Tag Archives: gluten free baking

Pumpkin Custard with Ginger and Maple

Posted on October 7, 2016 | 3 comments

It’s officially pumpkin season! San Diego weather may change its mind on a daily basis, but pumpkin everything gets the green light in my book! Today I’m sharing the recipe for a ginger-maple pumpkin custard topped with a pepita streusel. This creamy alternative to pumpkin pie is made extra gingery with both fresh and dried ginger, and sweetened with maple syrup.

Ginger Maple Pumpkin Custard with Pepita Streusel

The pumpkin custard is gluten-free, with no refined sugars, and no cans. Like in my pumpkin smash cake recipe, I won’t tell anyone if you speed the recipe up with canned pumpkin, but try a real pumpkin one time so you can taste the difference. I use whole cow milk, but you can substitute any milk alternative. This custard is adapted from the filling for the real pumpkin pie recipe. We topped it with real whipped cream (get the “real” food trend?) and a pepita (pumpkin seed) streusel. Find the streusel recipe here.

Papa Bird and the little birds grew pumpkins this year from seeds saved from last year’s sugar pie pumpkins. Specialty Produce is also fully stocked with baking and decorative pumpkins.

[Recipe] Ginger Maple Pumpkin Custard with Pepita Streusel (whole, unrefined ingredients, gluten-free)

Try the recipe today and you just might be eating this surprisingly healthy custard for dessert and breakfast. Or else pin the recipe to save and try later!

5.0 from 1 reviews
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Pumpkin Custard with Ginger and Maple
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 6-8 servings
 
A creamy alternative to pumpkin pie, made extra gingery with both fresh and dried ginger, and sweetened with maple syrup. Gluten-free, no refined sugars, and no cans. I use whole cow milk, but you can substitute any milk alternative. Adapted from my "Real Pumpkin Pie" filling.
Ingredients
  • 2 cups roasted and pureed pumpkin (1 sugar pie pumpkin or 1 15 oz can of pureed pumpkin)
  • 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • ½ teaspoon allspice
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 3 large eggs
  • ½ cup maple syrup
  • 1 cup whole milk
Instructions
  1. Prep pumpkin (see notes) or use canned (I won't tell anyone, but try a real pumpkin one time so you can taste the difference.)
  2. Preheat oven to 350* F.
  3. If you are using homemade pureed pumpkin, add the rest of the ingredients into your food processor or blender. Mix until combined.
  4. Place six to eight custard dishes or ramekins inside of a large roasting pan. Fill the small dishes/ramekins with the pumpkin batter. Pour water into the large pan, being careful not to splash water into the custards. Fill the pan until the water level is even with the level of the batter in the small dishes. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the center of the custards are "set."
  5. Remove the custards from the water bath and cool on a wire rack.
  6. Serve with streusel and/or whipped cream.
Notes
1. If starting from a fresh pumpkin: Use a "sugar pie pumpkin" or "pie pumpkin" and not a decorative jack-o-lantern type pumpkin. Preheat oven to 350* F. Wash the outside of the pumpkin well. Cut off the stem of the pumpkin, and then cut in half vertically. Remove the seeds and strings. Rinse and save the seeds for drying and replanting and/or roasting. Place the two halves of the pumpkins on a baking pan lined with a piece of foil that is twice as long as the pan. Fold the foil over the top of the pumpkins and bake for 75 to 90 minutes, or until soft.
Allow pumpkins to cool (they can be refrigerated over night.) Peel off the skin, and any overly browned parts.
Place the flesh of the pumpkin in a food processor or good blender and puree until smooth.
Leave the pumpkin in the processor or blender, and add the rest of the custard ingredients.
An average sized pumpkin makes about 2 cups of pureed pumpkin. A little more or a little less is fine.
2. Nutrition figures are for 8 servings. I made 6 large custards, and we felt full after half, so it could easily serve 12. I split the difference and calculated for 8. Nutrition is also for the custard as written, and does not include streusel or whip cream topping.
3. Streusel recipe here.
Nutrition Information
Serving size: 131 g Calories: 111 Fat: 3g Saturated fat: 1.2g Unsaturated fat: 1.8g Trans fat: 0g Carbohydrates: 18g Sugar: 14 g Sodium: 188mg Fiber: .8g Protein: 3.8g Cholesterol: 73mg

