Gluten Free Nutella Pizza

I had the most amazing dessert pizza this summer at a restaurant called Nebo in Boston's historic North End.  On their gluten free menu, it is described as "sweet pizza dough topped with chocolate, Nutella, and chopped hazelnuts"

A few months passed and while making pizza for dinner one night I decided to make my own!  I didn't reference my photo of their pizza or look the menu up online, I just remembered that it involved Nutella and nuts.  Nebo's is much classier looking with the delicately piped chocolate lattice, but mine tasted just as delicious!

Nutella pizza with almonds

My go-to pizza recipe is Bette Hagman's "Yeast-Rising Thick Pizza Crust" recipe from her "Gluten-Free Gourmet" cookbook.  It makes crust for two pizzas.  I cannot recommend a Kitchenaid mixer strongly enough for this crust.  It gets pretty doughey at the end and a regular handheld mixer might choke. 

Bette Hagman's "Yeast-Rising Thick Pizza Crust" with my adaptations:

2 c  rice flour

2 c  tapioca flour

2/3 c  dry milk powder

3 1/2 t  xanthan gum

1 t  salt

2 T  dry yeast granules

1 c  lukewarm water

1 T  sugar

3 T  butter

1/2 c  hot water

4 eggs

Mix dry ingredients in the bowl of your mixer.  Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the lukewarm water.  Melt the butter in the hot water.  Pour the hot water/butter mixture into the mixer and blend.  Add the eggs and blend again.  Last, add the yeast mixture and then beat on high for 4 minutes (might be longer with a handheld mixer)

The beauty of gluten free pizza dough is that there is no rolling or kneading or tossing dough above your head.  It's more like frosting a cake.

Lightly grease your pizza pans.  Spread the dough out across the pan using a spatula.  Officially you are supposed to let it rise 10-20 minutes and then bake in a 400 degree oven for 5-7 minutes before adding toppings.  I typically put it in a cold oven and then set it to bake at 400.  I figure that by the time 400 is reached, it's been a nice warm place to let the dough rise.  So after the oven dings that it's hit 400, I let the crust bake until the top starts to brown just a little (around that 5-7 minute range)

Next, take the crust out of the oven, slap your toppings on, and put it back in the oven until it starts browning!  My impulse to do the Nutella pizza was very last minute so it's incredibly simple.  I just slathered Nutella on the crust and sprinkled on a package of slivered almonds and then put it back in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

Next time I would plan in advance and get hazelnuts.  I'd also add a little sugar to the dough if I were planning to make a whole dessert pizza.  You could also just bake the crust with butter and sugar and the hazelnuts on top and then add the Nutella after baking.

delicious half and half cheese and Nutella pizza... mmmm...

note the classier design of the inspiration Nutella pizza at Nebo (so tasty that we were halfway through before remembering to take a photo!)

Gluten Free "Gooey Butter Cake"

Gooey Butter Cake... the name says it all!

Surprisingly, despite my love of butter and cream and all things yummy I've never thought about checking out Paula Deen's recipes before.  This past Saturday, one of my friends came over and we had a girl's day out with shopping, lunch, and some baking.  She brought Paula Deen's recipe for Gooey Butter cake and naturally we made our version gluten free.

I'm thinking that the gluten free version is even tastier and more decadent than her original because Paula uses a box of cake mix and we used the dry ingredients from a scratch-made yellow cake recipe (from the classic Better Homes and Gardens checkerboard cookbook).  In my opinion, buying a gluten free cake mix is a good waste of money... they're around $4 a box and typically makes just one layer of cake.  That's a lot considering that there's not much in boxed mixes besides flour, baking powder, and xanthan gum.  There's nothing mysterious or hard to make about it!

You can find Paula Deen's original recipe all over the internet, so I'll just share my gluten free adaptation.

preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Crust:
2 1/2 cups gluten free flour (I used the 4 Flour Bean Mix from Bette Hagman's cookbooks)
1 1/4 tsp xanthan gum
2 1/2 tsp banking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 c sugar
1 egg
1 stick butter, melted

Combine and mix well with an electric mixer.  Grease a 9x13 baking pan and pat the mixture into the bottom of the pan using wax paper.

