Fantastic French Apple Pie ~ Gluten, dairy, rice flour and refined sugar-free

It is close to fall and apple season is upon us. What better use for all those apples than to make a pie with them?

Here is our family's fav apple pie recipe. It is gluten free, with a crust so amazing you won't believe its gluten free! Also refined sugar, dairy, processed oil, rice and starch free. This pie is sure to become a favorite of yours!

Ingredients

Filling:

6 cups of thinly sliced and peeled apples ~ I used 4 organic gala apples

1 teaspoon organic cinnamon

1/8 cup Sorghum Flour

1/8 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour

1 Tablespoon organic maple syrup

1 Tablespoon Organic Coconut Sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Crust:

Get the recipe for my Best Gluten Free Pie Crust

Crumble Topping

1/2 cup Sorghum Flour

1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour

1/2 teaspoon ground organic cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 cup Organic Coconut Sugar

1/2 cup Organic Virgin Coconut Oil

Wash, peel and slice the apples. I use a mandoline slicer and it works so quick and all the apples are sliced uniformly. Put them in a bowl as you are slicing them. Once you have one sliced up, sprinkle on all the remaining filling ingredients. Then stir the remaining slices in as you are slicing them. The seasonings and flour will keep the apples from turning brown. 

Make the pie crust.

Pour the apples into the formed pie crust and spread them out evenly. 

In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients for the crumble topping. Use a fork and mash all the ingredients together. It is okay if there are still some small chunks of coconut oil. It will form a sort of thick paste that you can pick up with your fingers. Spread it with your fingers in a sort of crumbly way over the top of the apples.

Place pie into a preheated oven at 425F. Cover the edges of the pie with aluminum foil (or a pie crust cover form) to prevent burning the edges. Bake for 30 minutes and then remove foil or cover. Bake another 10-20 minutes or until crust is starting to brown and apples are soft. 

Remove from oven and let cool for 2 hours on a wire cooling rack. 

This pie is simply amazing! It is lightly sweet with a light and flaky crust! 

Best Gluten Free Pie Crust ~ Rice, Dairy and Starch Free!!

I have been working with my pie crusts for years, trying to make a delicious, light, flaky pie crust that is gluten free, rice free, starch free, and uses organic palm shortening. I am happy to report that I have totally crushed it! 

This pie crust is so amazing that it is hard to believe that it is gluten-free. Yep, that's right. It doesn't taste gluten free!!

One of the big secrets is making the shortening cold. I keep mine in the refrigerator. All of the liquid ingredients need to be cold as well. 

Here is the recipe. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do! 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Gluten Free Sweet White Sorghum Flour

1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour

1 organic egg yolk

1 tablespoon Organic Raw Apple Cider Vinegar

1/3 cup plus 1 Tablespoon Spectrum Organic Shortening

1 Tablespoon Organic Maple Syrup

1-2 Tablespoon ice cold water

In a medium size bowl combine both flours. Sprinkle in the Apple Cider Vinegar. Add egg yolk. Cut in shortening (make sure it is cold and solid). When it is pea sized, sprinkle in maple syrup and water as needed. 

Gather dough into a ball and place on a piece of parchment paper . Using the parchment paper, fold the dough over on itself several times (this creates layers of the dough which adds in air and translates to flakiness once it is cooked). Next, roll the dough into a smooth ball (smooth edges on the dough make for smooth edges on the crust). 

Place dough between two pieces of BPA-free cling wrap/saran wrap. Using a rolling pin, roll out evenly from the center of the dough to all edges. When it has reached a large enough circle, remove the top piece of cling wrap. Quickly, and carefully, invert the remaining piece of wrap with the dough on it over the pie plate. Gently remove the wrap from the crust and then form it to fit the pie plate with your fingers. 

To make a fancy edged crust, use your finger and scallop the edges around the top by pinching the dough around your finger as you move it around the edge of the pie. Or you can crimp the edges with a fork. 

This make one, 9 inch pie crust. 

This is the pie crust made with my Fantastic French Apple Pie. As you can see, it holds its shape and cooks great. 

This is a must have recipe to keep in your recipe book! This pie crust can go with any pie you are cooking that calls for a basic pie crust. And when you serve it to your friends and family they will not believe that it is gluten-free!  

