"Made in a Facility that..."

Well, I have an unfortunate update on sorghum flour front.  We invited celiac faculty member and his family over for Pizza, and Riley went to the Indian Grocery to get more Jowar.  She came home with a stack of flour, took a closer look at the bag and saw the following: 

 

"Made in a Facility that processes Peanuts, Tree Nuts, Soy, Milk and Wheat." 

 

How long has that been there?  Was it always there?  My best guess is that I saw it when I started baking, and thought that it was close enough for now.  In the beginning, we were trying a lot of things, and weren't sure what we would end up using.  We still needed to find substitutes for bouillon, barbeque sauce and things like that.  So I put "Made in a facility that..." below "Food Starch - Modified" on the priority list of things to worry about.  I guess the warning was there the whole time and I never revisited the issue.  I have felt so much better not eating wheat that I stopped thinking about Jowar potentially being a problem.  And the Maestro is sooo much better than he had been...

 

This wouldn't be a problem, really, if it wasn't for Hildegard.  I warned her that my flour wasn't certified gluten-free before she ever ate anything I baked, but I know that if she had looked at the package, she would not have chosen to eat any of it.  Riley stewed for about a week before bringing me the phone and asking me to tell her that we'd been slowly poisoning her for the last semester.  Hildegard actually had a pretty good laugh about it.  I guess the time she sat down and ate six muffins, she felt a little funny, and she has occasionally gotten a small rash.  So it's not exactly "No Harm, No Foul", but we didn't almost kill her.

 

I can't give up Sorghum Flour, though, even if I have to give up the Indian Version of it.  Sorghum flour doesn't taste like beans.  It has more flavour than rice and less than Millet.  It is a pale yellow, and silky smooth.  It is a good weight when I mix it with some tapioca starch.  It has comparable protein to Quinoa.  It is everything I have wanted it to be, including inexpensive, except certified gluten-free.  I know Bob's Red Mill sells it, but I can't afford that.  More on that point in another post coming soon.

 

I emailed Twin Valley Mills, in Nebraska, to order some of theirs.  They sell it in a couple of sizes, and I think with shipping it comes out to 15 cents a pound more than what I am paying now.  For you it may be less, and they only process sorghum there.  This was just before Christmas, and they haven't gotten back to me yet.

 

Anyway, I left Riley stuck in the narrative with another full celiac coming over for pizza, and possibly contaminated flour.  She called me at work and I found this recipe by Carol Fenster, Ph.D. that calls for Brown rice and Tapioca, both of which we had.  This recipe won't work for Hildegard because it uses yeast as a flavoring.  I'm pretty sure that's the only reason to have it in there, because there isn't enough sugar to feed that much yeast, and she doesn't call for any rise time.  We ran out of Tapioca starch and used some corn starch for half of that, and I am not sure if we had gelatin or not.

 

We were really pleased with how it turned out.  It was a great crispy flat crust, just what Riley likes in a crust of that type.  The kids couldn't or didn't chew it, so we still need the soft crust I was working on, but it got us through the crisis at hand.  I'm not sure what six people she served that to, but I would plan on being able to share that much dough between the two of you.

 

Wheat-Free and Gluten-Free Pizza Crust recipe

1 tablespoon gluten-free dry yeast
2/3 cup brown rice flour or bean flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
2 tablespoons dry milk powder or non-dairy milk powder*
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin powder
1 teaspoon Italian herb seasoning
2/3 cup warm water (105 degrees F)
1/2 teaspoon sugar or 1/4 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

In medium bowl using regular beaters (not dough hooks), blend the yeast, flours, dry milk powder, xanthan gum, salt, gelatin powder, and Italian herb seasoning on low speed. Add warm water, sugar (or honey), olive oil, and vinegar. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. (If the mixer bounces around the bowl, the dough is too stiff. Add water if necessary, one tablespoon at a time, until dough does not resist beaters.) The dough will resemble soft bread dough. (You may also mix in bread machine on dough setting.)

Put mixture into 12-inch pizza pan or on baking sheet (for thin, crispy crust), 11 x 7-inch pan (for deep dish version) that has been coated with cooking spray. Liberally sprinkle rice flour onto dough, then press dough into pan, continuing to sprinkle dough with flour to prevent sticking to your hands. Make edges thicker to contain the toppings. Bake the pizza crust for 10 minutes. Remove from oven. Spread pizza crust with your favorite sauce and toppings. Bake for another 20-25 minutes or until top is nicely browned.

Serves 6.

Riley's Amaranth Muffins

Hildegard is flying home for the holidays today. Last night she and Riley went to a middle school Jazz concert with the Maestro, while Hildr and I stayed home to read stories about Fish. Before they left, Riley made some muffins with some Amaranth flour that Hildegard had ground.

This is our first experience with Amaranth. Reports have indicated that it is bitter, and requires a goodly amount of sugar. Why would anyone use a bitter flour, I wondered. It turns out that the best way is to use a little bit. This flour was ground fairly course, so it gave a bit of a crunch, like corn meal would. Riley used 1 and 1/4 c the standard 2:1 Sorghum Flour/Tapioca starch, adn 1/4 c Amaranth flour. Not very much. That is enough to provide a considerable flavour and texture without overwhelming either.

Saying something is "Nutty" is a bit over done, so I won't say that Amaranth has a Nutty flavour. I'll say it is dark and husky, and leave it to you to figure out what that means. The texture was quite firm, without being tough. Overall, the effect on texture appears to be similar to brown rice flour, but more so. I think a bit of amaranth is what my pizza crust needs.

Either that, or it was the extra egg, but I don't think so. She started with a different recipe than the one I usually use, and the extra egg appears to be the only difference aside from the changed flour mix. I will have to check this...

Whatever the reason, The Maestro ate 3 and a 1/2 of these for Breakfast this morning.

Riley's Amaranth Muffins

1 1/4 cup 2:1 Sorghum flour/Tapioca Starch
1/4 cup Amaranth Flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp xanthan fum
3 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp oil
3 eggs
3/4 cup rice milk
1/4 tsp vanilla

GF Pizza Crust and Hamburger Buns Beta

UPDATE: Riley made these and wasn't watching the oven closely and it got up to 500 degrees after she put the pizza crust it. It turned out the best ever. Apparently, the key to getting a chewy crust with some bite to it is to bake it fast and hot.

We were planning on having a Celiac Pizza Party tonight. Hildegard knows another celiac in the music department, who was jealous when we had pizza the other night. Then there is the little girl in the Maestro’s pre-school class gets rides with Riley every other week. Her Dad has Celiac disease, and is a scientist here. He also teaches flute, and the Mom is a Double-Bass player. So, there are a lot of intersecting lines that all lead to pizza. Unfortunately, the other girl from the music department is in The City today, the Mom has a cold, and the Scientist Dad is teaching a yoga class until after bed-time. So much for the party.