 

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Posted in Dessert, Entertaining, Food, Recipes for the Whole Family, Recipes from the Garden, Recipes to Make with the Kids, Seasonal Recipes

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Honey-Sweetened Meyer Lemon Curd

Posted on December 8, 2014 | 2 comments

Our citrus tree is bursting with Meyer lemons. Baby Bird, who is 14-months-old and walking, loved picking the lemons. Meyer lemons are sweet and juicy and made a great lemon curd.

honey sweetened meyer lemon curd

baby bird picking meyer lemonsI have been trying to feed us less refined sugar this year. I find that our taste buds are slowly adjusting. For example, my husband and I don’t sweeten our coffee anymore. Meyer lemons are naturally sweeter than a conventional lemon. This recipe came out delicious sweetened with just honey, and I used a fraction of the amount of sweeteners other curd recipes use.

honey sweetened meyer lemon curd over blueberry pancakes

Little Bird is 3-years-old now and is quite the pro in the kitchen. She loves cooking projects. She loves to taste all of the ingredients, but at one point I had to pull the honey away from her. I think she ate half the container. (So much for limiting our sugar!) The lemon curd was perfect over Papa Bird’s famous gluten-free blueberry pancakes. I also used it to make a quick lemon-meringue tart with a (gluten-free) cashew/almond crust. Since my curd uses only egg yolks, a meringue was a perfect way to use up all of the whites.

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Honey-Sweetened Meyer Lemon Curd
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 3.5 cups
 
This version of a classic lemon curd uses honey to sweeten. I used grass-fed butter, but it could also be made with coconut oil for a vegan version. I recommend using organic citrus anytime you are using the zest or peel.
Ingredients
  • 1 tablespoon lemon zest (from approx. 5-6 lemons)
  • 1 cup lemon juice (the juice of approx. 5-6 lemons)
  • 8 oz butter, room temperature
  • ½ cup honey
  • 8 egg yolks
Instructions
  1. Rinse the lemons and use a microplane to grate the zest of the lemons. Set aside.
  2. Juice the lemons until you have about 1 cup of juice. Set aside.
  3. Place water in a 2 quart saucepan on the stove and bring to a boil. Place a double boiler or bowl on top of it.
  4. While the water is coming to a boil, place the butter in the bowl of a mixer. Beat until light and fluffy. Add the honey and beat well. Then add the egg yolks one at a time and mix in. Then slowly add in the lemon juice. It is okay if it is not totally smooth in the mixer, because the butter will melt in the next step.
  5. Pour the mixture into the top of the double boiler or the bowl over the pot. Occasionally, stir gently with a heat proof spatula. Heat the mixture until it comes up to 170*F. At that point it should be smooth but not necessarily thick.
  6. Pour into jars for canning, a crust for a meringue, or store in the fridge. Allow to cool completely. It will thicken as it cools.
  7. Keeps in the fridge for 1 week and freezes well.
Notes
From this size recipe, I used two cups of the curd in a tart/lemon meringue pie and used the remaining 3 pints as curd. If you want a super smooth texture, strain the curd after taking it off the heat to remove the zest. I left it in and liked it.

meyer lemon curd ingredientsGet all of the ingredients for this recipe ready ahead of time and then it will be easy to throw together. Just watch out for three-year-old honey swipers!

No fancy equipment is required, but a kitchen-aid mixer helps get a creamy texture and a microplane make zesting citrus much easier. A double-boiler let me not worry about scorching the bottom while it cooked and a thermometer let me know exactly when to take the curd off the heat.

Click here to pin this recipe on Pinterest.

Honey-Sweetened Meyer Lemon Curd from @BabyBirdsFarm

Disclaimer: Links to products on Amazon contain my affiliate id, meaning I could receive a small referral fee for qualified purchases. If you purchase  a product I recommend or nearly anything else from Amazon through one of these links it helps support our web hosting and keeps this blog going! Thank you kindly.

