Holiday Cooking Class With Jewel's

We invited 30 people to a holiday cooking class with Julie. She shared pie crust making tips, topped them with meringue, decorated some cookies, and then we all got to decorate cookies and take them home. Not to mention, we received amazing lattes from our awesome barista Chad on the house, with some pumpkin and apple pie to boot! 

Using Jewel's Signature Flour (sold online here) our crust is incredibly easy and simple to make. Don't have to refrigerate or bake before. And right now we are having a sale on all mixes and four, Order one mix, get three more free of shipping costs! Check them out here

Jewel's rolls out the crust in this scene. Just as we are about to pass out some raspberry apple pie! 

It was very good, I assure you, and I can't wait to order some for the holidays! 

Then Jewel's shows us how to whip up a meringue, easy and quick! 

And our amazing and talented guest (who I'm sure will be recruited when time comes!) helped pipe the meringue onto the pumpkin pie. Meanwhile, we had some being sliced up in the back for everyone to eat! 

And chad passes them out. 

Julie noted that she got that torch from home depot for just $10

Then a sugar cookie demonstration begins! 

Everyone then got to pick out a few cookies to decorate for themselves...

And we had a few yellow snowmen....

But then we all got the hang of it! 

To be invited to more classes, and get recipes for these amazing items, sign up for our newsletter here!

And be sure to check out the class on November 19th "Gluten-free side dishes with Chef Brad"!

Don't forget! We are now selling not only our flour and mixes online for shipping nation wide, we also ship our baked goods and T-Shirts. Great holiday gifts for your special GF (or non gf) friends & family on our website Jewelsbakeryandcafe.com

Use this special code when checking out "firstorder" to save 10% on any order! 

No Sugar Added, Gluten-free, Banana Baby Cookies

Or cookies for you of course! But everyone who has kids, wants the best for them. Sometimes, the prepackaged, processed baby foods are not that. Here is a really simple recipe for cookies your baby will love, and you can feel good about giving it to them. 

What you will need: 

2 large bananas (smashed)

1/4 cup applesauce

1 cup gluten-free oats

1 cup oat flour (or grind up your oats)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1 tablespoon baking powder

pinch of salt

Take the oats and banana, and put them in a blender, just until banana is smushed. Fold the banana mixture into the rest of the ingredients. 

After that step is completed, place tablespoon sized rounds onto a greased sheet. Smash down the rounds to look like cookies. You can make them square, oval, but we made them round this time. 

Next, bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes. Let them cool all the way, and let your baby enjoy them! Maybe you can sneak a couple for yourself too! 

Paleo & Gluten-free Baked Eggplant Parmesan

Is paleo and cheese an oxymoron? The research I've done says...maybe. Some people on the paleo diet eat cheese, some believe that animals were not domesticated so they don't eat cheese. So what ever your preference is, follow that. You can take out the cheese if you want, or add more, it's all up to you. But this will taste just as good if you just omit the cheese. 

I've always made my own marinara. Prego? No thank you. I know everyone has their "secret" recipe from great great grandma, but I've tweaked this around and finally found one I really love. So my recipe for marinara is as follows, and like I mentioned before, you can omit the cheese. 

1 (28oz) can organic crushed tomatoes (San Marzano if possible) 

1 (8oz) can organic tomato sauce

1 fresh organic tomato

3-4 cloves organic fresh garlic

1 small organic onion

1/4 cup fresh oregano

1/4 cup fresh basil

1 teaspoon fine roasted garlic powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon finely crushed red pepper

1/8 cup organic grass-fed butter

1/2 cup really good olive oil

Chop the onions, garlic, and fresh herbs. Add the olive oil and butter to a heated pan. Toss in the onions and garlic, let it become translucent before you add in the herbs. Turn the stove from a medium heat down to the lowest setting, and give it a minute to cool down. If you add the tomatoes while it's too hot, you have a big mess on your hands. So once it's a little cooler, add the crushed tomatoes, and the tomato sauce. Take the crushed tomato can and fill it half full with water, and pour into sauce. Chop the fresh tomato into cubes, and add those to the sauce. Mix in the garlic powder, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper. Let simmer for 2-4 hours, stirring every 30 minutes or so to make sure it doesn't burn. You can take it off at two hours, but the longer the flavors have time to hang out together, the better it will taste. 

The fresher your eggplant, the less bitter it will be. Once the seeds have taken over and the brown starts showing, your a in for a bitter meal. One large eggplant should do the trick, so slice the eggplant as pictured above, about 1/4" thick. 

You will also need:

1 cup almond flour

1/4 cup parmesan cheese (optional)

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon parsley (fresh or dried)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

2 free-range eggs

2 tablespoons avocado oil (or your choice of oil)

Set your oven to 350F.