On a side note, the floutist yoga scientist dad has run some biological assays, (ELISA, I think) that verified that Gulten antibodies react with the gluten-like protein in SOME strains of oats, and not others. That is why the literature on oats tends to be contradictory; they don’t specify what strain they are using and some are yes and some are no.

The lack of party today didn’t stop me from getting ready for it over the week-end. Last time Hildegard brought a crust mix that was very good, but too “crisp” for Hildr and the Maestro. We needed some softer crust, more similar to my favorite, Papa John’s. As I mentioned last week, I had an idea for gluten free pizza crust and hamburger buns that I wanted to try out, based on the yeast-free bread recipe I had come up with for Hildegard. The pizza party is the perfect time to give it a shot.

The recipe is what I used before, except that Hildegard isn’t good on Soy, so I used Rice milk, and took out the soy flour.

Yeast Free Bread

1 ¾ c 2:1 Jowar/Tapioca Flour Mix
¼ c Additional Tapioca Flour
2 ½ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
1 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp sugar, (or 1 tsp stevia, if making for Hildegard)
2 eggs
1 c milk or rice milk
1/3 c vegetable oil

I’ll give away the ending before you look at all the pictures. I need some brown rice flour in the mix, I think, to firm up the final product.

It turned out pretty runny, like pudding. I like pudding. Pouring it into an oiled cookie sheet and spreading with a spoon gave the following pan cake looking thing:




Cooking it provided this:

The bottom is a little light. I was looking for a softer crust, but this is a little too soft for my tastes.

Pouring the batter onto a sheet (like cow pies) gave the following:


which baked into these:

The inside texture looks good to me, but like the pizza crust, they are still too soft. You know the floppiness of a pancake? These are kind of like that. Floppy, like if you aren’t holding them well enough, the bottom half of the bun is going to sag down. Tasty, yes, but not exactly what I am looking for.

They also didn’t come out symmetrically rounded on top. I was looking for something with C(infinite) symmetry, and these look more like fried eggs from the side.


I cooked this crust in a frying pan with more oil, and sprayed the top lightly with oil. This is closer. Notice that it browned a little better, and the bottom is definitely crisper.

The bottom view:


What do I need to do? Well, they need to be more firm after baking, and a little crustier. What I will try next is to try the addition of some brown rice flour. That improved the structure of my muffins considerably. I’ll keep you posted.

GF Hamburger Buns

I was planning on having the house to myself tonight.  Riley was going to take the Maestro and Hildr to Nearby Competing University (NCU) today to visit some friends of ours who got a job there last year.  We are under a winter storm advisory, so she is not going until Saturday, if plans hold.

 

Right now it is raining, and the temperature 36 F, and steadily dropping.  They could have left early this morning and tried to outrun the ice, but Riley grew up in the Southwest, and doesn't drive peacefully in the precipitation.  By the time she got there, she'd have been so worn out from the tension of driving safe that she probably wouldn't have been driving safe.  And that doesn't even include time for having to stop at a MacDonald's play place (where the Maestro can't eat any food) so they can run.

 

We're supposed to get ice by this afternoon, followed by up to six inches of snow by the end of tomorrow.  Hopefully, things will be cleared by Saturday, and they can go then.

 

I mention all of this here because I was going to make GF Hamburger Buns tonight, using the GF yeast free pizza crust recipe  I talked about earlier.  Because the Maestro is GFCF, and can't eat cheese, I was going to make a big batch of dough, and have pizza tomorrow without him.

 

We'll see how this weekend goes.  Hopefully, I can get those done next week.

 

Needless to say, our short-sleeved yard work of last week is done, and I didn't ride my bike to work this mroning.

Pumpkin-Fest Soup

Yesterday was out 9^th annual Pumpkin-Fest, the first to appear in a gluten and casein free format.  It seems like every year we have the same debate at our house regarding the scope of Pumpkin-Fest.  Do we invite everyone, or do we only invite a few people?   If we only invite a few people, who gets left off the list?  If we invite everyone, how are we possibly going to manage hosting such a gathering?   Who is going to get everything ready?  Who is going to stress about getting everything ready?  Why are we doing this, really?

 

It took us longer than usual to get these questions settled this year, partly because people got sick, partly because I've been taking extra time with work to get together job applications.   Usually, we hold Pumpkin-Fest two weeks ago.

 

Really, it turns out that the problem with Pumpkin-Fest appears to be the feelings of those who were important enough to us to be invited in the past, but not important enough to us to be invited this year.   Riley worries about people having their feelings hurt when they realize that Pumpkin-Fest came and went without them hearing from us.  I tend to think that by definition, the feelings of people who aren't important enough to us to be invited aren't important enough to worry about.   That sounds harsher than I intend it, but close enough that I'll clarify instead of deleting that sentence and starting over.

 

Many of our closest friends have moved since the last Pumpkin-Fest.  Hildegard blew into town on the west wind, and became part of the family.   Of the people who have been to Pumpkin-Fest in the past, there was really only one family who has ever given me the impression that it was important to them.   So, this year, it was Hildegard and that one family.  The family who thinks that the Gluten-free thing is in my head weren't invited.  The family who didn't eat any pumpkin foods at last year's event weren't invited either, though they are quite dear to Riley.  You disregard the Pumpkin-Fest, the Pumpkin-Fest rolls on without you.   Tidal waves don't ask forgiveness.  There was one family who came late last year that I could have invited, if there had been room on Riley's stress meter, but there wasn't.   The Maestro would rather have a late Halloween party with them anyway.

 

Riley decided that she wanted to serve hotdogs and chips this year.  The Family who was coming has a son the Maestro's age, and one who is about eight.   In the past, kids haven't been the most open to a meal centered on gourd-fruits, and having another option kids are guaranteed to eat makes it easier for Riley to relax.   In the past, quite a few parents have fed their kids prior to arrival, which we wanted to minimize.  We used Ball Park regular hot dogs, which claim to be GFCF.

 

Because this year was a smaller event, we only made one main dish, a killer pumpkin soup, with wild rice and apple topping.   Topping for a soup, you ask?  Yes.  And it is Awe-some.  When Riley and I were dating, we considered buying a Leek, and a lady at the store dissuaded us, because "Those are Nasty!"   The majority of the flavor from the soup comes from the leek, so I swear she must be wrong.  We definitely need to investigate this vegetable more closely.   Having ancestors from Wales, I feel a special kinship to leeks, I think.

 

We ended up not having any almonds, so I used pecans instead.  Our pumpkin was smaller than the recipe needed, and Riley didn't come home with parsnips, so we added a whole sweet potato to make up for some vegetable volume.   We are casein-free at this house, so we used Fleischman's unsalted margarine instead of butter.  This is the second time we have served this soup, to rave-reviews each time.   It's one of those soups that can convince people who think they don't like pumpkin that a pumpkin soup is great after all.  I think that we could put whatever vegetable we want in it without deviating from the overall intention of the soup too much.   The dominant flavor is the leek, and while I am not suggesting that sweet potato tastes like parsnip or pumpkin, altering the vegetable composition is going to have a subtle effect on the background flavors.

