Good Eats

I recently had an undeniable craving for CHEESECAKE! I could have gone to the store and picked one up for a quick fix, but since I’m Gluten-Free nothing at the store would have fully satisfied my taste buds. As I started going through some cheesecake recipes, I realized I wanted to make a traditional plain cheesecake with a graham cracker crust. We all know the best part of a cheesecake IS the graham cracker crust. Unfortunately, I have yet to come across gluten-free graham crackers so I took matters into my own hands and began looking for a recipe to make GF graham crackers from scratch. Thanks to my mom, she emailed me this recipe and they turned out amazing and were relatively simple to make.

Graham Crackers:

Dry Ingredients: 2 cups Unflour*, 1 tsp xanthan gum, 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1 Tbsp baking powder, 3/4 tsp cinnamon.

Wet Ingredients: 1/2 cup butter (slightly softened), 1 tsp vanilla, 1/3 cup water.

Put dry ingredients in the bowl of a heavy mixer. With mixer on low add wet ingredients to dry. After mixing for about 2 minutes, dough should start to form a ball. Remove from mixer, dough should resemble a large ball of firm play dough. Preheat oven to 320 degrees. Grease cookie sheet and set aside. Divide dough in half and roll out 1/4 inch thick on a countertop dusted with cornstarch. You can cut the dough into rectangles, or use a cookie cutter of your choice. Cut dough and place on cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes. They will feel soft but firm up as they cool. Cool on cookie sheet for 5-8 minutes (the longer they cool on the sheet the crispier they will be. Makes about 2 dozen.

*Unflour

Ingredients: 6 cups rice flour (brown or white), 5 cups cornstarch, 3 cups tapioca flour.

Mix ingredients together and store in an airtight container until ready to use.

I ended up straying from a plain cheesecake, and decided to make an Ameretto Cheesecake. It was one of the best cheesecakes I have ever had. I may be a little bias but I’d dare you to find one better.