well.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment
paper and set aside.

To make the crust, in a medium bowl whisk together the flours, baking powder,
salt, and xanthan gum. Add the coconut oil, agave nectar, garlic, and cold water and
mix with a rubber spatula until a thick dough forms. Cover the dough with plastic
wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

To make the topping, in a medium bowl stir together 1 tablespoon of the coconut
oil, the tomatoes, garlic, salt, and chili flakes and stir to combine. Set
aside.

Dust a clean work surface with the cornmeal. Place the dough onto it and
sprinkle the top with some of the cornmeal. Roll the dough out into a
¼-inch-thick rectangle. Transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet and
trim any excess dough from around the edges. Brush the dough with the remaining 3
tablespoons coconut oil. Bake until golden, about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven
and arrange the tomato mixture on top. Sprinkle with the basil. Bake until the
vegetables are soft, about 15 minutes more. Cut into nine squares.

Makes 9 squares

Cheese Straws

This one earned a higher place on the BabyCakes Piece of Cake scale simply because it requires pastry assemblage, which always complicates matters. It might take a little while for you sophomores to get your rhythm down, and your first few straws will probably look more like craggy witch fingers, but it’s all going to pay off if you stick with it. Once it does, you should host a dinner party and set these out early by the pintful.

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment
paper and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the ¾ cup rice flour, the all-purpose
flour, the cornmeal, arrowroot, baking powder, xanthan gum, and salt. Add the
coconut oil, 1¼ cups of the cheese, and the agave nectar and stir (the
mixture will be very dry). Slowly add up to ¾ cup water until the dough is
sticky. Divide the dough in half.

Dust a clean work surface with ¼ cup of the remaining rice flour and
place half the dough on top. Sprinkle the top of the dough generously with more rice
flour and roll it out into a ¼-inch-thick rectangle. Sprinkle 1 cup of the
cheese on half the rectangle. Flip the bare dough on top of it so that the cheese is
sandwiched between two layers of dough. Cut the dough into 4-inch-long ×
1-inch-wide strips and pinch the open sides closed. Transfer to one of the prepared
baking sheets. Repeat with the remaining dough. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top
of the strips.

Bake for 10 minutes, rotate, and continue baking until the
cheese straws
are golden brown, about 8 minutes more.

Makes 24

Me and my father, Frank

IN ORDER TO GET ME TO SHUT UP OR TO CALM DOWN WHEN
I was a child, affectionate adults often plied me with sweets. Like most old folks, my parents and grandparents often had no idea how to properly ply a child with sweets, usually opting for desserts pulled straight from the Cookbook of Oddities—Irish soda bread, egg creams, bread pudding … things like that. As incentives, these items were about as effective as a pat on the head.

But then after the New York City branch of BabyCakes NYC opened, I noticed that an inordinate number of elderly customers had become the staff’s most universally adored regulars. Requests for Irish soda bread started coming in, as did cries and prayers for hamentaschen and rugalach. A bunch of people even asked about bread pudding. Bread pudding! I have a policy of never ruling anything entirely out of the question, so I began investigating.

Over the course of writing this book, I simply isolated my favorite parts of these sorts of recipes—in Irish soda bread it was the caraway seeds and the dense crumb, in bread pudding it was moist bread pockets surrounded by sweet and spiced fruit, and so on. I had soon acquired a real fondness for all these desserts, and I can happily report that they have been thoroughly vetted and approved by the highly selective McKenna brood. At the very least, you and Grandma can now take an encore whirl in the kitchen together!

HAMENTASCHEN

RUGALACH

IRISH SODA BREAD

CHOCOLATE EGG CREAM

BREAD PUDDING

MOUNDS

Hamentaschen

I admit that the first time a customer requested hamentaschen I had to go to the local kosher bakery to see what the person was talking about. But then I recognized them immediately and I quickly fell in love with every variety of light pastry stuffed with jam. Use any preserve or jam in the center that you like, but I’ve included a recipe for my favorite blackberry filling. You can sub in a different berry without trouble, with the exception of raspberries, which tend to be very watery and don’t, for the most part, thicken up all that well.