 

Oh, and we like double topping, so you should make lots of that.  I haven't doubled the quantities in the recipe below.

 

 

Pumpkin Soup with Wild Rice and Apples

 

Soup

2 Tbsp Slivered Almonds

3 Tbsp unsalted butter

1 onion, diced

1 leek, white part only, sliced

1 pumpkin, seeded, peeled, cut, 4 cups

1 large turnip, peeled, sliced

2 carrots, peeled and sliced

1 large parsnip, peeled and sliced

2 ¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp ground pepper

3 ½-4 cups chicken stock

2 sprigs thyme

 

Topping

1/3 cup wild rice

1 apple, cored and sliced

2 scallions, sliced

pinch of cayenne pepper

 

1.       Brown almonds in frying pan.  Chop and set aside.

2.       Melt 2 Tbsp butter in a large stock pot and sauté onions until soft.  Add leek and cook 5 minutes.  Add remaining vegetables (pumpkin, turnip, carrots, parsnip), 2 tsp salt and pepper.   Cook unit vegetables are soft.

3.       Add stock and thyme.  Bring to boil and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes.

4.       Allow soup to cool slightly, transfer half to blender, and puree.  Return to stock pot.

5.       Cook wild rice with ½ tsp salt.  Wild rice takes about an hour.

6.       Heat remaining butter in large frying pan.  Add apple and cook until soft.  Add scallions, remaining salt and cayenne.   Cook unit scallions are soft, about 1 minute.  Add rice and reserved nuts.

7.       Ladle soup into bowls, and garnish with wild rice and apples.

 

 

 

Pumpkin-Fest Dessert Pie

For dessert, we ended up going for pumpkin pie.  Traditionally, we don't have pumpkin pie at Pumpkin-Fest, but with this year's guest list, it seemed like a good time to try out a gluten-free pie crust without anyone being disappointed if it didn't turn out.   Hildegard said that she has a recipe that uses potato flour (not starch) that is OK, but not great.  I used the shortening crust recipe from "The Pie and Pastry Bible" by Rose Levy Berenbaum, substituting 2:1 Jowar/Tapioca Flour for the pastry flour, because that is the basic mix I am using for everything these days.   I also added 1 ½ tsp Xanthan gum, because another Jowar crust recipe I have used that much.  I'm not sure what effect the Xanthan gum has on a pie crust, because you don't really add enough water to get the helixes stretching out, like you would in a muffin batter.   This is something to investigate further.

 

I got it to roll-out fine, but it cracked when I tried to pick it up to put it in the pie plate.  Hildegard, who is the only person I know personally who has ever tried gluten-free pie crust, said that you just have to pat it into the pie plate.   It really only had two big cracks, so it was mostly a uniform thickness.  I'm not sure whether patting it into the pie plate gets you a better crust than that, but it would save time rolling out a crust that is going to break anyway.   I'm thinking about adding an egg, which was anathema to me in the pre-gluten-free days, but might be appropriate now.

 

I filled the pie with pumpkin custard for which I'm sure you have plenty of recipes already, so you don't need mine.   The only modifications were that I used rice milk instead of cow's milk, about 2/3 equivalents for real maple syrup instead of the sugar, and added an extra egg.

 

When I cut the pie, a bit of the crust broke off.  I handed it to Hildegard, who popped it into her mouth.   With wide eyes, she said "That tastes so good that I feel like I am going to be sick eating it!"  Compliments sound different coming from celiacs, don't they?   I was really pleased.  Riley had eaten my Pastry flour/Butter crust before, so thiis was not going to be near that, in taste or texture, so Hildegard's reaction was the one I most cared to see.

 

Compared to my wheat flour crusts from the old days, it was a little crunchier, without being tough, and it wasn't as flaky.   The Crisco wasn't as cold as it should have been when I mixed it up, so I would have been surprised if it had turned out very flaky, anyway.  And, as mentioned, it wasn't as malleable when rolled out.   This wasn't a really discerning crowd, as far as pie crust goes, but it satisfied the wheat-eaters, who didn't have any comment on it.

 

Hildegard is taking a pie to her brother's for regular American Thanksgiving this week, and asked me to teach her to make this crust.   I'll try using colder shortening, and maybe a second crust with egg, so see if that makes it more malleable.  Perhaps if I mix the Xanthan gum with the egg first, and add it in a separate step from the shortening?   Any suggestions are welcome.

 

Pie Crust

 

9 Tbsp Shortening

1 ½ c 2:1 Jowar/Tapioca Mix

½ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp Xanthan Gum

6Tbsp water (or more)

Sweet Rice flour for dusting.

 

1.       Mix flour mixture with salt and Xanthan Gum. 

2.       With pastry blender, cut in shortening until chunks are pea-sized.  Drizzle in water 1 Tbsp at a time until dough starts to clump together.

3.       Cool in refrigerator.

4.       Roll out, carefully, dusting surface with sweet rice flour to prevent it sticking to the rolling-pin.

5.       Carefully peal crust off the pastry board with a spatula.  Transfer to 9 inch pie plate.

6.       Mash dough pieces from what used to be a rolled-out crust into pie plate.

7.       Pour in pie filling, and bake until set.

Sturdy Muffins

A problem that I have had with muffins is having them go soggy before I am ready for them to. The addition of some rice flour seems to fix that right up. I am using 2:1 Jowar/Tapioca flour as my go to flour these days, so I typically mix that 2:1 with brown rice flour, or divide it roughly along those lines. In the following recipe, which started with 1 2/3 cup flour, I went with 1:0.66, just to make the math easier.

Sturdy Apricot-spice Muffins

1 c 2:1 Jowar/Tapioca Flour Mix

½ c Brown Rice Flour

¼ c Soy Flour

¼ c sugar

2 ½ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp salt

1 tsp xanthan gum

½ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

dash cloves

2 eggs

1 c milk or soy milk

1/3 c vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla extract

(optional)

½ c chopped apricots

¼ chopped nuts

UPDATE: I accidently had baking powder listed twice. The second one should have been xanthan gum

Pumpkin Muffins

Here is my new recipe for GF pumpkin muffins.  These end up a lot like cupcakes, actually, so I thought they would work well as a sugar-free version, for Hildegard.   To make that conversion, I simply left out the sugar, and put in a little stevia.  The secret here is that there is a lot of wet fruity matter, in the form of pumpkin to make up the texture.

