Body parts never tasted so good

After the meeting yesterday, I got a craving. I sat in front of the boob tube and mindlessly entertained myself until I determined what the craving was for. When I figured it out, I called my mother and she emailed me the original recipe.

Where does the body part reference come in? Why, the sweet I wanted is named a knee cap.

After taking a good look at the recipe this morning, I had a basic plan on what I was going to do. I then called L, a woman I met yesterday, to see if she wanted to come over and learn how to bake GF. And did we - not only did we make the knee caps, but we had pizza made with my favorite Arrowhead Mills pizza crust and taquitos! I think we both ate enough samples to make ourselves sick. You see, L has only known about her CD for about a month. I hope she takes the fun we had today to heart and understands that being gluten free can completely ROCK!

Any gluten-eating person who doesn't enjoy these - you're cracked. Loony. Crazy. Someone call the paddy wagon and take that person off to the funny farm.



I chose to use regular sugar instead of the powdered sugar in the original recipe to coat them.

Knee Caps

2 tsp yeast
1/8 cup warm water
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup sugar + 3/4 cup
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg, room temperature
1 cup milk, room temperature
2 cups rice flour
3/4 cup tapioca starch
1/3 cup sweet rice flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 tbsp + 1/4 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
Fruit jam of your choice (I used my homemade cherry-almond)
Whipped cream
Canola oil for frying




Combine the yeast and water in a bowl; let stand for 5 to 10 minutes to allow yeast to bloom.



In a bowl, combine the rice flour, sweet rice flour, tapioca starch, cornstarch, xanthan gum, and baking powder. Set aside.



In another bowl, cream together the shortening, 1/4 cup sugar, and salt. Add the egg and vanilla, mixing well. Stir the milk and yeast mixture into the sugar mixture. Slowly incorporate the flour mix, bit by bit, until all of the flour is added.



Lightly butter a large bowl; place the dough into the bowl, cover, and allow to rise in a warm place for an hour to an hour and a half, until the dough has doubled to nearly half.

When the dough has risen, roll it out to 1.2" thickness and cut with a 1-1/2" round biscuit/cookie cutter. Cover the rounds with a towel and allow to rise again for another half hour.



With a round spoon (we used a measuring teaspoon), gently push an indentation in the center of each knee cap.



Pour the remaining sugar into a bowl and place near where you will be frying the knee caps.



In a deep pot, bring 2 inches of oil to 375 degrees. Drop the knee caps indentation-side-down into the hot oil and flip when golden brown. Remove from the oil when both sides are golden and allow to drain for a short time on a couple layers of paper toweling. Then drop them in the sugar and coat them thoroughly.



When all knee caps are cooked and cooled, place 1 tsp of fruit jam in the indentation, then top the jam with a dollop of whipped cream.



Bet you can't eat only one.