Mix all of the dry ingredients in one bowl, and the eggs and oil in another. Mix the eggs and oil very well, so they bind together. Then dip the slices of eggplant in the egg wash, then the coating mixture, and set on a greased pan.

Bake them off for 20 minutes. They should be just starting to turn golden brown. For the plating, top the first layer with marinara, on the second layer add the fresh mozzarella, and another scoop of marinara. Sprinkle parmesan and you have a super delicious lower calorie dinner! 

Be careful, this meal is addicting. And the sauce? You just want to put it on everything, and you can! On chicken, or any veggies, it's good on everything. This is a non-cheat meal, that feels like an all out cheaters meal. I can't get enough!  

Fingerling Potato Nachos - with Garlic Sour Cream

Wait do you mean you put potatoes on your nachos? No, the potato is the chip of the nacho. Although, now that I've tried this it doesn't sound like as weird as it did before. I mean think about it, we take french fries and turn them into cheese fries, poutines, and what have you. 

What you will need:

approximately 10-15 medium sized fingerling potatoes

1 tablespoon a good aromatic olive oil

1 teaspoon rosemary 

1 chive stalk

1 tablespoon sour cream

1/4 teaspoon fine garlic powder or finely chopped fresh

1/4 of a red onion

4 strips bacon (cooked and chopped into bits)

1/4 cup white cheddar

1/4 cup gruyere

[mind you, you can use any cheeses you like]

Slice the fingerling potatoes with the mandolin fairly thin, as pictured above. And while you have that neat slicer gadget out, slice up that red onion on the thinnest setting. In the picture below, I sliced more than half of it, but didn't use it all and stored some for later. You will only need about 1/4 an onion for this job, but if you really like slicing things on a mandolin and get carried away (like I do) just finish the thing. 

Ok that was fun, and hopefully you still have most of your fingers. Set the oven to 400ºF. At this time, you should grate the cheeses.

Take your potatoes and toss them in the olive oil, chopped rosemary, and add a dash of salt & pepper. Feel free to use any and all herbs as you like—the more the better. Once the oven is pre-heated, cook just the potatoes for 5-6 minutes on a greased pan. 

Top those potatoes with the bacon, red onions, and cheese. Mmm yea, like that. Toss it back into the oven at 400ºF for another 5-6 minutes until the cheese is just starting to brown and the outer rim of the potatoes crisp up. 

Now, mix the sour cream with the garlic and chop the chives. Once the potato nachos are out of the oven, drizzle on the sour cream and top with the chives. And now is the great part where you get to enjoy all the hard work you just did. 

The toppings you can add to these nachos are endless. Go traditional with some corn, salsa, and jalapeños. Go Italian with olives, capers, and marinara. Have some fun, because really you can't go wrong. 

Lobster, Gruyere, Bacon, Mac & Cheese Pasty - Lemon, Butter, Dill Sauce

For glutenized folks in the Phoenix area, there is an amazing pasty place called Cornish Pasty Co. If you don't know what a pasty is, think calzone with a hot pocket type crust. And at this restaurant they have literally all kinds of different pasties: lamb and mint, chicken tikka masala, carne asada, eggplant parmesan, peppered steak, a ruben, one called the 'Royale with Cheese'. Am I making your mouth water yet?

When Julie and I saw this, we said to each other, "Ok, seriously, how can we make these gluten-free? Cause we have to do this." Then, we asked, "how can we change up what they have and make something original to us?" So the lobster-gruyere-bacon-mac-and-cheese pasty was born. 

And I know what you are thinking, I said it too: that is way too many heavy flavors to pair with the sweet buttery-ness of lobster. But forget all your preconceptions, and don't miss out on this amazing dish. 

Let me tell you, this recipe is a labor of love. We made our crust from scratch, a three cheese béchamel, and cooked some bacon, but trust me: we bought lobster meat already cooked. If that's your kind of thing, go for it, but I don't like screamers. 

[About .3lbs {4.8oz} of lobster for 6 pasties] 

First put a pot of water on the stove. Then, when boiling, add 8oz pasta. We used brown rice pasta, but everyone has their favorites. Cook pasta according to the instructions. I find that adding some olive oil right after draining the pasta helps it to not stick together. 

For the béchamel, we used fresh mozzarella, gruyere, and white cheddar, but you can make your own mix. It has to cool before you put it in a pasty, so I recommend doing this first, and cooking up some bacon....lots of bacon. I'm suggesting at least 5 slices of bacon, it could have used a tad more, but you can add more or less or none if you choose. 