 

Cory's Pumpkin Muffins (adapted)

 

1 ½ c sugar

1 c pumpkin

½ c oil

½ c water

2 eggs

1 c Jowar/Tapioca Flour Mix

2/3 c Brown Rice Flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp cloves

 

Hildegard's Perfect Sugar Free Pumpkin Muffins

 

<s>1 ½ c sugar</s>

2 tsp Stevia powder

1 c pumpkin

½ c oil

½ c water

2 eggs

1 c Jowar/Tapioca Flour Mix

2/3 c Brown Rice Flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp cloves

 

 

Pizza Crust and Hamburger Buns

I've perfected the yeast free bread recipe I had high hopes for.  I've used it so far to make pizza crust, mashing it down into a cast iron frying pan   before baking, and for hamburger buns, dolloping some left-over pizza crust into another pan, and not mashing it down as much.  I need to try some large scale hamburger bun production, but the first one went well.   This recipe doesn't brown very well, so watch for that.  I haven't tried this as a loaf, but it is pretty soft, so I don't expect it to hold up in a tall form.

 

Yeast Free Bread

 

1 ½ c 2:1 Jowar/Tapioca Flour Mix

¼ c Soy Flour

¼ c Additional Tapioca Flour

2 ½ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp sugar, (or 1 tsp stevia, if making for Hildegard)

2 eggs

1 c milk or soy milk

1/3 c vegetable oil

 

Look! I'm a lead balloon!

As some of you know, I have three blogs: a work blog, a food blog, and a cello lesson blog. I usually keep these three separate, because foodies don't usually care so much about the problems of academia, academics tend to eat what they want, and my three-year-old's music has little to do with what I am baking or working on at school. This post is going on both my work blog and my food blog because it deals with both, plus some of my academic friends might have this problem. What the heck, I guess I'll put it on the cello blog too, just for kicks.

I feel like crap.

I don't have celiac disease. I don't have celiac disease, officially. I don't have celiac disease the way so many of you have it. I thought. Perhaps I am wrong.

My son, the Maestro, has sensory-integration disfunction, sensory-processing disorder, or a bunch of other names for something that means he is really touchy about a number of things. Sound is an easy example to explain. He can't handle noise, but he loves music. He would be the kid upstairs drumming and singing into the karaoke machine. Anyone else's noise drives him up the wall, or at least makes him want to slam himself against the wall. I think music is an ordered form of controlled noise like auditory methadone. He doesn't like dissonance, perhaps because it feels disordered to him, and "hurts his feelings".

Earlier this year, we found some literature on the link between autism and certain proteins, including gluten. Sensory Integration Disfunction is present it a lot of autism cases, so after consultation with SciFinder, we decided to give it a try. We took the Maestro off gluten and casein, and it has made a huge difference in his ability to control his reactions to sensory input.

I live pretty far from the rest of my family, and have missed most of them going off wheat. My Mom doesn't eat wheat, and all of my siblings either don't eat it, or have kids who don't or shouldn't. My Mom had told me several times that I should give it a try, but how do you "try" going off wheat? It is everywhere, in everything.

So, suddenly I have a kid who needs to eat something else. Sorghum, or Jowar, flour is a good substitute, if you can learn how to handle it, hence the Gluten-free blog. So I gave it a try myself, and felt a lot better. I hadn't really felt sick, but I was tired a lot. I fell asleep in a lot of group meetings and seminars. I went off wheat, and I stopped being tired all the time. That was good enough for me, I was going wheat-free for good.

We're pretty strict with the Maestro's diet. We watch out for modified food starch and barley malt and dextrose for him. I have always had a problem with oats, and now wheat. I haven't been concerned about traces of gluten in what I ate, however. The rest of my family claims that they feel OK eating spelt, oats and rye, so it must just be a wheat issue with us.

I have always had an iron stomach. I throw up every 10 years or so. If Riley or the kids get the stomach flu and are turning themselves inside out all over the house, I tend to feel a little queasy, but no more than that. I can't be a celiac. The Maestro and my little sister Rai both had the blood tests, which came out negative. It's not celiac disease in my family.

Yesterday, I didn't bring enough lunch to work, and got hungry in the afternoon. So I went to the store on the corner and bought a snack. Hmmm. Nestle's Crunch (with Caramel). Tasty.

About ten minutes later, I was sitting at my computer when my brain did a little flip-flop in my skull. My head hurts. My back hurts. I feel weak and trembly. My head, where it doesn't hurt, feels kind of like a lead balloon --heavy and hollow at the same time.

Crunch contains crisped rice (rice flour, sugar, barley malt, traces of wheat gluten). All the celiac bloggers are saying "Why did you eat that?!! That's so stupid! Of course you are going to feel like crap!" Um, I don't have celiac disease, I am just wheat sensitive? Um, I guess not. If I don't have celiac disease, officially, I guess I need to eat like I do. And no, I am not about to start eating in order to do the gluten challenge sufficient for an endoscopy, so don't even suggest it. The blood test would come out negative, just like for the rest of my family, so that isn't likely to be any more helpful.

I had hoped I would feel better when I woke up this morning, but I don't. Oh, and my iron stomach feels a little queasy this morning.

Did you know that one in between 100 and 133 people have celiac disease, depending on where you get your statistics. This ranks it up with hyper-tension with numbers. That is the statistic for people who don't know they have it. You may be that one person who has celiac disease and doesn't know it. Head-aches? Tired or sick a lot? Digestive problems that no one can explain? Weird persistent rashes? Joint problems? Some subset of those? It's worth looking into. A whole generation of doctors didn't study anything about it in medical school, so you basically have to tell them about it. If you think you have it, you should get tested for it before going off gluten, if you care about an official diagnosis. Gee, this would have been a good post for celiac awareness month, wouldn't it?

It may be you. Because it sure isn't me. I don't have celiac disease. I'm just wheat sensitive, right?

Oh, I feel like crap.

Look, I'm a lead balloon!

As some of you know, I have three blogs: a work blog, a food blog, and a cello lesson blog.  I usually keep these three separate, because foodies don't usually care so much about the problems of academia, academics tend to eat what they want, and my three-year-old's music has little to do with what I am baking or working on at school.  This post is going on both my work blog and my food blog because it deals with both, plus some of my academic friends might have this problem.  What the heck, I guess I'll put it on the cello blog too, just for kicks.

 

I feel like crap.

 

I don't have celiac disease.  I don't have celiac disease, officially.  I don't have celiac disease the way so many of you have it.  I thought.  Perhaps I am wrong.

 

My son, the Maestro, has sensory-integration disfunction, sensory-processing disorder, or a bunch of other names for something that means he is really touchy about a number of things.  Sound is an easy example to explain.  He can't handle noise, but he loves music.  He would be the kid upstairs drumming and singing into the karaoke machine.  Anyone else's noise drives him up the wall, or at least makes him want to slam himself against the wall.  I think music is an ordered form of controlled noise like auditory methadone.  He doesn't like dissonance, perhaps because it feels disordered to him, and "hurts his feelings".

