Baking and cooking without wheat

My gluten-free recipe collection!

Welcome to my gluten free section! I've been gluten free for a couple years and Id like to share what I've learned. I won't give you any long-winded medical explanations, I'm not a doctor and you likely know what gluten does to your body! I will have a few recipes and a comparison of different starches and flours with the ones I have found give the best results.

These are my favourite gluten free/wheat free recipes. Several are my adaptations of recipes I used back in the day when I could eat wheat flour. They were too good to give up, and since I knew nothing about gluten free baking, I used trial and error to make my own gluten free versions.

I know about food chemistry and what gluten does in the baking process, so I tried to come up with a way to add the binding properties of the gluten, without the terrible effects on my health. I didn't have a cookbook telling me "Gluten free doughs must be soggy" or "You cannot take ordinary recipes and just change the flour to a gluten free flour!" SO I didn't know these so-called rules and therefore I wasn't bound by them. I made up my own rules as I went along. ~story of my life in so many ways!~ In the process of experimenting I learned that baked goods such as cookies --where gluten can make hard tough cookies, are better with gluten free flours. Cakes are also moister and more tender without the gluten, which can form rubbery elastic strings in cakes. Pastries are more problematic, but it seems that most GF pastry recipes are simply too wet. Experimentation continues!

You may notice that a few of my recipes are drier than traditional GF recipes. There is really no reason for gluten free doughs to be so soggy, all they do is make soggy and heavy baked goods. Soggy cakes and heavy cookies are simply unacceptable to me, so I adapted several GF recipes so that they were no longer soggy. I'm a cake and cookie snob! I learned baking from my Mennonite grandmother, she made her cakes and cookies without recipes, all she had in her handwritten book were lists of ingredients. She and my other Mennonite relatives could make up recipes on the fly, and I think I inherited a bit of their cooking skill. I made up several cookie recipes, and if I didn't like the results of a published recipe, I changed it to suit my tastes. I made my own hamburger buns and pizza doughs, I even fussed around with cake recipes. Along the way I learned food chemistry and most of my experiments were successful. When I was forced into going wheat free, it seemed a natural extension to create my own GF recipes.

As an aside, it was while making Christmas cookies I realized that I had a problem. In one day I made five batches of various cookies, tasting the dough, trying the cookies...by the end of the day I was bloated, gassy, headache-y --I thought perhaps I had too much rich cookie dough. The next day when I had pasta and my stomach began turning inside out, I began to put two and two together. I kept track of what I was eating and gradually noticed a pattern, and not the kind from the Simplicity sewing catalogue. I was also having other problems with my health, I was eating all the time, constantly sitting on the toilet, always hungry, yet loosing weight at an alarming pace. When I visited the doctor he could see my ribs, and I had the characteristic "Flat butt bulging gut" that is apparently a symptom. The doctor also told me to keep a food diary and he took a bunch of blood tests. Between the test and the diary, he recommended I eliminate wheat and since then all my strange health problem disappeared.

A note about flours and starches.