1 cup gruyere

1/2 cup fresh mozzarella

1/2 cup white cheddar

2 cups milk

1/4 cup butter

3 tablespoons Jewel's gluten-free all purpose flour

salt & pepper to taste

Melt butter in a sauce pan on medium low. Mix in the flour, whisk till smooth, slowly add milk and cheeses. Make sure the temp is low enough not to boil; you just want it to slowly melt into gooey awesomeness. Add salt & pepper.

Fold the béchamel into the noodles, and wait for it to cool. While you are doing this, make the pasty dough. 

1 tablespoon yeast 

1 tablespoon granulated sugar 

1 cup warm water 

2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil 

1 teaspoon salt 
1 egg for egg wash

3 cups Jewel's all-purpose flour 

Dissolve yeast in warm water, add sugar. Let it set for a few minutes until foamy. Then stir in oil, salt, and flour. If the dough feels too dry, you can add more water, or if it's too wet you can add more flour. It should feel like a soft play dough. Knead 5 minutes. Let sit 5 minutes. 

This part is time sensitive, and I would set the oven to 375F at this point. You don't want the dough to dry out while you are rolling them out one by one and stuffing them. Take the mac & cheese, cooked lobster, and bacon and mix them together in a bowl. 

Divide dough into 6 pieces. Roll/pat each piece into a 6- inch circle. Using a mold is easiest. If the dough gets too dry, pat with a little oil.

 Eye judgement is best when stuffing the dough, you want about 1/2 cup of lobster mac, but you want to be able to close it. Place stuffing in the middle of the 6in round, and rub edges with whisked egg. Gently pick up both of the sides and group them in the middle, pressing softly. However, if this isn't working for you, or you just want something a little easier, you can press into empanadas. Like this: 

  

Before you put them all in the oven, brush them heavily with egg yolk. I added some fine garlic powder to the egg yolk, about 1/2 teaspoon, to add some garlicky goodness.  

Cook for 20-25 minutes. Check at 18-20 for brownness. Let them cool, because they are molten lava. At this time you can make the sauce, trust me, you want to make the sauce. 

1/4 cup butter

1 teaspoon flour

1 tablespoon milk

1 small lemon fresh squeezed

pinch of salt

pinch of garlic 

pinch = 1/4 teaspoon

Serve sauce over top, or along side. Some tips I have for you after I made these: a squeeze of lemon over the cooked lobster before you add it in to the mac wouldn't hurt. Also, while stuffing them, before you close it up, a small amount of cheese won't hurt either. 

When lobster is 39.99 a pound and a good slab of gruyere costs 12 bucks, this is a special event type of meal. But like I mentioned about the pasty restaurant, you can put anything in these crusts. Some ideas:

cheesy pepperoni pizza
meatballs & marinara
spinach cheese and parmesan
any and all types of veggies
or try out one of the ones I mentioned

And you might have some left over mac & cheese, but you probably won't kill me because of it. You could also use the left over mac to make more pasties! These are all good to reheat later. So a quick pop in the oven at 350 for about 10-12 min. will do the trick. 

Don't already have a bag of Jewel's All Purpose flour? You can order some online and thank me later

Order Online By Clicking Here

Pizza Party!

Welcome to our Pizza Party!

Yesterday we invited 10 of our Facebook followers to join us for a pizza party. It was a lot of fun, and we all had quite a food coma after. We just came out with a gluten, egg, and dairy-free pizza crust, and once we tried it, we knew we wanted to do a baking class using it. We hope our crust, 8in and 12in, will soon be available for purchase on our website from anywhere in the states.  

Thai Pizza –

  12in Jewel’s Pizza Crust

   ½ cup Annie Chun’s gluten-free peanut sauce

   3 Tbsp peanut butter

   1 cup Roasted Chicken

   1 cup mozzarella

   ½ cup shredded carrot

   3 Tbsp chopped peanuts

   1 Tbsp fresh chopped cilantro

Set oven to 425F. Mix Annie Chun’s peanut sauce with 3 Tbsp of peanut butter. Spread evenly on pizza crust. Top with roasted chicken, carrots, peanuts, mozzarella, then cilantro. Put in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until cheese is melted thoroughly and starting to bubble. Remove from oven and enjoy!

As you can tell from our pictures, this pizza crust is just like any other gluten crust. It's not flaky, or grainy, it's perfectly soft on the inside and chewy on the outside. Our fans can attest to that. Super easy and fun recipe. If you like cucumbers, or any other veggies add them on. 

