Chocolate Cake or Cupcake Recipe~Gluten Free and Delicious!

Okay...though these are gluten free you do not need to to get the "healthy" taste in your mouth, because these are truly delicious!  And you'd never guess that they were made with....garbanzo beans!  Yep, you read correctly.  These mouthwatering cupcakes are made with canned garbanzo beans and without any flour.   But don't be turned off...we have received many requests for this recipe because folks we've served it to have all loved it and wanted the recipe after trying them!

Garbanzo Bean Cake or Cupcakes 

~ makes approx. 2 1/2 dozen cupcakes, 9x13" cake or 1 double layer 9"cake

3 cups chocolate chips

5 cups canned garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained

8 eggs

1 ½ cups white sugar of evaporated cane sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

5 Tbsp. butter

2 tsp. vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).  Grease muffin tins, 9x13” cake pan, or 2-9” round cake pans. 

2. Melt chocolate chips and butter together in small sauce pan over low heat.

3. Combine the beans and eggs in the bowl of a food processor or strong blender.  Process or blend until smooth.  Add the sugar and the baking powder and pulse to blend.  Pour in the melted chocolate and butter, add vanilla and blend until smooth, scraping down the sides to make sure the chocolate is completely mixed. Transfer the batter to the prepared cake pan or cupcake tins. Fill muffin cups almost full.  

4. Bake for 20-25 minutes for cupcakes and about 35-40 minutes for cake.  Do not over-bake!  Toothpick inserted in the center will come out almost clean when done.  

5.  Remove cupcakes from pans soon after you pull them out of the oven.  If you wait too long, the bottoms will stick pretty badly to the pan.  Allow cupcakes or cake to cool and then frost with chocolate frosting (recipe below) or invert cake onto a serving plate while still pretty warm and dust with confectioner’s sugar just before serving. 

Enjoy!!!

Grandma Alexander's Famous Chocolate Frosting Recipe  

~ perfectly frosts 1 batch of the above cupcakes or 9x13" cake

1 stick butter, softened

6 Tbsp. milk 

2 tsp. vanilla

2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup cocoa

Mix powdered sugar and coca together.  Add milk and vanilla and beat until well mixed.  Then add butter and beat until smooth.  Add powdered sugar as needed to achieve desired consistency.  If you get it too thick, add a little milk. 

Friday Night Family Tradition :-)

Every family has their own special little things, and one of our family traditions is that on Friday nights we have pizza and watch a movie.  We have enjoyed homemade pizza for years, but recently came across a gluten free pizza crust recipe which we have come to enjoy even better than our traditional crust.  So here’s a recipe for all of you, in honor of our Friday night tradition. :-)

Gluten Free Pizza Crust

Ingredients:

¾ cup white bean flour

¼ tsp. Italian seasoning

¼ tsp. salt

¼ cup Parmesan cheese

1 cup cold water

1 Tbsp. olive oil

Instructions:

Mix first four ingredients together.  Then stir in water and oil.  Dough will be thin, like pancake batter.  Place in refrigerator for 30 minutes to thicken.

After 30 minutes, place a baking stone in your oven and preheat to 400 degrees.  Once oven is preheated, pull stone out and pour pizza dough onto hot stone.  Spread out almost to edge.  Bake for about 15 minutes until completely cooked through.  Once crust is done, add your sauce and favorite toppings and bake as normal.

I hope that some of you will be brave and try this wonderful recipe.  And I promise, it doesn’t taste like beans! :-)  Even our grandma and Tayte like it!

May the Lord continue to draw each of you closer to Himself, and we hope that you will enjoy a wonderful weekend!

The Blessing of Pears

Recently Grandpa and Grandma blessed us with some pears from their pear tree.  So, being inspired from An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving by Louisa May Alcott, that we read on Thanksgiving day, we made pear slump.  It was delicious.  It is always fun when they share a recipe in the back of a book.  Breanna altered the recipe a bit to make it a little less sweet and we used pears instead of apples because that is what we had.  Yum Yum!  Thanks for sharing the pears Grandpa and Grandma.  Here is the recipe to share with all of you.