• Potato starch: Don't confuse with Potato flour! (Unless you are Canadian and buying a small box labeled Club House Brand potato flour, which is actually potato starch!) Potato starch is soft, fine white and bland in flavour. It makes excellent gravy, without any starchy taste. It can be very lumpy and the lumps can be impossible to stir away once a liquid is added, so measure it and then put it through a fine sifter or sieve to break up the lumps. Keep plenty on hand for day to day use.
• Cornstarch: Very Fine, very soft. I have a selection of pure cornstarch recipes from the nineteen sixties that are still to this day found on a manufacturer's website. The flavour is usually mild. There is also something called popcorn starch, which is nuttier in flavour. Sadly, it's hard to find and expensive. Corn starch is not as lumpy as potato starch. Keep plenty of cornstarch on hand as it's good for a variety of day to day baking. Cornstarch makes melt in you mouth cookies.
• White Rice flour: There is no reason to use gritty, foul tasting white rice flour in anything! White rice flour is often coarse and gritty, even the fine flour. I personally don't like the flavour of white rice flour, I think it has the taste and texture of sawdust. The fine sweet rice flours aren't much better in my opinion and I believe rice flour is why Gluten free baked goods have such a nasty reputation.
• Brown Rice flour: If you have an organic food market nearby and they sell extra fine brown rice flour, get it! It's less gritty that the white rice flour, it is more nutritious and has fibre in it. It can go rancid, so store it somewhere cool and dark and in an air tight container. I prefer brown rice flour over white rice flour. Rice flour makes cookies with a crisper texture.
• Tapioca starch:A good baking starch, adds body and chewiness to baked goods. It can have a slightly sweet, slight licorice taste that is very pleasant in cookies and cakes. It can be heavy, however. If your baked goods fall flat and turn into a gelatin like mess, you have used too much tapioca flour. A recipe should never contain more than one third tapioca starch in the total amount. Also be aware that some people with ultra-sensitive digestive systems can have a reaction to tapioca starch. If you eat something with tapioca and you get sick, change to something else. But what?
• Arrowroot starch/flour. A lady in the health food store told me she only uses arrowroot flour and nothing else, and she uses it as a cup for cup substitute for in any recipe calling for wheat flour. Arrowroot is slightly sweet, very fine and adds a nice texture to cakes and pancakes. It's traditionally used to make shiny dessert glazes
• Bean flour: I don't like bean flour, in spite of the fact that it's more nutritious than plain starches. I have yet to find a bean flour that doesn't have a harsh metallic taste when baked. It can be used in savoury baking, such as garlic bread, savory muffins and anywhere that the metallic taste is masked with herbs and other flavors, but not in sweet baking where the metallic flavour overwhelms everything else. It also make cookies heavy and dense.
• Others: flaxseed, millet, amaranth, and quinoa flakes all add nutrition and flavour to baked goods. Adding these to a basic muffin gives you a healthy, filling and nutritious snack. These also turn rancid quickly, so store them in an air tight container in the fridge. Millet can be cooked like oatmeal, according to my Indian cooking Guru at "Spice of India" downtown Kitchener. Spelt and kamut are types of wheat. DO NOT USE THEM! Don't let anyone try to tell you they are safe. The same goes for "De-glutened wheat starch" --whatever that is supposed to be. In my mind that phrase is an oxymoron. Rye, barley and oats are also no-nos, but you likely know that by now. Some oat advertises itself as safe, but I'm not nibbling at the bait, nor am I buying the hype. (or the oats, for that matter!) Honestly, with so many other safe choices out there, why risk it? The jury is still out on Buckwheat, which is a member of the dock family. Some people use it with no ill effects, others find it makes them ill. Personally, I can't stand the taste, so I don't use it.

Binding agents are important to wheat free baking. I use pectin crystals, like Certo, in cookies. Xanthan gum is used in everything. Unflavoured Gelatin is used in bread as it gives bread a very bread like texture. I don't use guar gum, I'm one of the not-so-lucky ones who reacts to it. There are other binding agents, such as agar-agar and seaweed extracts, but they are too expensive for me.

These are my favourite. My kids and their friends also love them. You can serve these to guests and they won't know they are eating a Gluten Free cookie, and neither will you. Preheat oven to 375° for these cookies.

1. Mix together the flour ingredients, soda, salt and xanthan gum. Set aside.
2. Beat butter with electric mixer butter until creamy. Beat in both sugars and vanilla until creamy. Next, add eggs and beat well.
3. Add flour mixture in thirds and stir well after each addition.
4. Stir in chocolate chips and mix well.
5. Make a test cookie. Take a small lump of dough, flatten slightly and bake. Watch carefully. It should spread a bit, but still remain a lump. If it flattens out completely or runs, add cornstarch to the dough, a couple tablespoons at a time. The dough should be moist, not liquid. It should be a similar consistency to its gluten containing counterpart.
6. drop the cookies on a cookie sheet, flatten slightly with a fork and bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
7. This dough can be rolled into a sausage shape, wrapped in plastic wrap and saved for later. It can be sliced and baked like those store-bought tubes of dough, if that's what you want to do!
8. This dough can also be made into one giant cookie! Increase the amount of cornstarch to one full cup so the dough won't spread, and press it out on a round pizza baking sheet. Bake a bit longer, no more than 15 minutes. It can be topped with ice cream and sprinkled with various candies and sprinkles, making a wonderful desserts pizza.

1. Mix together dry ingredients and set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar with electric mixer. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
3. Add dry ingredients in thirds, blending well. This dough should moist yet stiff, not runny or liquid. Add cornstarch until dough seems stiff.
4. Refrigerate dough. Make into ball about one inch in diameter. Place on cookie sheet. Press something in the middle, like a chocolate chip, half a nut, a candy or whatever.
5. Bake for 6 to eight minutes; until dough is set. Cool on wire racks.