Filling:
1 8oz package cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 stick butter, melted
1 16 ounce box powdered sugar

Beat cream cheese until smooth.  Add eggs, vanilla, and butter and beat together.  Slowly add powdered sugar and mix well.  Spread over the crust and bake for 40-50 minutes.  The cake should be a little gooey in the center, make sure not to overbake.  It turns out more like a bar cookie than a cake.

We ran a knife around the edge after we took the pan out of the oven.  It was hard not to sample immediately!  After about 20 minutes we dove in...  and it was deliciously gooey and warm!  Paula's recipe calls for it to serve 6-8, but I'm pretty sure that it should be thought of as more like 16 servings!  It's so rich that I think if you really ate a sixth of the pan, you'd get ill!

mmm... just look at that buttery flaky crust!

Gluten Free: Boston

I could just cry.  I had my whole post pretty much finished (a month ago) and somehow in moving to another tab and back again, hit something crazy and deleted the whole damn thing.   And the autosave function so helpfully instantly saved it as a blank page.  *sigh* starting over...  a month later

Cuchi Cuchi
795 Main Street
Cambridge, MA
Cuchi Cuchi is one of the most fun restaurants I've been to.  They have great decor and the waitstaff dresses up in a Moulin Rouge type theme.  (There is a costume room in back, we had to ask our waitress where their outfits came from!)  Rarely does a restaurant have a theme and costumed waitstaff AND fantastic food all in one, but Cuchi Cuchi does it all.  The drink menu has one fun named drink after another and since it was a girl's night out with a group of friends, I think we must have tried them all!  The menu is a variety of small plates (the menu points out that it's not tapas which are Spanish)  and there is a special gluten free menu.  I tried the seafood avocado, ceviche, gratin dauphinois, and berries with fruit kissel and cream.  Everything was amazing.

Seafood Filled Avocado at Cuchi Cuchi

Scallop Ceviche Shot at Cuchi Cuchi

Joe's American Grill
181 Newbury St
Boston, MA
I liked Joe's so much that I ate here three times!  There is a special gluten free menu so ordering was a breeze.  The gluten free pizza was really good, good enough that I got it twice : )  The third visit, I decided to roll the dice and get the lobster mac&cheese with the gluten free noodles.  The waiter told me that it might be a little soupy since they would have to leave off the breadcrumbs that usually soak up some of the sauce - I was not to be deterred and ordered it anyway.  The gluten free lobster mac&cheese was pretty good and I did enjoy it, but the waiter was definitely correct about the soupy-ness.

Gluten Free Margherita Pizza at Joe's

Gluten Free Lobster Mac&Cheese at Joe's

Jacob Wirth
31 Stuart Street
Boston, MA
You can't argue with a historic pub restaurant that offers $1 Root Beer Floats - especially when they also have a special gluten free menu.  I enjoyed the potato pancakes with roasted apples and cinnamon cream.  Jacob Wirth's is also special because it's located in one of the only remaining Victorian bow front row houses in that area of downtown.  It's been in the same location since 1878.

Potato Pancake with Roasted Apples at Jacob Wirth

Finale

1 Columbus Ave

Boston, MA

Finale is an uppity dessert bar adjacent to Boston's Park Plaza hotel off of the Commons, but has amazing desserts (most of which aren't gluten free).  But - they do offer a gluten free menu.  I enjoyed the cheesecake with berries and a flight of hot chocolates!

flight of hot chocolates at Finale

gluten free cheesecake at Finale

Nebo Italian Restaurant

90 N. Washington

Boston, MA

Nebo is a completely delicious Italian restaurant on the edge of Boston's famed North End.  They even won a throwdown with Bobby Flay - though the reason I picked it was the extensive gluten free menu.  They offer a special gluten free menu and everything we got was amazing.  There were so many appetizers on the gluten free menu, so we ordered two:  the mascarpone polenta with wild mushroom ragu and burrata with proscuitto and a balsamic fig glaze.  For dinner, I had the gluten free pasta bolognese.  There was barely room for dessert, but we managed to enjoy a couple of slices of the dessert pizza with chocolate, nutella, and hazelnuts.  We also ordered the flight of bellinis (strawberry, raspberry, mango and peach), which was completely amazing but my picture is awful (and yes, I took it before drinking the bellinis!) so I'm putting up the picture from their website because it's so beautiful.

bellini flight!!!

what survived of the gluten free dessert pizza at Nebo

Montien Thai

63 Stuart St
Boston, MA
Possibly the best Thai food I've had.  Rumor has it that visiting dignitaries from Thailand eat here when they come to Boston, and I believe it.

