Gluten-free Gourmand

Introducing my latest gluten-free sourdough creation, this bread is very soft, fairly sour, high in whole grains, and has a strong rye-like flavor.  It's going to make a great Reuben sandwich! Ingredients and Equipment  Here’s a list with affiliate links to some of the products I used in this recipe: Emile Henry Bread Cloche Ivory Teff flour Brown Teff Flour  Light Buckwheat Flour Oval bannetons for a batard Kitchenaid Artisan Stand Mixer Kitchenaid glass bowl  Replacement Kitchenaid attachements   Lame for scoring Of course, you don't need a pantry full of new equipment to be able to make this recipe. You can easily mix by hand in a regular mixing bowl, and bake in any lidded vessel that's rated for high heat. Marbled "Rye" Style Sourdough Bread Recipe First Mix: 20 min First Rise: about 12 hours Second Mix and shape: 10-20 min Second Rise: 2-5 hours   Make two doughs simultaneously in separate bowls. Dark Dough: Mix the dry ingredients together: 65g ...

I haven't posted a recipe in a while, so I thought I'd check in and let you know that I'm working on a few recipes that I'm really excited about! Lemon Cookies "Quick"-er "Easy"-er GF Croissants Pain au Chocolat Whole-grain muffins New bread recipes! So tune in on Monday for a real treat!

Sometimes you just need a chocolate treat.  This recipe, adapted from a recipe on A Beach Cottage , was just what I was looking for: used ingredients I already had, was easy to whip up in one cup, and had single serving portions.  The molten center didn't hurt. To make it quick and easy, I have given the ingredients in volume measurements.  It mixes up really fast, then cooks even faster.  It's the perfect recipe for one or two people (full disclosure: I made one for my boyfriend, then ate both servings myself.  Then I made another one later that night.) Molten Mug Cake Recipe

These delicious and amazing cinnamon rolls are easily converted into a vegan recipe by subbing out the butter for coconut oil or other butter substitute of your choice.  The recipe is also easily doubled - just divide the dough into two parts before rolling out.  These are best eaten warm out of the oven, or if you want them next day you can spritz them all over with some water and re-heat them in the oven. Not-too-Slow Cinnamon Rolls Makes 4 large or up to 9 small cinnamon rolls Mix and assemble: 20 minutes Rise: 30-60 minutes Bake: 25-30 minutes In a large bowl, or the mixing bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment, whisk together:

Breads are considered the stuff of life in many cultures.  Those of us who are gluten-free in a gluten-loving country can fee left out of the main event of our culinary heritage.  Knowing something about the history of bread has helped me keep gluten in perspective. When did people start making bread?  The most ancient and the simplest method of making bread does not use fermentation.  This is the method that's still used to make tortillas: a simple mixture of flour and water, patted into a flat circle and grilled on both sides until done.  People have been using this process for making flatbreads since time immemorial. People figured out how to ferment the water-and-flour mixture as long as 20,000 years ago in Africa.  The invention of cultured doughs made injera and other types of sourdough pancakes possible.  The grains used for these yeasted flatbreads are mainly teff and sorghum.

Xanthan gum and guar gum have been the default binders for gluten-free baking in the United States for years.  However, these substances have their limitations.  They have no nutrient value, for starters.  Then there's the fact that they don't give you much in the way of flexibility or strength in your final baked good.  Did you ever make a gluten-free cupcake that tasted like cardboard and crumbled apart in your hand as you tried to eat it?  Even though you put twice as much liquid into the recipe than you would have for "regular"flour?  You can blame xanthan gum for that. The best binders out there for your gluten-free baking may not be what you thought they were.  Chia, flax, and psyllium are the "it" girls of gluten-free bread baking right now.   I'll tell you why and how. Chia Seed  Origin: Mexico and Central America Remember the Chia Pet?  The same seeds that you might have used to coat a clay doll to grow green "ha...

I like this recipe because it doesn't rely too heavily on the flour.  Any recipe that has as much chocolate and butter as it does flour is okay by my.  This method of making cake batter results in a spectacular spongy structure.  If you would like to make this with regular gluten-ful flour, simply substitute it out by volume and omit the chia seed if desired. I adapted both of these recipes from the Joy of Cooking , which I use constantly for recipe inspiration. Chocolate Cupcakes Recipe Makes 9 large or 12 small cupcakes Have all ingredients at room temperature.  Heat the oven to 350 F. Whisk together in a medium mixing bowl, then set aside: 1/2 cup gluten-free cake flour,  pastry flour , or 1:1 gluten-free flour 1/2 cup dutch processed cocoa 1/4 tsp salt + a pinch 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp chia seed, very finely ground In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream with the paddle attachment for 30 seconds: 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter ...

