Spicy Salsa Flax Crackers

We love flax crackers in our house but until recently we only had a round dehydrator that I had to cut parchment paper to fit in the trays to make fruit leather or flax crackers, what a pain! Well we hit the jackpot a couple of weeks ago when a customer sold us an Excaliber dehydrator with the teflex sheets for $5! It looks like its 30 years old but works great! So I've been making flax crackers and chia seed fruit leather for the toddler and the husband. This has been a favorite recipe of ours for years so I decided to share it first, but I'm working on some different flavors and some may show up at Vita-Mart in the near future!

1 C Flax

1 C Water

1 C Tomato 

1/4 C Onion 

1 clove Garlic

1/2 Jalapeño (more or less depending on desired heat level)

1 tsp Sea Salt

Mix Flax and water in a soup bowl

and let sit for about an hour until it gels.

Cut tomato, onion and jalapeño into large chunks. Toss in a food processor or blender with garlic and salt 

and process until smooth.

Mix tomato mixture with flax mixture and spread evenly over a teflex sheet lined dehydrator tray (or use parchment paper).

(I forgot to take a pic of this step with this flavor so don't mind the banana chunks in this picture. This is the Banana Bread Flax Cracker Recipe I'm working on.)

If you want your crackers thinner divide mixture between 1 1/2 trays.

Dehydrate mixture  at 110 degrees, if you have the option to set a temp, for 4-6 hours until you can pull the cracker (at this point it will be one solid piece) off the teflex sheet and put back on the dehydrator tray. The side that was down on the sheet will still be wet. Keep dehydrating for another 4-6 hours.

Break cracker into pieces and keep in a plastic bag or Tupperware until you eat them all!

Grandma Ruth’s Gluten Free Spice Cake

Ok, Grandma Ruth wasn't baking Gluten Free Cakes in her day, but she did make a mean Spice Cake. The original recipe was made yearly for my Mom and my Aunts Birthdays and I adapted it years ago for a customers Birthday. I actually just made this cake for that same customers Anniversary. I'll never forget the panicked phone call I received that day asking if I had forgotten this cake needed to be gluten free because there was no way a gluten free cake could taste this good. It comes out so light, moist and grit free (no rice flour!) you won't believe its gluten free.

          

  Serves 8-10

¾ C Butter Softened

1 ¼ C Brown Sugar (I use Rapadura)

1 C. Unrefined Cane Sugar

3 Eggs

3 C. Bobs Red Mill GF Flour Blend

1 ½ tsp Xanathan Gum

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 ½ tsp Cinnamon

¾ tsp Cloves

¾ tsp Nutmeg

1 tsp Sea Salt

1 ½ C. Whole Milk

1 Tbs Lemon Juice

Preheat oven to 350. Grease either 3 rounds or one 9”x13” pan. In a large bowl beat together Butter and Sugars, add Eggs one at a time. Meanwhile add Lemon Juice to Milk to curdle, let sit 10 minutes. In a medium bowl mix together Flour Blend, Xanathan Gum, Baking Soda, Spices and Sea Salt. Add 1/3 of flour mixture to wet mixture, stir to combine then add 1/3 of Milk combine, continue mixing in the alternating flour mixture and milk.

 Divide Cake batter between 3 Rounds or pour all into 9x13 pan. Bake rounds 30-35 minutes or 9x13 45-50 minutes.

For Frosting

1lb Cream Cheese-softened

4 oz Butter-softened

1 tsp GF Vanilla

1 LB Powdered Sugar

In a large bowl beat together cream cheese, butter and vanilla. Slowly add in powdered sugar until desired consistency and sweetness is achieved.

***Recipe may be halved if making the 9x13 pan***

Moist Chocolate Cake

I'm not above going for the sweet stuff when I'm really stressed out and recently I had to call in the big guns... Chocolate Cake. So after much inner conflict (if I bake this I will probably eat the whole thing, yada, yada, yada) I assembled my ingredients and realized I was out of sugar! But all was not lost, thank goodness I had some agave nectar! Forty-five minutes later I had the endorphin shot I needed. Sure I could have exercised, but sometimes a girl just needs chocolate cake.

1 1/3 C Agave Nectar

2 Eggs

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 C Whole Milk

1/2 C Melted Butter

1 3/4 C Flour

1 C Cocoa Powder

1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder

2/3 C Hot Coffee  

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 13x9 pan with cooking spray (this is a chocolate emergency, there is no time for fancy round layers!). In a large bowl mix together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and baking powder, set aside. In another large bowl beat together egg, melted butter, agave nectar and vanilla. Mix milk into wet ingredients until thouroghly incorporated. Stir dry ingredient into wet until just incorporated then add hot coffee and mix until no lumps remain.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes. This cake baked pretty quickly, great for a chocolate emergency! I did throw together a quick frosting of cream cheese, cocoa powder, powdered sugar and vanilla. 

Frosting:

8 oz Cream Cheese

1/2 C Cocoa Powder*

1C Powdered Sugar*

1 tsp vanilla

*ingredients are approximate 

In a large bowl beat together all ingredients with a mixer. I like frosting to not be so sickly sweet so I add a lot of cocoa powder to thicken it but you could reduce the amount of cocoa powder and add more sugar. This is just a simple eating frosting, not something you would decorate with.