Baked Potato Pizza –

  12 in Jewel’s Pizza Crust

   2 medium potato’s (any kind will do, Yukon gold is the best)

   ½ cup ranch (find our homemade recipe below)

   4 slices bacon

   1 cup sharp cheddar

   ½ yellow onion (sliced)

   1 Tsp chives

   2 Tbsp Butter

   1 Tsp fresh minced or powdered garlic 

Set oven to 425F. Wash and slice potato very finely 1/4in, with a mandolin if you have one. Toss slices in melted butter and garlic. Spread slices out on a foil covered sheet pan and cook for 10min. Meanwhile, thinly slice the bacon and cook on medium heat until brown and crispy. Once the bacon is done place on a paper towel to drain the grease. Spread the ranch on the pizza crust. When the potatoes are cooked, place evenly as pictured above. Top with bacon, cheddar, and chives. Cook the pizza for 8-10 minutes or until cheese is melted and crust is golden brown. Remove and drizzle with sour cream or ranch if desired!

This may have been the favorite pizza. We used our homemade ranch recipe, but you can always use your favorite GF ranch. But give this one a try, it may just become your fave.

Homemade Ranch - 

   3/4 c. extra virgin olive oil (plus a dash more for roasting garlic)

   1 egg yolk 

   1/2 tsp salt

   1/2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar (or any type of vinegar you prefer)

   4 Tbsp sour cream 

   3 Tbsp buttermilk

   1 Tsp dill

   1 Tsp parsley

   1 garlic bulb

   1/2 yellow onion

Start by talking some foil and drizzling some olive oil in the middle of the sheet. Take the bulb of garlic and wrap the foil around tightly. Heat in the toaster oven on 400F for about 20 minutes or until soft to the touch. For this next part you will need a food processor, or I use a handheld immersion blender and a cup. Use the egg yolk only and blend for about a minute. Then add the vinegar and blend for another minute. Before adding the oil, add the salt and 4 cloves of roasted garlic. Slowly add in the oil, at first drizzle but about half way you can start to pour more. Over blending will cause it to be very thick, so I recommend from the start of the pour to the end, no more than two minutes. Once that part is over add the rest of the ingredients; sour cream, buttermilk, dill, parsley. Take the half of the onion, and a fine grater, and grade as much of the onion as you can over the ranch. It's best to let the ranch sit in the fridge over night, but a few hours will do. It sounds like a lot of steps, but it takes less then 10 minutes, and it's well worth it. Use the extra roasted garlic on a pizza, or store it in a plastic bag in the fridge for up to a week. 

Vegan Kale Pizza –

  12 in Jewel’s Pizza Crust

  ½ yellow onion (sliced)

  ½ cup tomato sauce 

  1 clove fresh garlic (chopped finely)

  1 ½ cup kale (finely chopped)

   ½ pesto

We didn't have anyone who was vegan, so we decided to add a little goat cheese. Of course, you can omit the goat cheese, but it adds a nice tang. 

Set oven to 425F. Take pizza crust and spread tomato sauce, toss kale with olive oil, add to pizza. Sauté onions with garlic and olive oil until soft. Add onions to pizza and drizzle pesto on top. See how easy that was? We didn’t do it, but we recommend adding whatever veggies you love on this one, make it your own.

                 

Justine’s Pizza –

   12 in Jewel’s Pizza Crust

   ¼ cup fig jam

   1 pear

   ½ cup sugar

   ¼ cup Gorgonzola

   1/3-cup mozzarella

   ¼ cup walnuts (chopped)

   3 slices bacon

   ½ cup arugula

   1 tsp. truffle oil (or any good olive oil)

   2 tsp. Parmesan

Heat 1-quart water and sugar until sugar is dissolved. Add peeled pear to water and cover with parchment paper that has a 1-inch hole in the middle. Keep at a very low boil, low to medium heat for 15 minutes. Remove pot from heat, do not drain, and let pear cool. Starting on no heat, place sliced bacon in pan, and set to medium high heat. Stir frequently until brown and crispy, about 15 minutes. It’s probably about time now to take out the pear and slice it thinly, as well as set oven to 425F. Take pizza crust and lightly cover with fig jam. (Too much and it boils over the crust and makes your oven smoke up). Add slices of pear, Gorgonzola, mozzarella, and bacon. Cook pizza for about 10-15 minutes or until cheese is melted and crust is golden brown. While the pizza is in the oven, take the arugula and toss with oil, walnuts, and Parmesan. Once the pizza is done cooking, place arugula salad on top and serve!

We are letting our fans decide which pizza will be on our menu for our bakery & cafe when it opens. Vote for your favorite pizza, and which ever pizza gets the most votes will end up on our menu. Though, we will have monthly pizza specials and the three that didn't make it will likely be one of our monthly specials. If you were not in attendance of our pizza party, order our pizza crust now to make these pizzas and place your vote in the comments below! 

jewelscupcakeshop.com ~ (602) 348-8415 ~ info@jewelscupcakeshop.com