 

Earlier this year, we found some literature on the link between autism and certain proteins, including gluten.  Sensory Integration Disfunction is present it a lot of autism cases, so after consultation with SciFinder, we decided to give it a try.  We took the Maestro off gluten and casein, and it has made a huge difference in his ability to control his reactions to sensory input.

 

I live pretty far from the rest of my family, and have missed most of them going off wheat.  My Mom doesn't eat wheat, and all of my siblings either don't eat it, or have kids who don't or shouldn't.  My Mom had told me several times that I should give it a try, but how do you "try" going off wheat?  It is everywhere, in everything.

 

So, suddenly I have a kid who needs to eat something else.  Sorghum, or Jowar, flour is a good substitute, if you can learn how to handle it, hence the Gluten-free blog.  So I gave it a try myself, and felt a lot better.  I hadn't really felt sick, but I was tired a lot.  I fell asleep in a lot of group meetings and seminars.  I went off wheat, and I stopped being tired all the time.  That was good enough for me, I was going wheat-free for good.

 

We're pretty strict with the Maestro's diet.  We watch out for modified food starch and barley malt and dextrose for him.  I have always had a problem with oats, and now wheat.  I haven't been concerned about traces of gluten in what I ate, however.  The rest of my family claims that they feel OK eating spelt, oats and rye, so it must just be a wheat issue with us.

 

I have always had an iron stomach.  I throw up every 10 years or so.  If Riley or the kids get the stomach flu and are turning themselves inside out all over the house, I tend to feel a little queasy, but no more than that.  I can't be a celiac.  The Maestro and my little sister Rai both had the blood tests, which came out negative.  It's not celiac disease in my family.

 

Yesterday, I didn't bring enough lunch to work, and got hungry in the afternoon.  So I went to the store on the corner and bought a snack.  Hmmm.  Nestle's Crunch (with Caramel).  Tasty.

 

About ten minutes later, I was sitting at my computer when my brain did a little flip-flop in my skull.  My head hurts.  My back hurts.  I feel weak and trembly.  My head, where it doesn't hurt, feels kind of like a lead balloon --heavy and hollow at the same time.

 

Crunch contains crisped rice (rice flour, sugar, barley malt, traces of wheat gluten).  All the celiac bloggers are saying "Why did you eat that?!!  That's so stupid!  Of course you are going to feel like crap!"  Um, I don't have celiac disease, I am just wheat sensitive?  Um, I guess not.  If I don't have celiac disease, officially, I guess I need to eat like I do.  And no, I am not about to start eating in order to do the gluten challenge sufficient for an endoscopy, so don't even suggest it.  The blood test would come out negative, just like for the rest of my family, so that isn't likely to be any more helpful.

 

I had hoped I would feel better when I woke up this morning, but I don't.  Oh, and my iron stomach feels a little queasy this morning.

 

Did you know that one in between 100 and 133 people have celiac disease, depending on where you get your statistics.  This ranks it up with hyper-tension with numbers.  That is the statistic for people who don't know they have it.   You may be that one person who has celiac disease and doesn't know it.  Head-aches?  Tired or sick a lot?  Digestive problems that no one can explain?  Weird persistent rashes?  Joint problems?  Some subset of those?  It's worth looking into.  A whole generation of doctors didn't study anything about it in medical school, so you basically have to tell them about it.  If you think you have it, you should get tested for it before going off gluten, if you care about an official diagnosis.  Gee, this would have been a good post for celiac awareness month, wouldn't it?

 

It may be you.  Because it sure isn't me.  I don't have celiac disease.  I'm just wheat sensitive, right?

 

Oh, I feel like crap.

Omnivore's Dilemma

A few weeks ago, Brenden, at Something in Season reviewed The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Micheal Pollan. I had heard an interview with Pollan on NPR so I was interested in another view of his book. Slate's Daily Podcast from yesterday is a long discussion of the book by some literary critics. These critics are not Foodies and don't even seem aware of the term, calling Foodi-ism "Yuppy sensibilities."

They make some good points, and you might be interested in their take on the topic. Their main beef is that he describes the problem so well, and gets too enamoured with living on a farm and killing your own chickens, that he doesn't offer any solutions for the rest of us. I remember that in the NPR interview he said that he offers no solution because he doesn't really know of one.

It sounds to me like he needs to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and on a ride to Bozeman instead of moving to a farm, but I haven't read the book. Unfortunately, I haven't had the time I would like to devote to foodi-ism lately. We even had to postpone PumpkinFest this year, until I am done with academic job applications.

Bread Vairations

I have been playing with my bread machine recipe a bit. It turns out that any deviation I can think of ruins the loaf. Somehow, 2c Jowar to 1.5 c Brown rice flour is the magic ratio.

I have tried some white rice instead of brown, some potato starch, more Jowar with less brown rice, and molasses instead of sugar. Nothing I have tried has led to a loaf even close to the original recipe. Magic, I tell you.

I've been working on job applications a lot the past couple of weeks. When my bread doesn't rise, I have to slice it really thin, and eat it anyway if I want any bread because I've had no time to make things over. I feel bad about not getting Muffins made for Hildegard more often, but not much I can to about that.

Cresting over my shoulder

My office hour is about to start.  We'll see if anyone comes today, or if I get this post finished today.

 

We've had a good summer and fall, puke-wise.  The Maestro traditionally goes on a food-strike whenever he gets a cold, because the mucus ends up in his stomach, and anything else that goes in makes him throw up.  I blame Riley's genes for this.  I think that not eating wheat has helped him.  He's only had one cold since the spring, that I remember, and he didn't throw up with it.

 

Hildr has a cold right now.  Tuesday night, she wouldn't eat any dinner, and just wanted to lay with her head on my shoulder.   About 1:30 in the morning, I was laying in bed, listening to her softly gagging in the other room.  I wasn't worried, because she has always insisted on sleeping on her stomach, much to the horror of pediatricians everywhere.   (Riley is now upset that I have shared this with the world.)  Soon, however, she fully woke up and started to cry.   I didn't think that she would go back to sleep without some soymilk, because she didn't eat any dinner; and low-blood sugar does that to my kids.  Riley blames my genes for this.   So I got up, helped her drain a sippy-cup, and she fell asleep in my arms.

 

As I was slowly lowering her back into her crib, it happened.  Hack!  Puking down into her bed understandably woke her up, and she was upset.  It was dark, so I didn't know how much had come up, and how much was on her, or anything.   I started down the hall to the bathroom, but only made it into the hallway before round two started.  I stepped back into her bedroom, on the spot just between the hallway carpet and the area rug.   Once I was over linoleum, I just stood there as the waves of sticky soymilk vomit crested over my right shoulder and cascaded down my back and onto the floor.   Once, twice, three times a lady.