B.Good
locations around the greater Boston Area
Any burger place that offers gluten free hamburger buns is ok by me (especially if they have a big sign advertising it!)... and the ones at B. Good were fantastically soft and had a great texture.  The milkshake and fries were tasty as well.

Ufood Grill
locations around Boston
I liked the idea of a place serving healthy fast food, but it turns out that they didn't have a whole lot of gluten free options and what they had, I wasn't really into - though I applaud them for noting which are gluten free right on the menu (like all restaurants ought to!).

Kickass Cupcakes
378 Highland Ave
Somerville, MA
This is one of my favorite cupcake shops and I was so glad to see that it's still around (and expanded even) since the last time I was in Boston.  The cupcakes are so nice looking that last time we were there, my husband even accidentally ordered one that was meant for dogs (don't worry, the clerk then told him he probably meant to pick a people flavor) - the dog ones are on the bottom shelf and he's pretty tall so he couldn't see the sign.

Tasti D Lite
Newbury St
Boston, MA
An import from NYC, Tasti D Lite is soft serve ice cream and pretty tasty.  The allure is mainly that they have around 100 rotating flavors and it's a different selection every day (therefore making it fun!).  We ate a fair amount of Tasti D Lite during our three weeks in New York a year ago August... but it wasn't until we were in line this time behind some savvy Boston regulars that we learned you can get them to mix up a personal batch of ANY of their flavors for you for around $1 extra.  So you can have orange creamsicle every day!

Farther Afield:


Alice's Diner
Fall River, MA
I didn't get to go here because of their hours on Monday, but I'm including it because it's quite a find.  The gluten free menu is out of this world and if everything tastes as good as it ought to, it would be worth a visit!  Gluten free offerings include:  belgian waffle, pancake, french toast, crepes, fried chicken, fried seafood, sandwiches, and onion rings.

O'Brien's Pub
Newport, RI
We took a day trip down to Newport, RI to check out the mansions (a couple of which had ballrooms as large as our entire house no joke) and found this place for dinner.  The weather was great, so we ate outside on the really large patio.  People had their dogs along for drinks/dinner and it was fun to watch them.  The dog behind us is clearly into our food!  Moments later, she jerked so hard on her leash that the owner's chair (with the lady in it) fell over sideways.  Note to self:  don't tie your large dog's leash to your plastic chair).  O'Brien's had limited gluten free offerings, but most importantly, they were labelled and in a section of their own, and I will take good menu labeling over lots of top secret gluten free options that you have to ask a waiter about any day..  The pizza was fantastic!!!

Gluten Free pizza at O'Brien's

Gluten Free: Hartford

Tracking down gluten free foods has become a real focus for me when I travel.  I have found other people's blogs so helpful that I finally decided I ought to make a record of my gluten free travel experience to share with others!

I was in Hartford for a week and found a few great gluten free places.  I forgot to take pictures of my delicious food though : (

Max Burger
124 LaSalle Rd
West Hartford, CT
I love anywhere that offers a gluten free bun because it's still a huge luxury to me.  The burger was delicious!  Max Burger has all natural burgers and a kind of upscale burger joint feel.  It's in the "Main Street" area of West Hartford and there are lots of shops and other restaurants around.  Two thumbs up!  Max Burger is one of several restaurants that are owned by the Max Restaurant Group and they all had gluten free menus.

Agave Grill
100 Allyn St
Hartford, CT
There wasn't a specific gluten free menu, but Mexican restaurants are usually pretty easy for accommodating a gluten free person.  I loved the tableside guacamole making, and my tacos were tasty.