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Posted in Dessert, Food, Preserving and Canning, Recipes from the Garden, Recipes to Make with the Kids, Seasonal Recipes, Urban Agriculture, Urban Homesteading

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Baby Birds’ Pumpkin Smash Cake with Cinnamon Frosting – Gluten Free and Low Sugar

Posted on October 12, 2014 | 20 comments

I’m very excited to share the recipe I developed for a healthy and delicious pumpkin smash cake! Baby Bird’s Banana Smash Cake is one of my most popular posts on Pinterest and in search engines. It is a healthy cake with no refined sugar or artificial coloring. This year we went pumpkin picking to celebrate both our youngest Baby Bird turning 1 and Little Bird turning 3. So of course we had to have a PUMPKIN smash cake and pumpkin cup cakes. I kept the sugar low by using just half a cup of maple sugar. Although we are not gluten-free, so many of our friends are. To be perfectly honest: these came out BETTER than the traditional cup cakes I made for the guests.

Pumpkin Smash Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting - gluten free and low in sugar

The cinnamon frosting is mostly cream cheese with a little grass-fed butter. I wanted to use maple syrup to sweeten it, but we were out. I ended up using a little organic powdered sugar, but less than a quarter of what most recipes call for. Our pumpkin picking party fell on an unseasonably hot 100° day… the candy pumpkins on top of the smash cakes started melting. But the cake was delicious and I can’t wait to make it again! Maybe as a full-sized layer cake.

Healthy Pumpkin Smash Cake

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Smash Cake Recipe

Prep: Let all ingredients for the pumpkin smash cake sit out at room temperature. Cut a circle of parchment paper to line the bottom of 1 or 2 ramekins. Grease well with butter. Line a muffin tin with a dozen cupcake liners for the rest of the batter. Preheat oven to 350° F.

In the bowl of a good mixer, add:

  • 12 tablespoons of softened butter
  • ½ cup of maple sugar (brown sugar would also be nice)

Beat on high until light and fluffy. Add

  • 3 eggs, ideally at room temperature

Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each until well combined. Add

  • ½ cup of milk
  • ½ cup of yogurt

Mix well. Add

Mix on slowest speed until just incorporated, then add

  • 2 cups of pureed, cooked pumpkin OR 1 (15 oz) can of pumpkin (follow the instructions here if you want to cook the pumpkin from scratch – but I won’t tell anyone if you use the can…)

Mix until incorporated, then add

Scoop into the ramekins and any remaining batter into the muffin tin. Bake the muffin/cupcakes for about 15-20 minutes and the ramekins for about 40 minutes. Cool completely or even overnight before frosting with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting.

Notes:

If you follow this blog, you will know that I am all about making things from scratch. They only time I have mentioned using a mix for anything was when I made my own pancake mix to take camping! But I have to say, I loved using this gluten-free mix! I have had so many not so great gluten free baked goods, and tend to avoid them.  This mix is a household staple as Papa Bird uses it at least weekly for his special pancakes. It was nearly a year before I realized it was gluten-free! I am not affiliated with Pamela’s, although maybe I should be! I am an Amazon Affiliate, though, and do receive advertising fees for qualifying purchases made through links on this site. Thank you for your support!

4.5 from 2 reviews
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Baby Birds' Pumpkin Smash Cake with Cinnamon Frosting - Gluten Free and Low Sugar
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: Gluten-Free
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
 
