Pão de Queijo com presunto

April’s been a busy month; so I was grateful the ingredients for the Improv Cooking Challenge were simple. The real challenge with HAM & CHEESE in this house is keeping it stocked! We had a bit of ham leftover from Easter, so I made our first attempt early in the month. I tried a second one with slightly varied ingredients about a week after, but the end result of that one was not so good. Third triumphant endeavor was this morning…In researching gluten-free breads for the past few years I’d come across this recipe many times, but never made it because I assumed it would require too much effort. I was wrong ~ these are quite simple to make. The most difficult thing about them is keeping yourself from inhaling devouring consuming gobbling eating the entire batch!The base “flour” for these goodies is tapioca starch. That is what makes the inside of the roll so deliciously chewy. I used Bob’s Red Mill Tapioca Flour for this first batch. The second notanywherenearsuccessful try was made with arrowroot (because I read a couple recipes which indicated they used that & it worked!) but the inside was terribly gummy. (Problem solved after baking by splitting & toasting…) For the third time’s a charm batch today, I simply used a bag of tapioca starch I bought at the Asian market for 79¢ !The cheese in our first bread was a Medium Cheddar. Second one we used Swiss (at the request of the youngest fella…) Today I used Pepper Jack!The rolls today omitted the ham and were baked on silicon sheets ~ now I have some delicious sandwich rounds!

Here are some more HAM & CHEESE recipes from the Challenge:

An InLinkz Link-up

Very Berry Lemon Cake, gluten free

A couple weeks ago, a lady shared this recipe on one of my embroidery forums:Sounded like it would taste delicious – but could I mix my magic flours to make it gluten free?

Fortunately, Sprouts had berries on sale. Unfortunately, I did not have the time to experiment with flours. Fortunately, I found this:I beat my four eggs then added the sour cream. After that was smooth I added 1 Tablespoon lemon extract and the contents of the cake mix. Once that was all incorporated, I stirred in 1 cup fresh blueberries by hand.I gotta tell you – I am a “batter-licker”. And I tried this one after I scraped it all into my coconut-oiled & rice-floured pan... oh.my.goodness!

I decided to bake the cake at the temperature prescribed by the mix, so I popped my cake into the preheated 325° oven. Therefore, it needed to bake about 45-50 minutes before my tester came out dry.I was positively dying, smelling that cake as it cooled.It was originally served to my guests with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. (No one could tell it was GF!)…but it was outstanding the next morning with a little fresh mango on the side.The texture, even two days later, was excellent. Still moist and not at all grainy.

Sooooooo, you’ll have to excuse me – it’s time for my mid-morning coffee. And I still have one slice of this heavenly cake waiting for me from the freezer…