 

It turned out that Hildr was relatively clean, and Riley took her to bed while I cleaned everything up.  This is not among my favorite reasons to need a shower at 1:30 in the morning.

 

I made it back to bed to find that Hildr had developed Twitchy-leg syndrome, and wouldn't stop kicking me.  This will not do.  I started to take her back to her bed and made it almost to the door when I discovered that her stomach wasn't empty yet.  Oops.   Luckily, the dirty laundry basket was handy and she was pointed mostly away from me. 

 

I decided that I could sleep better on the couch.

 

I also haven't been able to do much baking this week.  Good news that my first job application will hopefully go out tomorrow afternoon.

Stevia Muffins 2.0

An interesting this happened the other day. I am still working on sugar-free muffins for Hildegard, and ended up with banana bread instead. I’m calling it banana bread, but that suggests a loaf with a texture similar to muffins, with spices, and perhaps walnuts. That is not what I made. What I made was more like bread “rolls” that rose, and split on the top. They had a crust, and a soft inside. They just tasted like banana, with a slight licorice aftertaste.

My initial attempt at sugar free muffins had a texture more like Swiss cheese. I thought that this might be improved with the change to Tapioca starch instead of potato starch and Jowar flour. I was out of soy milk and used the last trace of soy powder early in the recipe, so I added ¼ cup sweet rice flour in an attempt to simulate rice milk. I was also out of vanilla

1 ½ c 2:1 Sorghum flour/Tapioca Starch
¼ c Soy flour
3 tsp Stevia powder
¼ c Tapioca Starch
¼ c Sweet Rice Flour
2 ½ tsp Baking Powder
¾ tsp salt
1 tsp Xanthan gum
2 eggs
1 c water
1/3 c vegetable oil
1 mashed banana

The interesting thing about this weird banana “bread” is that it has the same texture as wheat bread, and is made yeast free. Can I duplicate the texture without the banana? A Jowar based, yeast-free, bread recipe would be very attractive to some people. I have a few things to work out first. How did the banana affect it? Can I get it into a loaf? A bread machine?

Hildegard didn’t tell me how great the muffins were, though.

Cereal Bars

I found a good review of gluten free cereal bars, courtesy of the celiac chicks. If you are interested in prepackaged snacky goodness, I recommend you check it out.

Muffin Mess

I have come to a sad realization about my muffins. They don’t freeze well. Using potato starch means that I need to use less Xanthan gum, otherwise they retain too much moisture and come out mushy.

Reducing the amount of Xanthan gum causes them to fall apart when they are frozen. They still make good mush with sugar and milk on them, but as far as frozen muffins go they are completely unacceptable. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

I can look into some tapioca flour; that worked well in the waffles. I can try some kuzu starch instead of Xanthan gum. I have recently been alerted to some benefits of using some rice flour in with Jowar or Sorghum flour for improving structural integrity. I’ll post an update when I have a (partially) acceptable solution figured out.

Pumpkin Fest

 

HisHH

On the morning of All Saint's Day (Nov. 1^st), 1998, I walked into the kitchen of my single-guy-apartment to see four large carved pumpkins sitting on the table.   They were the result of a Halloween activity the previous night, with a group of friends who had no use for Jack-O-Lanterns in November.  What to do?   Typically, a carved pumpkin at a single-guy-apartment complex will sit until ill-use and old age take their toll.  The alternative is to toss the pumpkin in a dumpster before any tolls are taken.   To do either seemed wasteful, especially considering the gargantuan proportions of these magnificent gourds.  The beginnings of an idea started to collect, slowly taking shape in the un-swept corners of my just-out-of-bed brain.   Could I do something with these pumpkins that no single guy had ever done?  Could I find some way of using these pumpkins of which no bachelor had ever dreamed?   Could I… eat them?

 

By mid-afternoon, I'd made a pumpkin soup, pumpkin muffins, and a couple of pies (my first pies, with commercial crust).   I asked my new girlfriend, Riley, to help me host, then invited some friends.  I enjoyed all the food, which is fortunate, because I spent the next week eating pumpkin.   As it turns out, when you do something that no bachelor has ever done, no one really believes the food will be edible, and they all eat before they come.  So, the first ever Pumpkin-Fest was born, with minimal fanfare.

 

Many things have changed over the years.  Perhaps the most important is that people are now expected to come hungry.   Another change is the ban on commercial pumpkin-pie, instituted after our third year.  People were initially asked to come and bring a pumpkin dish, and we ended up with more store-bought pies than anyone enjoyed.   We now ask that people come.  If you would enjoy bringing a pumpkin dish, we are excited to enjoy it with you.   Over the years we have had pumpkin games, T-shirts, soups, breads, fudge, etc.  Beginning with the fourth annual Pumpkin-Fest, we have enjoyed celebrating in the Midwest, where harvest season is more real than imagined.

 

We are a mixed household.  Canadian Thanksgiving occurs the second Monday in October, and is traditionally marked in the United States by the lack of mail delivery.  American Thanksgiving is the end of November, and is not noticeable in Canada, because harvest season ended months before.   Pumpkin-Fest falls at the midpoint of these two and is our own unique holiday.  It was born out of appreciation for the bounty of both harvest season and left-over Jack-O-Lantern season.     It is a celebration of friendship and all that it means to us. 

 

This year is our first Gluten- and Casein-free Pumpkin Fest.  As many of you who are familiar with GF cooking know, there are many recipes using Pumpkin that are naturally Gluten-Free.   Pumpkin Pie, if we served it, would have to be modified, and the pumpkin breads and cakes will be different this year.  Most of the soups and stews that have formed the main-stays of the Main-dish portion of the meal can be served without significant modification.   Really, the issue this year will be desert.

 

            I suppose you would call this a meme.  I'm pretty new to the food blog world, so you all should consider yourself tagged to participate.   What is your favourite GF pumpkin dessert?  I am especially interested in "Something In Season" contributing, as this seems something totally in your bailiwick, and " Wheatless Bay", as a fellow displaced Canadian.  I am happy to have a link to something old, from your archives, if you have archives.  I would prefer recipes that don't call for mixes, as I am a poor student, with no money for the finer mixes in life.   I work mainly with Jowar, but am more than willing to use more traditional flours for this special occasion.

Splenda is no Honey

I have been updating my computer so that a reference program I need will work with the new version. (Endnote. If you have to write a big paper, it's indispensible) While waiting, I started scanning Chemistry blogs, and found this post, about splenda. It's worth looking at if you think splenda is a good idea. It isn't a good idea, in case you wondered.

Two Notes

I’m cleaning my desk and came across a paper with some notes on it. I need to post this so I don’t lose it again. If blogger has it, I know where I can find it again.