You do not need rice flour to make shortbread, no matter what anyone has told you. These are quite simple and follow the classic recipe very closely. You don't add milk or eggs or baking soda or anything else that isn't in the traditional shortbread recipe. This dough is very dry but produces a melt-in-your-mouth powdery sweet cookie, just like a real shortbread. While it can be rolled, the dryness of the dough makes it prone to cracking. I hand pressed mine into little discs and used the tines of a fork to add little indentations along the edge. Sprinkles or candies or nuts can be placed in the center before baking, or you can use a bit of coloured icing on them, especially if you want a fancy Christmas cookie. This one fooled my guests at Christmas. Preheat the oven to 325° for these cookies.

1. Mix the dry ingredients and set aside.
2. Mix the butter and sugars together until they are creamy. The traditional method is to use a big wooden spoon. The Scottish method (so I am told) is to use your hands.
3. Add half the flour mixture and stir in well with your traditional wooden spoon.
4. Add final half of flour mixture and mix well with your hands, (like a good Scottish baker!) Seriously, using your hand is the only way to get the flour to blend with the butter and sugar.
5. The mixture will be dry, but it should hold it's shape. If it is too dry then blend together two tablespoons of butter, and a tablespoon of brown sugar and blend it into the dough. Add as much as needed to make a nice, stiff dough. Unlike Gluten flour dough, which can be overworked and turn out tough, it's impossible to overwork this gluten free cookie dough.
6. Roll into small balls with you hands and coax into flat disc shapes. you may now decorate them if you want to.
7. Bake at 325 until the dough is set, that is, no longer shiny on top. I can't give you a time because I don't know how hot your oven is! :-) Watch the cookies like a hawk! The surface may crack a little. Do not brown! They should be a pale golden colour.
8. Cool on a wire rack. But do try one warm right out of the oven.

Perhaps you are like me, you also have many bread recipes. And every time you see a new bread recipe, you are compelled to try it. That is because you are like me and still searching for that perfect bread...the one with the taste, texture and softness of good old wonder bread. I used to be like you, but not any longer. Because this is the only bread I make now. Really, you don't need three hundred bad bread recipes--you only need one good recipe. This is a good recipe. I've found recipes similar to this one in several places with several variations, it seems that it might have been from a long ago maker of potato starch. This is my version of the recipe, with my additions, such as brown rice flour, gelatin and more xanthan gum to hold the bubbles. And although it contains brown rice flour, the finished bread has a nice pale off white look, just like bread in the plastic wrappers with colourful dots! This bread uses traditional dry active yeast. Don't use rapid rise or instant yeast, the traditional yeast seems to work best for Gluten free breads. Also, this is hand mixed, I don't use a bread machine. I've never had any luck with bread machines and have found them to take longer and be more work than traditional hand made bread.

Dissolve:

• 1 teaspoon sugar in
• ½ cup very warm water. Over it sprinkle:
• 2 Tablespoons traditional dry yeast (not instant or rapid rise)

Set aside in a warm area until yeast is foamy. Now mix together dry ingredients.

• Two and a quarter cup starches. This can be corn, tapioca, potato, arrowroot, whatever you have, it doesn't matter. (The original recipe used all potato starch.)
• One cup brown rice flour
• one envelope unflavoured gelatin
• two and half tablespoons xanthan gum
• One third cup sugar
• pinch of salt

When the yeast is dissolved and foamy add to it:

• one cup warm milk(100°)
• one third cup warm water
• one large egg warmed to room temperature
• one third cup vegetable oil(I use canola)

Blend wet ingredients well. Add dry ingredients in thirds and mix after every addition. The dough should be moist: not too wet and certainly not liquid like a cake batter. Add cornstarch and rice flour if the dough seems too damp. Divide into two loaf pans, smooth the surface with your wet hands and let rise until doubled. Or make into hamburger buns, or hot dog buns, or one loaf and a half dozen dinner buns, whatever you want. Whatever you make, let rise until doubled. Near the vent of a preheating oven is a good warm place, and cover you dough with a cloth while it rises, to prevent drafts from making it collapse. While dough rises preheat oven to 375°.

When the dough has risen, place it in the oven. Bake for 25 to thirty minutes, until the top and sides are golden brown. If it turns brown too quickly, lower the temperature to 350 and bake a little longer than thirty minutes. Cover the bread with a cloth and cool for ten minutes. Take it out of the pan and cool on a wire rack. If you take the bread out of the pan and it's still white on the sides, return to the oven for a while longer. It won't hurt the bread. If you have made buns, take one while still warm, split it in half, slather it with butter, and enjoy!

MORE COMING SOON! Pancakes, spice cookies, chocolate snacking cake, yellow cake!