This winter I came up with many new bread recipes which I published here on my blog.  All of them involved my bread mixes which came out last fall and which I ship anywhere in the United States.  One day on my Facebook page I got this comment from a reader in response to my vegan sandwich bread recipe: Samantha Matete and I ended up swapping a bunch of messages about gluten-free bread making which eventually resulted in my blog post about how to make your own gluten-free bread flour blend .  Samantha ended up trying some of the ideas that I threw out.  I was excited to see pictures of her loaves once she did some experimenting. Here are some notes from Samantha about what she did on these loaves of bread: "Well I am definitely hooked on your bread recipes that I have been querying you about! The first 2 photos are following the vegan sandwich bread recipe and method. The 3rd photo is following the teff bread recipe and the 4th was a reci...

Last week I let people request a recipe .  I've been working on a list of recipes that people have requested since about this time last year.  I've also been thinking about making biscuits since about this time last year, which is when a friend emailed a southern-style biscuit recipe to me.  When someone commented on my post asking for biscuits, I couldn't put it off any longer. How could I not have made biscuits until now?  They are so delicious!  This recipe is an adaptation of my friend Byron's southern-style biscuit recipe. Southern-style Biscuits Recipe Makes 8 biscuits Have everything very cold, except the oven which you should pre-heat right away to 500 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine: 270 g (2 cups) No. 2 Pastry Flour (OR No. 1 All-purpose Flour plus 1/4 tsp xanthan gum) 1 Tbsp Baking soda a scant 1/2 tsp salt Whisk the dry ingredients together.  Cut in: 6 Tbsp unsalted butter Blend in the butter until the mixture has piec...

My old house was a real fixer.  I was constantly knee-deep in, or recovering from, renovation projects. Some of the best advice I ever got about home projects is "always have the right tools for the job." The person who said it backed up the statement by buying me a very nice cordless power drill . That drill still comes in handy, even now when I don't have the heavy-duty projects I used to take on.  This power tool kept me from spending hours of extra time trying to put together a deck with a screwdriver. Gluten-free baking is kind of like trying to put together a deck with a screwdriver instead of a cordless power drill.  There are things that just don't work in exactly the same way with gluten-free as they do with "regular" flour.  That's why having the right tools for the job is essential for making good use of your time and resources when you're learning how to bake gluten-free.  Here are five essential tools you can add to your arsenal ...

I went out to my garden this weekend and I was blown away by how big everything got after being away for a week.  I harvested five artichokes!  I gave one away to another gardener at my community garden.  Then I saw my strawberries.  It took a while to even locate and pick them all.  Then I had an unusual problem: what do I do with all these strawberries? I could just eat some of them, sure.  And I did.  Immediately.  But for once in my life I had too many strawberries. I decided to whip something up.  My idea was to make something incredibly quick, but still with a beautiful flaky crust.  I had this idea that pie crust doesn't need to take as long as it does with gluten dough because it doesn't need to rest to "relax" the gluten.  Whether or not that's strictly true is unimportant.  Sure, it helps to rest the dough to get the water to absorb evenly, but for the sake of a Lightning Tartlet I decided to omit the resting. ...

Do you want to experience the feeling of endless layers of buttery dough shattering against your teeth as you bite into a lovely pastry?  Then you need to make yourself some of these gluten-free croissants, because odds are that no one is going to make them for you.  It's hard to get good glutinous croissants let alone GF ones, so you will have to fend for yourself.  This recipe does take several hours to a day to prep, but it's worth the time and effort for fabulous, flaky, buttery gluten-free croissants. Note: This recipe takes about 24 hours.  If that's too long to wait for your croissants, check out my newer recipe, Quicker and Easier Croissants. I learned many things about croissant making and gluten-free dough while developing this recipe.  I've done a separate post on tips for making gluten-free croissants that you can read for more details.  I also have a post with more photos for laminating the dough that you should read before delving int...

I assure you that I am the most impatient cook ever.  If there is a step that can be skipped or a corner that can be cut I will skip and cut at the same time.  I tend to look at recipes as a collection of concepts, many of which are just the author's unscientific and convoluted way of going about making something that should be very straightforward.  I look at recipes for methods for creating something, then I modify that method and create something similar, but mine, and faster and better. Near-perfect croissants that split a little It's this tendency to change things and modify that makes croissants a tricky thing for me.  They are very dependent on technique and making them is very detail-oriented.  I'm more of a big picture person. It's also this tendency to change a recipe that allowed me to figure out how to make croissants gluten-free.  It's a long and grueling process to make the laminated dough.  I simplified it.  Trus...

I used to say that the only things I missed about eating gluten were croissants and beer.  Those of you that follow my Facebook page know that I've been working really hard to perfect a recipe for croissants.  My next post will be about making the croissant dough.  This post will be about the technique for laminating dough for puff pastry, croissants and danishes.  The three types of dough are a little different from each other, but the technique to incorporate the butter into the dough is the same for all three recipes. You will need: Ingredients 1 recipe puff pastry, croissant, or danish dough. chilled butter for the recipe, usually 12 oz/3sticks/340 grams 2 Tbsp GF flour or starch of your choice potato starch for dusting the dough Equipment parchment paper or, less desirable, plastic wrap rolling pin, preferably a club-style pin but I use a marble rolling pin A dry, clean pastry brush I drew heavily from Joe Pastry's blog post about this same t...