From the Gluten-Free Goddess , Karina writes that simulating a baking mix, she uses:
2 cups of flour
1 scant tsp baking powder
½ scant tsp baking soda
¼ scant tsp xanthan gum

From Glutan-a-Go-Go, Sheltie Girl uses Kuzu starch instead of xanthan gum.
1 ½ tsp in 1 Tbsp water for a cookie recipe
1 tsp in melted butter in sweet potato bread.

Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

I have felt like I had a handle on a number of baked goods. I routinely make muffins and waffles. I successfully did a read-off conversion of brownies. I don't feel like I have a good handle on bread. I have never pretended that I do. Most loaves I have made have turned out flat. I usually make "rolls" in muffin tins, and they work well. I think it has something to do the surface area to side support ratio or muffins compared to loaves.

I have made a good loaf using Bette Hagmann's four bean flour. The shape turned out, but it tasted like beans. I don't like my bread to taste like beans. I want something that tastes like Jowar.

Riley came home from a friend's house the other day with a bread machine. I wasn't terribly excited, because if I don't feel like I can make regular loaves, how do I adapt a muffin to the bread machine? Blah. Riley pointed out that I had a recipe for bread machine that I had forgotten about.

Bread Machine Bread Recipe
- By Jill Miller

2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp egg replacer mixed with 2 T water
1 2/3 cup water
3 T oil
2 1/4 tsp yeast
2 tsp vinegar
2 cups sorghum flour
1 1/2 cup brown rice flour
2 1/2 tsp Xanthan gum
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup dry milk powder
3 T sugar

Combine egg replacer and eggs. Mix water with vinegar and oil. Sift all dry ingredients together. Put all liquids in bread machine. Set machine on short cycle, start and mix in dry ingredients. Bake. Cool prior to slicing.

I don't have any egg replacer, so I left that out, and I didn't use any dry milk powder. The dough was a lot thicker than the rolls I usually make. I think that helps retain the gases. The loaf pan has a similar surface area to side support ratio to a muffin. I think that those two together made the difference because it turned out absolutely great. The Maestro loved it, because he has missed having slices of bread that you can toast. The texture was wonderful, it rose, and it tasted like Jowar instead of beans. Perfect

I wondered what effect the brown rice flour has, because as you know, I typically use Jowar with a variety of starches. I made a loaf of bread with one cup rice flour with a half cup potato starch. It didn't rise as high, so I think that the rice flour is key, somehow.

PS. Yes, that is a Miracle Blade III All-Purpose Slicer. Thanks, Chef Tony!

stevia = swiss cheese muffins

I finally made some muffins last night using Stevia. Hildegard brought over a bottle of bulk NuNaturals Stevia diluted with Maltodextrin. I didn’t have a handle on how much to use because of the Maltodextrin, so I tried it out first sprinkled over a bowl of puffed Millet. It does taste sweet, but not so sweet that I will need to be afraid of using too much. It also has some licorice-like aftertaste. Looking at the structure, I don’t think this comes from the steviosides, so another source of purified steviosides may be aftertaste-free, but this is pure speculation on my part.

I used my standard muffin recipe with 1 cup chopped frozen apricots. After mixing it with 2 tsp Stevia powder, it looked a little wet. I added 2 Tbsp flour mix to compensate for the missing volume of sugar.

They rose quite a lot, and browned nicely. Cutting one open revealed a texture similar to swiss cheese -- Big bubble holes unevenly distributed, and a hard crust. Actually, they are more bread-like in texture than some bread I have made. This bears more investigation later, I think.

It turns out that they aren’t sweet enough for my taste, but Hildegard might like them. She says that she likes things not so sweet. For me, I can still taste the baking soda, so I say make them sweeter. The licorice aftertaste is faintly noticable. I like licorice though…

1 ½ c (9:2 Sorghum flour/Potato Starch)

¼ c Soy flour

2 tsp NuNaturals Stevia powder + 2 Tbsp flour mix

2 ½ tsp Baking Powder

¾ tsp salt

½ tsp Xanthan gum

2 eggs

1 c milk or soy milk

1/3 c vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 c chopped apricots

I think that flour isn’t the right volume subsitute to use. Karina suggested chopped coconut, but sugar dissolves, so I was thinking something less solid. I think that next time I will try some tapioca starch. I think that this will help them be more chewy and less crusty. Hopefully, the longer chain starch in the tapioca will also contribute to holding the developing gases from collecting in large pockets as they rise in the oven. I’ll let you know when I get time for a re-trial.

Hildr's Chewy Morning Waffles

Yesterday I got to take Hildr in for her 15 month check-up, and they gave her three shots. She was very sad about this, as you might imagine, but we made it through without the kicking and fighting that the Maestro would have done. Like him, however, she had to pull off the bandages immediately after the nurse left. She didn’t stop whimpering until she had them off and thrown in the trash. I think throwing them away was cathartic.

She was pretty cheerful all day, but didn’t sleep well. She woke up early this morning with a low fever and wanted to lay in bed with us. She has been doing this a lot lately. Whoever gets her out of her crib is instructed firmly to take her back to bed, and if one of us gets up before she is ready, she lets us know that we aren’t dismissed yet. She likes to roll around meowing like a cat, and hide under the blankets.

Because she woke up early, I got to make waffles. Hildegard gave us some waffles the other day, and Riley realized that she likes her waffles more chewy than I had been making them. I started out using a 2:1 Jowar:Cornstarch. Then I switched to 3:1 Jowar:Potato starch and dropped to half the Xanthan Gum, which made them more crispy, and got rid of the corn flavour the Riley didn’t like. To make them more chewy, I thought I could finally try the jowar/Tapioca mix I’d wanted to investigate. I started with 2:1 and they turned out great. Riley thinks that this is just how she likes her waffles, for now anyway…

Hildr’s Chewy Morning Waffles

2 eggs (separated)
¼ cup corn oil
1 ½ cup milk
2 T sugar
½ t salt
1 ¾ cup sorghum/starch mix*
4 t baking powder
1 t Xanthan gum

* 2:1 Jowar (Sorghum flour)/Tapioca Starch

Oh, one other note. I think our waffle baker is dying after about ten years of service. I think that might have something to do with how long they take to cook. I reduced the soy milk to 1 ½ cups from 1 ¾ cups in previous versions. I think this helps compensate.

First Take Brownies

Well, I have done it. I have gotten to the point that I can take a regular wheat-based recipe, and bake something gluten-free without any problems. I suppose that to be fair, I should mention that I made brownies, which have slightly different requirements for texture and leavening than most baked goods. But nonetheless, I used my Jowar/potato starch mix in place of wheat flour, and threw in a ¼ tsp of baking soda and they came out perfect. I guess they aren’t exactly perfect; they are a little crumbly, but they tasted just like they should, and have the density they should, and the conversion of chocolate squares to cocoa took more effort than the conversion to gluten free. THIS is what I have been trying to do with this process.

