Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe (Corn-free)

I've been wanting to come up with a creamy frosting for my Yellow Cake with Brown Sugar Glaze Recipe,  to use instead of the sugar glaze.  With the help of my husband and daughter, the three of us came up with a perfectly creamy, delicious cream cheese frosting that uses Caster sugar (super fine cane sugar) instead of powdered sugar (I found the Caster sugar at my local PCC Market).  I also use Singing Dog Organic Pure Vanilla Extract in this recipe (found at my local Metropolitan Market), which is corn-free.  So now we're good to go!

Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

1 cup whipped cream cheese
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup Caster sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine all ingredients using an electric mixer and beat until smooth.  Add about 20 drops of food color to get a nice light color shade to the frosting.  This recipe will frost a 9x12 cake.  Refrigerate cake after frosting it.

Flour Tortillas Recipe (Corn-free)

Sam is sensitive to corn, and in ridding my kitchen of corn products and its derivatives, I discovered that I cannot buy flour tortillas in the store without cornstarch in them.  We eat a lot of Mexican food in our house, so I had to come up with a flour tortilla recipe that doesn't use cornstarch (baking powder).  This recipe took a lot of trial and error to come up with, but the result is fantastic.  The hardest part was determining the correct oil/water combination to give the tortillas the right texture and consistency.  These tortillas are flexible, slightly chewy, and work great for soft tacos, quesadillas, tostadas, enchiladas, etc.  You can store them in a plastic bag in the fridge for up to a week, or freeze them for later use.

Flour Tortillas Recipe

2 cups unbleached flour, plus flour for dusting work surface
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp vegetable oil mixed with 1/2 cup water
Additional water to bring dough together

In a medium mixing bowl, mix together the dry ingredients.  In a small cup, using a fork, mix together the oil and water until well combined.  Pour the oil/water mixture over the dry ingredients and use the fork to mix it all together.  Continue adding small amounts of water and stirring it together just until a ball of dough is formed - do not over water it.  If you accidentally add to much water and the dough is too wet, add flour until it is a nice ball of dough.

Heat a flat indoor grill pan or large skillet sprayed with non-stick cooking spray to Medium heat.  Dust your work surface with a little flour.  Either divide the dough into 8 equal pieces, or just estimate and take a small bit of dough in your floured hands and roll it into a ball.  Lay it on the work surface and use a rolling pin to roll it out into a really flat, thin round (about 6 to 8 inches across is good, and the thinner the better).  To get the round shape, keep turning and flipping the dough as you roll it.  Peel it off the work surface and add it to the skillet.  Dust your work surface again and roll another tortilla.

When the tortilla on the skillet bubbles up a bit, or gets light brown spots (about 5 minutes), turn it over and cook the other side for about the same time.  Remove the finished tortillas to a plate and stack them as you go.  Periodically, re-arrange the order of the tortillas on the stack (i.e. move the top ones to the bottom) as the bottom ones get steamed if they stay on the bottom.  Makes about 8 to 10 tortillas depending on how big you make them.  Serve right away still warm, or cool them completely, then store them in a large Ziplock bag and store them in the fridge for up to a week.