Gluten-Free Tassie Cups with Lemon Curd Filling

This weekend, I’ve made one of the best desserts I’ve ever had: tassie cups with a lemon curd filling. Now, you may ask, what is a tassie cup? Well, it’s just a cute little pie, baked in a muffin tray instead of a pie pan. I learned about them when I was watching Paula Deen on the Food Network and I kept thinking that if I could make mine gluten-free, I would love her recipe. And yep, I figured it out! Here’s what you need to make a really amazing gluten-free dessert:

This is one of the easiest dessert recipes I’ve tried and it is so delicious!

Ingredients for the tassie cups

• 1/3 cup tapioca starch
• 1/3 cup potato starch
• 1/3 cup amaranth flour
• 1/4 cup brown rice flour
• 1/4 cup chickpea flour
• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 stick butter, softened
• Pinch of salt
• White rice flour (for rolling the dough)

Ingredients for the lemon curd

• 3 large lemons, zested and juiced
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 stick butter, melted

For the tassie cups, put all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until well combined. The dough is going to be pretty wet and sticky. My remedy for this was to prepare a work surface dusted with white rice flour and using a spatula, I scraped the dough onto it. Then, I rolled it in the white rice flour to dry it a little and formed a ball. I put it in fridge, wrapped in plastic, for about two hours, to let it harden.

Make sure to refrigerate at least two hours!

After two hours, take the dough out of the fridge and preheat the oven to 350F. Get a muffin tray out and separate the dough in 12 equal parts. Place each part in the muffin tray and gently press down and shape into the mold. With a fork, poke holes in the dough to let steam escape, so the crust doesn’t rise in the middle. To make sure that doesn’t happen, I also covered my muffin tray with aluminum foil filled with beans. After baking for 20 minutes, the tassie cups came out perfect!

When you bake a crust before putting in the filling, it is called blind baking. I found aluminum foil and dry beans to be very helpful!

You can put your cute mini pies aside until the filling is ready. The lemon curd is very easy. In a food processor, pulse the lemon zest and sugar until well combined. Add the lemon juice and eggs and process until smooth. Then, slowly add the butter while pulsing.

For the next step, you need a double broiler. If you don’t have one, you can use two saucepans of different sizes, like I did. Just pour the mixture in the smaller saucepan and cook for about 10 minutes, until it is thick and a beautiful deep yellow color.

Don’t undercook it!

Once this is done, refrigerate the lemon curd. This can definitely be made before the tassie cups, since it will need to stay in the fridge a few hours before it is cold and ready to eat. I was impatient and put mine in the freezer. Then, just pour the filling in the tassie cups and eat! It’s a delicious bite size dessert that is sweet and tart. The gluten-free crust also holds together very well and isn’t too dense or crumbly. It’s my favorite dessert!

Gluten free key lime cake

A friend of mine made a key lime cake last week and asked me if I could come up with a gluten-free version. I was pretty excited at the challenge, and even more excited at the result. I liberated his cake from the evil gluten, and it was really quite delicious! He used a box of lemon cake for the base, so I was a little lost at where to start. I found inspiration looking at this recipe.

My friend’s cake turned green because of the packet of lime jello used for flavor.

Ingredients for the cake:

• 1 cup brown rice flour
• 1/4 cup chickpea flour
• 1/4 cup millet flour
• 2/3 cup potato starch
• 1/3 cup tapioca starch
• 1 Tablespoon guar gum
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup red palm oil*
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 Tablespoon lemon zest
• 4 eggs
• 2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon tapioca starch
• 1 small packet of lime jello

* I use red palm oil because I believe it’s one of the healthiest oils out there. However, it’s an ingredient that is hard to find; I buy mine online. Other good oils you may use would be olive oil, coconut oil or high oleic safflower oil.

Ingredients for the glaze:

• 3/4 cup powdered sugar*
• 1/2 cup lime juice

* Powdered sugar is made with cornstarch. There are also a few brands, like 365 Organic, that make it with tapioca starch instead and that’s what I use.

Even if I also used a small packet of lime jello for my cake, it stayed yellow. I believe the rich color of red palm oil overwhelmed the green.

Ingredients for the icing:

• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 80z cream cheese, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar*

Now that you have all the ingredients you need, preheat the oven to 350F. You will need three large mixing bowls for the next step.

In the first bowl, mix your flours, starches, guar gum and salt.

Eggs and sugar, flours and oil mixtures.

In the second bowl, mix in the milk, palm oil, vanilla and lemon zest.

In the third and largest bowl, whisk the eggs and gradually add all the sugar, until it is smooth and not grainy.

Now, slowly add some of the flour mixture to the eggs and sugar, mix well, add some of the oil mixture, mix well. Repeat until all the flour and oil has been incorporated to the eggs and sugar, starting and ending with the flour.

The bubbles and fizzles help make the cake more airy.

In a glass, mix in the baking soda and tapioca starch. Add the orange juice and mix well so it’s bubbling. Add that to the cake batter and fold it in (baking soda, starch and an acid is what I use instead of baking powder since that is made with corn starch, which I don’t eat).

Finally, add the lime jello packet and mix well. Don’t worry if it turns a weird color. Pour the batter in two cake pans that were previously greased, lined with parchment paper and greased some more. Can’t have this delicious cake stick!

Put it in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes. At around 35 minutes, you can take it out and poke a few holes in the middle with a toothpick so it all cooks evenly.

Divide the glaze evenly between the two cakes.

When it’s ready, take it out of the oven, put it on a cooling rack, or two plates, and let it sit for 10 minutes or so. Meanwhile, prepare the lime glaze. It’s pretty easy. Just whisk the powdered sugar and lime juice. Poke some holes in the cake so it soaks in the glaze really well and pour it in.

Make sure to cover it and keep it refrigerated.

Now for the frosting! It’s also pretty easy. Just put the butter, cream cheese, vanilla and powdered sugar in the food processor and pulse it a few times, until it’s smooth and nicely combined. Using a spatula,  generously frost the top of one of the cakes. Put the other cake on top and frost everything some more.

My only complaint about this cake is the amount of sugar going in it. It doesn’t taste too sweet; it really is a wonderful combination with the tartness of the citrus. But it’s still over 4 cups of sugar! Oh well, it’s okay to treat yourself once in a while and this cake is definitely a good way to do it.