Organic, Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Cherry Meringue Pie

My hubby wanted a cherry meringue pie for his birthday this year. Apparently he thinks highly of my cooking skills to request such a pie given our diet restrictions. Or he has no idea what ingredients you use to make one. At any rate, I started looking for a recipe. The only ones I could find called for "cherry pie filling", gross! So I decided just to "wing it" and see how it turned out.

I started with a gluten-free pie crust:

1 cup organic brown rice flour

1/3 cup Grapeseed Oil (Spectrum Organic Shortening works great too)

2 T cold water

1 tsp xanthan gum

Pinch of salt

Mix it all together in a small bowl, then press it into the 9" pie plate. 

Bake at 475 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until just turning light brown. 

Next:

Put 4 cups pitted cherries (I used Organic Dark Tart cherries that were frozen that I found at Costco)

2/3 cup of organic sugar

1/4 cup water

into a pan on the stove top on medium heat. 

Let it simmer for about 30 minutes, to fully break down the cherries and let the mixture reduce down. 

Add

2 teaspoons organic cornstarch

and stir for about 4 minutes while it is boiling. 

While the cherries are simmering, 

Stir together in a small pan

1/2 cup organic sugar 

4 teaspoons organic cornstarch

1/2 cup cold water

Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly until it begins to boil. Boil for one minute (keep stirring) and then remove from heat. Put it straight into the freezer for 10 minutes so that it cools completely. 

The cherries should still be simmering so next use a large bowl and put in

4 organic egg whites

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1/8 tsp sea salt

Blend with hand mixer until soft peaks form. Then grab your cooled sugar cornstarch mixture from the freezer. Slowly add it into to the egg white mixture and keep mixing away with the beaters on high. 

Once you have stiff peaks (see picture above) you have officially made meringue! 

By now the cherries should have been done simmering and you can add the cornstarch (mentioned above) and finish it up. Spoon the hot cherries directly into the precooked pie crust. 

Then gently add the meringue on top, use the back of a large metal spoon to spread it around. Make sure the meringue is touching the pie crust on every side otherwise it will shrink up when you cook it. 

To get the little peaks on top, use the back of the metal spoon and gently touch it to the meringue and pull straight up. My gramma taught me this, plus then you don't have to spend a lot of time trying to smooth out the meringue and making it look "perfect"

Bake for 10-15 minutes at 350 degrees F or until it is turning a beautiful golden brown. 

Remove carefully from the oven and let it cool for 2 hours in a non drafty place. Having air blowing on it or bouncing it around will cause the meringue to loose air inside and get deflated. 

Final step:

Find some friends (who are up for an experiment) and enjoy the pie together!

Ingredients:

Crust:

1 cup organic brown rice flour

1/3 cup Grapeseed Oil (Spectrum brand organic shortening works great too)

2 T cold water

1 tsp xanthan gum

Pinch of salt

Cherry Filling:

Put 4 cups pitted cherries (I used Organic Dark Tart cherries that were frozen that I found at Costco)

2/3 cup of organic sugar

1/4 cup water

Meringue:

1/2 cup organic sugar 

4 teaspoons organic cornstarch

1/2 cup cold water

4 organic egg whites

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1/8 tsp sea salt

Thanksgiving in Tacoma

Matt really wanted to stay in Tacoma this year for Thanksgiving so we had our own little Thanksgiving with just the four of us.

Wednesday night Gabriella and I made cornbread and pumpkin pie. She was my helper for everything I did for cooking this year and I LOVED it!

Stirring the cornbread batter. 

Watching the cornbread bake. 

All finished baking. Then we cut it into 6 large pieces and put it in the freezer. 

After teaching her how to "cut in" shortening (don't worry, I use organic palm oil shortening), I let her help press the crust into the pan. She thought that was the best thing ever, and actually did a really good job with it.  

Pumpkin pie all done. I'm not really sure why it turned out looking this way (Matt called it a giraffe pie), other than the fact that I let Gabriella add and stir all the ingredients so maybe the cinnamon didn't get mixed in right. At any rate, it sure tasted good. 

Saturday morning we puttered around the house and had some giggles. Then at noon we put in the turkey. 

Here it is all rubbed and ready to go in the oven. I rinsed it and then patted it dry. Next I rubbed on a homemade rub that I made with garlic, dried carrot, sage, rosemary, basil, thyme, salt and organic sugar. I rubbed it all over the outside, inside the body cavity and in between the skin and the meat on the breast. I covered it in aluminum foil after placing an orange sliced in half inside of it and 1/2 cup of water in the bottom of the pan. 

While the turkey was baking Gabriella got to stay up from nap and help with the rest of the side dishes. Cutting up the cornbread (for the stuffing)

Cutting squash

Helping peel the sweet potatoes

*While I was having to put down what I was chopping to help Gabriella, for the tenth time, it made me smile. Sure having your toddler "help" you do things generally makes for a lot of extra work for you, but I would have been so bored and lonely being in the kitchen by myself all day. I absolutely adore having my kids "help" me do things, even if it means that it takes longer, makes a bigger mess and doesn't turn out as well as if I had done it by myself. Because without them "helping"  me, there would have been less giggles, fewer memories and a perfect meal. I would go for a Giraffe Pie made with my 3 year old than a bakery quality pie on my own any day! 

Ahhhhh, organic turkey, perfectly cooked and out of the oven!

Helping carve the turkey

Snuggles with daddy while I finished up carving the turkey and making gravy. 

Here we go, dinner is ready to eat!

We took a quick trip to Walmart (hey, we were bored and the kids wanted to go, don't judge!) to score some Black Thursday deals and then headed home for Gabriella's giraffe pumpkin pie. It was delicious served with whipped coconut milk on the top!

Here is the Gluten Free Stuffing Recipe. It is amazing!! I found it on the internet last year (I can't remember what site) and tweaked it to fit our tastes. Hope you enjoy!! My pumpkin pie recipe (gluten and dairy free) can be found here . 

1 pan of cornbread (or a dozen cornbread muffins)

4-5 T extra virgin olive oil

1 cup diced celery

1 cup diced sweet or purple onion

2 large crisp apples, peeled, cored and diced

1 tsp dried or freshly diced thyme

1-2 tsp mild curry powder

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup fresh (or dried) chopped cranberries

1 cup diced pistachios

1 cup vegetable broth (I always use chicken)

2 T honey

Sea salt and ground pepper to taste

Bake cornbread, cut into 5 or 6 squares and freeze. I alwasy do this step the day/night before. 

Before making stuffing allow cornbread to partially thaw and then cut into cubes before completely thawed (so it doesn't crumble as much)

Toast cornbread cubes on a baking sheet for 20 minutes or so at 325F. Remove and let cool. Heat 2 T olive oil in a large deep skillet, stir in thyme, curry and cinnamon, add celery, onion and apples. Cook until softened. Remove from burner and let cool a bit before adding cranberries. 

Stir in toasted cornbread cubes and mix well, add the remaining olive oil and the broth. Stir gently to combine. Add more or less broth depending on if you prefer a soft or firmer stuffing. Spoon into a baking dish, cover and heat for 20-25 minutes, until heated throughout.  

Red Warty Thing Pumpkin Pie

Here is my recipe for A Red-Warty-Thing pumpkin pie that is dairy free and gluten free!

Crust:

Mix:
1 cup Rice Flour (I prefer brown but white will work just fine)
1/2 tsp Sea Salt
1 tsp xanthan gum

Cut in:
1/3 cup plus 1 T of Spectrum Naturals Organic All Vegetable Shortening

Add 3-5 T of cold water as needed and stir with a fork until it is fully mixed. Gather dough into a ball in the bottom of the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator.

Filling
In a large bowl combine:
2 large organic eggs
1/2 cup organic cane sugar
1/2 tsp Sea Salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg
2 cups Red-Warty Thing Pumpkin puree (see post here for how to make your own)
1 1/2 cups Organic Rice Milk (have also made successfully with goat and almond milk)

Whisk together until fully blended. Set aside. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.

Remove dough from the refrigerator. Press by hand into a 9 inch glass pie plate. Quickly re-whisk the pumpkin mixture and then pour into the crust. (I find it is easiest to place the pie plate on a rimmed baking sheet, and put it into the oven, then pour the mixture into the crust. That way I don't make a huge mess spilling the pumpkin liquid when I transition the pie to the oven).

Bake for 15 minutes and then turn the oven temperature down to 350 degrees F. Bake for another 40-50 minutes or until you can insert a knife in the center and it comes out clean.

Remove the pie from the oven and allow it to cool before eating. It tastes best warm but there is a fine line between letting it cool enough to get it out of the pie plate in a pretty slice or just eating it hot from the oven (careful, it is burning hot!).

Enjoy!