The Market at Hartford 21
230 Asylum St
Hartford, CT
This is a wonderful little grocery store right downtown.  They've got the basics, gourmet items, and most importantly, some gluten free things!  They even had little gf frozen pizzas.

Dee's One Smart Cookie
398 Hebron Avenue
Glastonbury, CT
Absolutely worth the drive!!  Our waiter at MaxBurger told us that Dee's is where their gf hamburger buns came from.  Naturally, I had to go check it out!  She has all manner of gluten free goodies... cookies, cakes, bread, pastries, etc.   I got hamburger buns and hot dog buns to take home and freeze (and months later they're still tasty!).  This pink house is next to Dee's and is a great landmark (we drove right past Dee's shop and turned around here)

Royal Wedding Party

I was very excited about the royal wedding, but not excited enough to get up before dawn to watch.  That's why we've had a DVR for years and what the royal wedding viewing party was for.  I stayed so busy all day with preparing for the party that I actually didn't even cheat and look online to see the dress ahead of the party.

The tea party we threw to celebrate the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton was so fun!  Three friends and I went all out figuring out a good British tea party menu, a royal wedding pub trivia game, and fish and chips to eat while watching the (recorded) wedding coverage.  Including us, there were 24 invited and 13 said they'd be able to come... it turned out to be a good sized party!

The menu:

cucumber sandwiches
egg mayonnaise sandwiches (egg salad to us Americans)
spicy cheese crackers
tea biscuits (crackers to us)
cheese
grapes

scones

clotted cream

preserves

shortbread and lemon cream cheese pastries

cinnamon streusel mini cakes

linzer cookies

trifle

Eton Mess (whipped cream stirred with strawberries and meringue cookies)

a selection of teas (of course)

lemonade

Pimms

cider

champagne

Our party was slated to start at a totally reasonable 4pm tea time which of course we were behind schedule on - thank goodness most of the guests were arriving around 6...  by the time we all had a good chat and enjoyed the tea party fare then did the royal family pub trivia, we didn't start watching the wedding coverage until 9pm!  We finally got hungry for the fish and chips partway into the wedding viewing but TRAGICALLY after all that we were too full to even attempt to eat any trifle or Eton mess. The nice bit about hosting a party is that you get to snack on the leftovers all day the next day.

Also, I'd choose hosting a party that out partied itself any day over a party that ran out of food and entertainment too early.  So we ended up with the good side of that coin even though it meant lots of extra dessert and a very late night!

It was a really classy affair (except for the paper napkins) and we even got to use the hand-me-down glass plates that have been stored untouched in the china cabinet for years.

See the biscuit server between the cheese and melba toasts... you have to love a little silver basket shaped specifically for serving crackers!  We're also admiring the re-use of the paper peonies that decorated the arbor at our wedding last year : )

Other than the sandwiches, linzer cookies, crackers, and cinnamon cakes, everything was gluten free (meaning my kitchen was quite busy for the two days before the party!)

mmmmmm clotted cream, lemon curd, and raspberry and strawberry preserves

mmmmmmm homemade cream biscuits (gluten free naturally) - and the adorable size was achieved by using a champagne flute to cut the biscuits out : )

I was really thrilled to get to use a lot of the silver, china, and crystal fancy serving dishes and platters that belonged to my grandmother.  I also got to pull out my variety of demitasse spoons which are my absolute favorite.  Who doesn't love tiny spoons?

adorable silver servers, tiny spoons and my grandmother's sugar tongs *love*

Lindsay's tea pots with very sweet tea cozies knitted by her mother

A last minute find at the store - the most perfect and adorable set of wine glass charms ever - they come in a set of 12 and are different flower shapes and colors.  They looked so perfect and lovely with my daisy china and were definitely needed since everyone had the matching tea cups!

Most importantly, I finally got to wear my totally amazing hat.  I got it at the silent auction at a Costume Society symposium 4 years ago and have been waiting to create the occasion to wear it ever since.  I decorated with more hats in the TV room!

Thanks Wills and Kate!

*ahem*  I mean Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge