Gluten-Free Adventures: Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bars

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bars (gluten-free), a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Okay, so I have been hard at work experimenting with treats and snacks in the gluten-free vein. When I saw this recipe for GF peanut butter chocolate chip bars, I thought: perfect! And also: so easy. I love bar recipes, because they're so much less labor-intensive than ones requiring you to make crusts, or roll out balls, or scoop into muffin tins. You just pour it into a pan and forget it until the timer dings. And it's usually at least a half hour or so, so you can kick back and relax too. This recipe, from Serious Eats, is no exception. I liked that the main flour is brown rice flour, which I've grown to realize I like the flavor of. And the peanut butter should mask any other taste issues as well.

Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bars (Serious Eats)

Ingredients
3 3/4 ounces (3/4 cup) brown rice flour
2 ounces (1/3 cup) potato starch
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 ounces (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
4 ounces (1/2 cup) smooth peanut butter (I used chunky)
3.5 ounces (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
4 ounces (1/2 cup) dark brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup chocolate chips
[I added chia seeds and flax meal too]

Preheat oven to 350°F;. Grease 8x8x2-inch pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In small bowl, whisk together brown rice flour, potato starch, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In large bowl, cream together butter, peanut butter, and sugars until light and fluffy, about one minute. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat well between each addition. Stop mixer and scrape down bottom and sides of bowl. Turn mixer back on and continue to beat until mixture is light, fluffy, and almost white. Turn off mixer. Add dry ingredients, turn mixer to low and blend to combine. Add chocolate chips. Mix until just combined.

Spread batter evenly into prepared pan. Bake until bars are puffy, golden brown, and a cake tester interested into the center of the bars comes out with a few moist crumbs, about 35 minutes. Place pan on wire rack to cool. When cooled, cut into 12 bars.

I have to say, these bars turned out perfectly. They look and taste exactly like gluten-filled peanut butter bars. Mine came out a tad bit dry, but that was my fault; I let them cook longer than the recommended 35 minutes because I thought they looked anemic (and I like my baked goods to look nicely golden brown). I won't do that next time. They were deeeeeeeelicious. A definite kid-pleaser!

Gluten-Free Adventures: Lemon Bars!

Lemon Bars (gluten-free), a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Since we were gifted with a couple of bags of Meyer lemons recently, I thought it would be a good excuse to try out some gluten-free lemon recipes. I used some of them for the lemon blueberry bread I posted about here, and this time I decided to try lemon bars. I'm not a big fan of lemon bars; neither am I expert at crust-making, but that said: these lemon bars were pretty darn good! I found a recipe at Serious Eats that seemed easy enough, and I followed it very closely. It requires a bit of muscle (and talent) to make the crust well, but if I'm not mistaken, it's really the buttery crust that MAKES the lemon bar. I mean, the rest of it is just lemon, sugar and eggs, right?

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Gluten-Free Lemon Bars (Serious Eats)

Ingredients

yield: makes 12 bars, active time 30 minutes, total time 3 hours
For the Crust
2 ounces (1/2 cup) white rice flour
1.25 ounces (1/4 cup) sweet rice flour
1.25 ounces (1/4 cup) cornstarch
1.25 ounces (1/3 cup) confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
4 ounces (1 stick) butter, cold and cut into small pieces
For the Filling
5.25 ounces (3/4 cup) granulated sugar
Zest of one lemon, about 1 tablespoon
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons white rice flour
Non-stick cooking spray
Confectioners' sugar for dusting, optional

Prepare the crust: Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray eight-inch pan with non-stick cooking spray. Line pan with two pieces of parchment paper. (Paper should crisscross in the pan and overhang the edges by about two inches.)
In bowl of food processor, combine white rice flour, sweet rice flour, cornstarch, and xanthan gum. Pulse to combine. Add butter. Pulse until no large pieces of butter remain. Add water. Pulse until water is absorbed and dough forms, about 45 seconds of long pulses. (At first dough will be sandy. Keep pulsing until it comes together.)
Turn dough out onto counter. Press into a ball.
Press dough evenly into prepared pan. (To make this easy, I divide my dough in four pieces and place one piece in each corner of the pan. I then press the dough down and toward the center of the pan until the pan is evenly covered by the dough.) Chill for 15 minutes.
Bake crust until golden brown, about 40 minutes.
While crust is baking, rub sugar and lemon zest together in medium bowl.
When crust is golden brown, remove pan from oven. Set aside on a wire rack. Add eggs, lemon juice, and white rice flour to granulated sugar. Whisk until smooth. Pour over crust. Return pan to oven. Bake until filling is set and does not jiggle, about 12 minutes.
Remove pan from oven and place on wire rack to cool. Chill bars for two hours, or overnight, in the refrigerator. Lift bars, using parchment paper as an aid, out of pan. Dust with confectioner’s sugar, if desired. Cut into squares.

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Oh, and is this really a gluten-free recipe? Who can tell? I could've eaten the whole crust by itself, lemon or not. But of course, the lemony part was just sweet and eggy enough. My crust was a bit uneven and lumpy in sections, and the lemon part not uniformly thick, but I'll tell you the kids didn't care. And the lemon zest sugar? I couldn't stop inhaling that. This one was a hit. Definitely one to repeat!