How many times have you stumbled upon a crave-worthy recipe, only to find that you don’t have the flour blend required to bake your treat?

That happens all the time, right? Especially when you’re trying to adapt a traditional recipe into a gluten-free one.

Today we cloned a gluten-free recipe, PinkMusicTeacher’s Blueberry Cobbler. The ingredient list called for a particular flour blend that we didn’t have on hand, but we experimented and came up with our own gluten-free flour blend! Check out the recipe card for our blend.

If you’d like to make this recipe dairy-free: Substitute the butter with canola oil and use vanilla rice milk instead of cow’s milk. One thing to note: You’ll want to use only 2 tablespoons of canola oil, since it is not solid when cold, like butter. Also, because rice milk is lean, you’ll use a bit less than 3/4 of a cup of it (start with 1/2 cup and slowly add 1/8 of a cup more, as needed).

Not on a special diet and still want to bake your cobbler from scratch? You can still follow this recipe! Use all-purpose flour and omit the xanthan gum. You’ll also want to add the milk 1/4 cup at a time (since gluten-free baked goods require more liquid).

Here are a few tricks I’ve learned while baking gluten-free:
1. Xanthan gum helps the baked good stay together, without xanthan gum (or guar gum), you’ll likely end up with a crumbly cake or cookie!
2. More liquid is usually required in gluten-free baked goods because the xanthan or guar gum thicken the batter.

For a majority of the country, spring is the time for flip-flops, tank-tops, and taking a break from the stove top! Meals can be enjoyed outside in the sunshine. Plan a picnic with these light warm-weather recipes.

Make your own deli style sandwich at home using your favorite fresh ingredients and lmarchan74’s Roast Turkey, Avocado and Bacon Sandwich. Or throw a little something different into the basket; SandyCon’s Curried Chicken Salad Sandwich with Cranberries and Walnuts offers a healthy and flavorful way to serve up a chicken sandwich with a spicy twist.

Don’t forget the veggies! RocknRollJane’s Asian Coleslaw will appeal to… peanut butter fans? Yep, you won’t find mayo in this salad. Ingredients like peanut butter, vinegar and brown sugar create a unique and savory dressing for her coleslaw.

Instead of bringing a fruit salad to your picnic this year, make a fruity dessert. We tested out this Peach and Blackberry Pie and declare that it’s a winner. Not much sugar is required to bring out the flavor in this naturally sweet dessert. Light and colorful, it’ll quickly become your go-to pie recipe :). Try it!

I’ll be the first to admit that making caramel sauce is not easy! For some, it might not require much effort, but I have gone through a couple of bags of sugar before actually succeeding in making caramel sauce (instead of just sugar crystals :).

Why was it so tough for me if I followed the directions? I overlooked a very important detail…

The secret to making a homemade caramel sauce is this: don’t over-stir!

Also, just what is golden brown? You’ll want to know the answer to that before making caramel sauce! “Golden brown” is a description that gets thrown around quite a bit in caramel recipes.

Here are a few photos from our last caramel sauce experiment; the last few will give you an idea of how golden your caramel sauce should be (before and after adding the cream).

…right before it browns.

This is the tricky part. You should remove the sauce pan from the burner at this point, because the caramel will quickly brown just from the heat of the pan (and it will burn if exposed to more heat from the stove).

…time to add the cream (add less for a darker sauce). Now you can stir-away and let the sauce thicken! :)

Here’s a recipe we tested awhile ago. Great way to enjoy your homemade caramel sauce! Sticky toffee pudding is a treat you’ll love! Yummy…

With a name like “Olive Garden Minestrone”, you’d expect a fairly tasty soup from tmullen93… and that’s exactly what you get. Once again, homemade beats store-bought, or in this case restaurant food.

You’ll be impressed that tmullen93’s soup comes together in less than 45 minutes and can feed a hungry family, for less than roughly $15! It’s also a completely vegetarian, actually vegan, recipe that will convert even non-minestrone lovers into fans of a very veggie laden Italian soup.

We stuck to the recipe, only adding a few more veggies and omitting some of the beans. The end results were more than satisfying. Served with a grilled cheese on the side (perfect for dipping, by the way), tmullen93’s minestrone soup is colorful, flavorful, healthy and affordable. Everything an Easy Weeknight Meal should be.

Let’s face it, a true breakfast of champions doesn’t come in a box. The kind of breakfast you want to wake up to on a Saturday morning after a busy work week includes the following: eggs, sausage, bacon, french toast, pancakes… I could go on forever. We’ve got even more recipes that are guaranteed to become staples in your home on the weekends.

If you’re a fan of the one-pan breakfast, make room on your plate for andreabenz Southwestern Brunch Bake. Serve it up alongside Jergensen’s Biscuits and Gravy for a real lumberjack breakfast feast.

Pancake and waffle fans will approve of MyTastyTreasures’ Buttermilk Breakfast Cake, starring yesterday’s key ingredient! You’ll also find buttermilk in Tricia33’s cream cheese filled Pecan Pumpkin Filled Pancakes.

If you’ve got the morning shift tomorrow, you can still enjoy something more than a bowl of cold cereal. Nope, not breakfast burritos… a breakfast braid, Chantele’s Jalapeno, Sausage, Jack, and Egg Breakfast Braid. Egg sandwiches on your on-the-go menu? Taiyyaba’s Breakfast Bagel Sliders with Sundried Tomato Butter offer a much tastier way to enjoy scrambled eggs. What do you think?

