I did it. I purposefully made a dessert gluten-free.
I have no personal reason to do this.
I’ve done it not-terribly-successfully for me mum.
And now I’ve done it successfully for my castmates(of the ever-fabulous hard-core A Midsummer Night’s Dream tickets here! Ok I’m done). Being diet-aware as we Los Angelenos, especially those of us in the entertainment industry are, quite a few of my castmates had discovered a lack of digestive patience with good ol’ gluten. Fortunately none of them did it in the misled belief that gluten-free food is automatically healthy. They all actually had health problems caused by wheat.
But if any of them had started talking Paleo I’d have had to bite my tongue. That would hurt.
Despite the gluten-free challenge, the mom in me still wanted to feed the cast of Midsummer. Acting makes us hungry.
Plus, there was a bit of competition. First day of rehearsal and one of our actresses announced she baked. So of course I piped up. And then she dropped that g-free bomb and a good chunk of the cast bonded about being gluten-free so I realized if there was to be a bake-off I’d have to step up.
I was loathe to go buy a bunch of flours I generally have no use for but one of the g-f’s said she’d being me some brown rice flour.
I did done real good. The cast loooved these bars, original recipe courtesy of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.
All that remained from rehearsal was this sad tiny brownie which I shall now gobble.
So here ya go. My would-be cookbook bf’s recipe, adapted for the g-f’s.
Gluten-free Chocolate Bars adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
8 Tbsp. melted butter
1/4 c. Applesauce
6 Tbsp. cocoa powder
3/4 c. Sugar(I subbed in Splenda for a 1/4 cup of it)
1 egg
Pinch salt
3/4 c. Brown rice flour
1/8 tsp. xanthum gum
1 c. Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips
Spray a 9×9 square baking pan. Preheat oven to 350.
Use beaters to blend up the cocoa, applesauce, and butter then beat in sugar until smooth. Then ye ol’ egg. Which hopefully actually isn’t old. Blend in salt. Switch to a spoon and add remaining ingredients. Bake around 20-30 minutes. Better underbaked than over. Feed starving thespians.
Scrumptious Gruel 
HOLY mother these look AWESOME! Did I tell you I’m gluten free right now or are you reading my mind? 😉
P.S. Where do you get Xantham Gum?
I didn’t know you were gluten-free but stay tuned because I am cooking a few more gf items for the cast and they will make their way to the gruel:) I found my xanthum gum I the baking aisle at my local Ralph’s believe it or not, but Whole Foods carries it too.
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Gee there’s so much talk about gluten-free foods. Makes me kind of wonder if I have some sort of intolerances to it myself :S Why did humans start to eat wheat to begin with? Lol! I actually do want to try out g-free so I’m excited for your upcoming recipes 😀
Hehe, I love gluten! I think my body likes it too. But for the sake I my castmates it was a good challenge to cook without.
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