Pear Slump
What you need:
6 cups sliced pears
1/2 cup sucanot or brown sugar
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour or white
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup evaporated cane or sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup melted butter


What to do:
1.  Pare, core and slice the pears.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9 X 13 baking dish with butter or cooking spray. 
3. In a small bowl, mix the sucanot, nutmeg, cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon salt.  Sprinkle mixture over the pears and stir to mix.
4.  Bake pears uncovered until thy are soft, about 20 minutes.
5.  While the pears are baking, sift together into a bowl the flour, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and sugar.   Mix into this the beaten egg, milk, and melted butter.  Stir gently.
6.  Spread this mixture over the pears and continue baking until the top is brown and crusty ( about 25 minutes).
7.  Serve with milk or whipped cream. 

This recipe could be used with any fruit.  Enjoy and thanks again Grandpa and Grandma for sharing your pears with us!

Recipe to Share

Seven Layer Tortilla Pie Recipe from allrecipe.com Rated: Submitted By: KDCG Altered by the Alexander's Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 40 Minutes Ready In: 55 Minutes Servings: 6 This was delicious!!!  We made two and put on in the freezer for later this month.  Ingredients: 1 1/2 cup salsa, divided 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 1/2 teaspoons dried cilantro 1 quart black beans 1 lb. ground hamburger 7 (8 inch) whole wheat flour tortillas 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese 1 cup salsa 1/2 cup sour cream Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). 2. In a large bowl, mash 2 cups of beans. Stir in 1 cup salsa and garlic. 3. In a separate bowl, mix together 1/2 cup salsa, cilantro,  remaining beans (not mashed). 4. Place 1 tortilla in a pie plate or tart dish. Spread 3/4 cup mashed bean mixture over tortilla to within 1/2 inch of edge. Top with 1/4 cup cheese, and cover with another tortilla. Spread with 2/3 cup unmashed bean mixture, and top with 1/4 cup cheese. Repeat layering twice. Cover with remaining tortilla, and spread with remaining mashed bean mixture and cheese. 5. Cover with foil, and bake in preheated oven for about 40 minutes. Cut into wedges, and serve with salsa and sour cream.

Enjoy!

Recipe of the Month

Hello to all of you readers!  Hope that you all are doing well and being drawn closer to the Lord with each step of life.  We have here a very tardy recipe of the month.  Although late, we hope that you will find it as worth while a recipe to add to your collection as we have.  This month's recipe is:

Best Peanut Butter Cookies Ever

These cookies are made without any flour, making them gluten free.  (Also a nice quick dessert when you don't have any flour ground and don't want to get the grinder out :-)

So here is our new favorite peanut butter cookie recipe.

 The ingredients you will need are as follows:

2 cups peanut butter               

2 cups sugar                            

2 eggs
2 tsp. baking soda
1 pinch salt                                
1 tsp. vanilla extract
chocolate chips, optional

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a medium size bowl, stir all ingredients together just until mixed. If you want to add some chocolate chips in to make peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, now is when you can add them in.  It's very important not to over-mix.  Next, scoop with cookie scoop (or approx. 1 inch balls) and place 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheets.  Press a criss-cross into the top of each cookie using the back of a fork.  You'll want to dip your fork in a little sugar while pressing the cookies to keep it from sticking. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes.  Allow cookies to cool slightly before transfering to cooling rack or newspaper. And wallah!  You now have fantastic peanut butter cookies to serve to what is, or soon will be, a very happy family. :-)

We use evaporated cane.  Krema natural peanut butter is our favorite brand to use, but others work as well.  I don't know if this applies to all peanut butter or not, but some of the reviews online indicated that good natural peanut butter works best.  We have tried a couple different kinds of natural peanut butter, and some brands have worked better than others for us.

We hope that you will try this recipe and enjoy it as much as our family has been.

Recipe compliments of allrecipes.com.