These days, most of us don’t sit around to watch a very special liquid separate from butter, ferment, and then magically turn into buttermilk after some churning. Instead, we usually head to the grocery store and pick up a simple carton of cultured buttermilk.

Maybe simple isn’t the right word to describe buttermilk…

What exactly is cultured buttermilk? Think yogurt. Lactic acid is added to both to create a low ph environment, yielding a dairy product that’s tart and quite healthy. The low ph limits the growth of bacteria, making both yogurt and buttermilk safe to eat and bake with, especially after pasteurization and homogenization take place. Phew, big words. Now let’s get to the tasty part.

You want to bake with buttermilk, you really do. Why? Not only does it add a little extra something to the flavor of your baked goods, but it also changes the texture. Moist baked goods like biscuits and pancakes are tender because of the added buttermilk. You can even use it to tenderize chicken or a juicy steak before cooking!

So it seems buttermilk is something special, and definitely not simple :).

Need a buttermilk substitute? Combine 1 cup of lowfat milk with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar, mix and let sit for a few minutes before baking up your biscuits.

Ever come across a recipe that sounds incredible, but you’re missing a few ingredients? And because you’ve got experience in the kitchen, or the grease stained apron to prove it, you’re prepared to give it a tastier twist with a few tweaks? We’ve talked about adapting recipes, but we should also mention how you can save these adapted recipes on Key Ingredient.

If you found the original recipe on Key Ingredient, and want to save your changes to the recipe in your personal recipe collection, you can!

Ever wonder what that little “Clone” button located beneath “Save this Recipe” is for? Nope, it’s not for cows! It’s for the creative cook, of course.

When cloning a recipe, you’re able to edit the recipe and save your changes while still giving credit to the recipe creator. A link back to the original is automatically saved in the “About” section of the recipe. Everyone’s happy!

The recipe we cloned today? Date and Cashew Stuffed Chicken. Take a look at our changes, click “About” to view the original and compare our recipe to theirs… then, if you’re feeling adventurous, test out our recipe. We liked it! Let us know what you think :).

Paula from Half Baked is a former cafe owner who’s flipped quite a few crepes in her time. Today she’s going to show us how to make Crepes Suzette! These sweet crepes would make a tasty breakfast or dessert. If you’re looking for a good crepe recipe, you can check out her blog or try Wilda’s All Purpose Crepes or Rwigley’s Gluten Free Crepes.

One of the great things about crepes is you can fill them with almost anything you want, jam, marmalade etc… This recipe is for a sweet crepe but if you wanted to go with a savory filling just omit the sugar. I decided to go classic with my crepes and make Crepes Suzette. Crepes Suzette are a sweet crepe in an orange butter sauce. You flambe (ignite) the sauce at the end for a dramatic presentation. It’s quite simple but looks impressive.

Orange Butter Sauce
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup granulated sugar
zest from one orange
1/2cup orange juice
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp orange liqueur
1 tbsp brandy

Method:
Place ingredients in a large skillet, over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring sugar to melt. Boil for 2-3 minutes until slightly thick. Stir in orange liqueur and brandy boil for 30 seconds more. Using tongs add crepes one at a time to the skillet, dipping in the sauce then quickly folding over twice to form a triangle. Lay folded crepes to one side of pan while you prepare the rest. When all are folded arrange crepes on the bottom of the pan. Drizzle about 1/4 cup of orange liqueur over the crepes. Cook for about 15 seconds spooning the sauce over the crepes. Then, stand back and carefully ignite with a long match or lighter. If you have a gas cook top, you can simple tip the skillet to one side allowing the flame to ignite the sauce. Serve immediately!

I always thought that a good dumpling recipe had to call for either shortening or butter. After all, is it really a dumpling if it’s lean? Don’t we all love sinking our teeth into the comforting taste of a hearty homemade dumpling? So with this in mind, I went on an adventure to seek out a delicious chicken and dumpling recipe that didn’t call for the usual ingredients. I wanted to see if I was missing something, and it turns out I was!

Buttermilk works wonders in the kitchen, particularly in baked goods. It can make a dry cake extra moist, kind of like yogurt, except it yields a much lighter (in texture) dessert. But we’re not baking today, we’re cooking up chicken and dumplings. Where does the buttermilk come in? You’ll be just as surprised as I was to hear that the buttermilk goes into the dumplings!

I was amazed by KennySD’s Old Fashioned Chicken and Dumplings. The tender texture of the surprisingly lean dough reminded me of grandma’s dumplings, even before I had a taste. After the big taste test? I didn’t even think about the butter, they were that good!

So the next time you want to make chicken and dumplings and you’re out of shortening (or butter), try using buttermilk… better yet, follow KennySD’s recipe.

Good food doesn’t have to come with a hefty price tag, you can make a quality meal at home, thanks to Catherine75 from Living the Gourmet. Her recipes can be described as comfort food meets homemade gourmet… or simple and delicious, like her Apple Custard Pie with Oatmeal Crust.

If you’ve been hit by one of the many recent late-winter storms, you’ll want to warm up with her no-fuss Broccoli Cheddar Soup. Still cold? Turn the oven on and bake up a batch of her Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Sunny days don’t seem so far away when you’re enjoying her adapted Jamaican Beef Patties. Serve these alongside Catherine’s Moroccan-Style Carrots with Mustard Seeds and Orange for a truly flavor-packed meal.

Because it’s Friday, let’s finish off this post with a comforting cheesy dish, Catherine’s Macaroni and Cheese! Take a look at how she’s cleverly used her noodle to recreate one of America’s favorite noodley dishes :).