A low-sugar, gluten-free pumpkin cake or cup cake recipe, perfect for a healthy 1st birthday party "smash cake."
Ingredients
  • 12 tablespoons of softened butter
  • ½ cup of maple sugar (brown sugar would also be nice)
  • 3 eggs, ideally at room temperature
  • ½ cup of milk
  • ½ cup of yogurt
  • 2 cups of Pamela’s Baking and Pancake Mix
  • 1 tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice blend
  • 2 cups of pureed, cooked pumpkin OR 1 (15 oz) can of pumpkin
Instructions
  1. Let all ingredients for the pumpkin smash cake sit out at room temperature. Cut a circle of parchment paper to line the bottom of 1 or 2 ramekins. Grease well with butter. Line a muffin tin with a dozen cupcake liners for the rest of the batter. Preheat oven to 350° F.
  2. In the bowl of a good mixer, add butter and maple sugar. Beat on high until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each until well combined. Add milk and yogurt and mix well.
  3. Add 1 cup of Pamela’s Baking and Pancake Mix and the pumpkin pie spice blend. Mix on slowest speed until just incorporated, then add the pureed, cooked pumpkin. Mix until incorporated, then add 1 more cup of Pamela’s Baking and Pancake Mix.
  4. Scoop into the ramekins and any remaining batter into the muffin tin. Bake the muffin/cupcakes for about 15-20 minutes and the ramekins for about 40 minutes. Cool completely or even overnight before frosting with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting.

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Posted in Dessert, Food, Healthy Recipes, Our Family, Parenting, Recipes for the Whole Family, Recipes from the Garden, Recipes to Make with the Kids, Seasonal Recipes

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All Your Thanksgiving Dessert Recipes in One Place

Posted on November 26, 2013 | Leave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving week! Here is a round up of all of my favorite Thanksgiving dessert recipes: pies, pie crust and toppings, holiday cakes and cheesecake, all in one place.

pumpkin pie with spicy pepita brittle

Tip: pie crust can be made ahead and refrigerated for three days, or frozen a month, before using. You could make a double recipe now and be set for pies and quiches through Christmas.

First the Pumpkin Pie Recipes:

“Real pumpkin” made with a roasted sugar pie pumpkin, eggs, cream, milk, fresh ginger and spices.

All Butter Crust.

Spicy Pepita (pumpkin seed) Brittle.

Maple Whipped Cream.

Crust “cookies” (kid-cook friendly.)

Gluten-Free pumpkin pie options.

Gluten Free Chestnut Bundt Cake on BabyBirdsFarm

Chestnut Dessert Recipes:

Chestnut Bundt Cake (Also gluten-free.)

Caramel Torte Recipe with Chocolate and Pecans

Pecan Recipes:

Chocolate Espresso Pecan Pie.

Caramel Torte with Chocolate and Pecans.

Apple Pie:

Alton Brown’s Apple Pie.

Oh wait, there’s more pumpkin?

Pumpkin New York Cheesecake with Cranberry Gelee Topping.

What is YOUR favorite Thanksgiving dessert?? Feel free to include a link in the comments. Happy feasting!

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Posted in Dessert, Food, Seasonal Recipes

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Pumpkin Pie with Spicy Pepita Brittle

Posted on November 24, 2013 | 2 comments

We loved this refreshing variation on pumpkin pie. I topped it with a spicy pepita (shelled pumpkin seed) brittle. The brittle is pretty easy, as far as candy making goes. I adapted a recipe from sophistimom by making it spicier with a lot more cayenne. It really compliments my real pumpkin pie recipe.

Real Pumpkin Pie with Spicy Pepita Brittle

Spicy Pepita (Pumpkin Seed) Brittle Recipe

Adapted from sophistimom

  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1 cup (200g) brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup (150g) honey
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon cardamom
  • 1/4 teaspoon ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (65g) raw, hulled, pepitas or pumpkin seeds
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1. Butter a large cookie sheet or line it with a silicone mat. Melt butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan set over low heat. Stir in sugar, honey, spices and salt. Stir ingredients together until the sugar starts to dissolve.

2. Raise heat to medium and let the sugar come to a boil. When it reaches 280°  on a candy thermometer, stir in pumpkin seeds. Bring the mixture up to 300°  (hard crack stage). Remove from heat and stir in baking soda. Pour onto prepared cookie sheet and allow to cool.

 Pumpkin Pie Recipe – click here

All Butter Crust Recipe – click here

Need a Gluten Free variation?

Bake individual sized pumpkin custards and then top with the brittle. Your gluten free friends will enjoy the crunch and texture of the brittle and how it contrasts with the creamy custard.

pumpkin pie with spicy pepita brittle - gluten free option

Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!

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Posted in Dessert, Food, Seasonal Recipes

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