I thought about taking a picture, but I decided that you all know what a brownie is supposed to look like. Picture that, and you have what I made. It was thick and brown, and moist in the middle.

First Take Brownies

½ c shortening
1 c sugar
2 eggs
2 squares melted chocolate (or 6 Tbsp cocoa, with 2 additional tsp shortening)
½ tsp vanilla
1 cup 3:1 Jowar:Potato starch mix
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp Xanathan Gum, or whatever

Cream together the shortening and sugar, add the eggs, then the other things. Mix and bake like you would other brownies. They take longer to bake than I remember. The recipe called for 25 to 30 minutes, and I think I took them out after 35, but my oven is a little weird.

Stevia

Stevia has been on my mind the past week. A friend of mine from Washington asked me about it. The Maestro's Cello Teacher, who is Celiac, also can't eat sugar. Then the Karina, the Gluten-Free Godess, did a run down of sugar alternatives.

The figure ab0ve is a list of the so-called steviosides, a collection of very sweet natural products isolated from the leaves of the stevia tree. They are purportedly 100 times sweeter than sucrose, which is table sugar. If you can make out the structure above, (I know that it's a little small) you can see that glucose (glc) and Rhamose (rham) is linked to a steroid-like carbon skeleton, which is called steviol. It is essentially a natural example of the same principle that gave us olestra (which is totally synthetic). If you stick some sugars onto some large frame, it still tastes sweet to the tongue, but it isn't metabolized.

Scientific Literature I have looked at indicates that it is generally excreted completely unmetabolized. Being unmetabolized, it purportedly has no effect on blood sugar, nor any effect on candida. There is some indication than it has a mild lowering effect on blood pressure, and also some signs that it is beneficial for diabetics. In a test-tube, intestinal flora have been able to cleave the sugars off the steroid-like framework. This framework, steviol, has been shown to be a carcinogen. No studies have shown that this cleavage occurs in the body. That is to say that studies have shown that the cleavage is not observed, not that the studies haven't been done. Granted, you can find haters that will argue that stevia is going to kill you, but that doesn't appear to be supported by the review I read.

How does it bake? Well, I haven't tried it in any baking yet. Reports are that it is stable past 200 Celcius, which not all artificial sweeteners are. Sweet, and stable. Because it IS so sweet, you have to reduce the amount you use considerably. Depending on what form you buy it in, the conversion will change. I found a good conversion table . I come from a Herbally goodness type background, and I can say that the liquid extracts DO taste like licorice when I brushed by teeth with it as a kid. The purer steviosides taste less that way. I'm looking at getting some to try out this week.

Kudzu Powder

I was just looking at Gluten A Go Go, http://glutenagogo.blogspot.com/, and had a question.  Hopefully Sheltie Girl will look at my blog, as I did at hers, on Shauna's mention.  I am on blogger beta, and can't leave a comment to ask her directly.  If anyone on blogger alpha can ask her for me, that would be great.

 

She doesn't like the taste of xanthan gum, so she mixes a number of things, including Kudzu Powder.  What is up with this?  I'm not sure I can taste xanthan gum, but maybe I just think that it's part of what Jowar tastes like.  How are your experiments going?  What ratios have you found that work?  How does it compare to xanthan gum?  Please, share some more details...  The chemist in me is dying to know.

Tropical Pineapple Muffins

I made some muffins for the Maestro's Cello Teacher, using pineapple, nuts and coconut. This is an extension of the Banana Nut recipe. She loved them, but I thought they were a little bland. I only used a 1/2 cup of crushed pineapple ina double recipe. Next time I plan to use more pineapple, and subsutitute some pineapple juice for some of the soy milk.

1 ½ c (9:2 Sorghum flour/Potato Starch)
¼ c Soy flour
¼ c Sugar
2 ½ tsp Baking Powder
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp Xanthan gum
2 eggs
1 c milk or soy milk (or use some pineapple juice)
1/3 c vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 ripe banana
¼ c sliced almonds
¼ c coconut
¼ c crushed pineapple (use more, or include some banana)

Most other food bloggers include pictures of their fare. I've not done that to this point, mostly because I am focusing on the method and the ingredients. I realized this morning, looking at the gluten free goddess blog, that people like pictures. I'll try to include more. I often find that I am taking muffins out of the oven as I am getting ready to run for the bus to work, and I still have sorghum flour dusting everything. While I am gone, Riley puts them in the freezer for optimal storage, and there never is a good time to take a picture. I'm sure no one else can relate to this, though.

GlutenEase

http://www.enzymedica.com/glutenease.php

 

Has anyone heard of this stuff before?  It makes me curious, but I remain fairly skeptical

Blog Day

I subscribe to several blogs using bloglines.  This morning I had an update for Gluten Free Girl, http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/ .  It said that it was posted Aug 31, so either my bloglines is working really slow, or she got busy and posted later than she had intended.  It seems like she has a lot going on right now, so I am guessing the later.  School started, right?

 

Anyway, this is relevant here because she mentioned me.  She is a rock-star in the gluten-free blogging world, so we might have more visitors today.  So, if you are here on Shauna's recommendation, welcome!

 

I explain what I am doing in the archives, but if you are new here, it is essentially this.  I want to bake foods that taste like the "real thing".  I want to do this as cheaply as possible.  I'm a science grad student, and don't have a lot of money to buy baking mixes and pre-made foods.  Jowar flour, from the Indian grocery, is the cheapest grain flour other than corn starch that I have found.  It is the right colour, and has a mild flavour.  It is even good for you, comparable to quinoa.  So, it's perfect for what I want.

 

The problem is, there aren't many recipes using it that don't also add lots of other things that I don't want to get into.  It doesn't need them.  So, I have to develop my own recipes.  Like Shauna said, you must create what you wish you could experience.  I'm currently interested in the effects of tapioca starch, but grad school hasn't given me much time in the test kitchen lately.

 

I'm the chemist, so I experiment with the baking, and my wife does most of the other cooking while I am at school.

 

Feel free to share any tips you have.

 

--Elwood City

 

Tapioca Starch

I have to balance making snacks for the Maestro to take to pre-school, and keeping the test kitchen running. Now that I have a workable formulation for potato starch, I'm interested in Tapioca Starch, the purest of flavours. According the the esteemed Ms. Hagman, Tapioca starch imparts "chew". What does that mean, exactly? I had a waffle made with a high proportion of tapioca starch, and it was very chewy. That was a long time ago, though. How does the moisture -retaining properties compare to potato (moist, like extra xanthan) and corn (hygroscopic and quick staling)?

If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

Also, if anyone has any ideas for cheap and easy things to put in muffins, give me a shout. I think the Maestro is getting tired of banana.

Banana Nut Muffins

Sorghum Blueberry Muffins

1 ½ c 3:1 Sorghum flour/Corn Starch
¼ c Soy flour
¼ c Sugar
2 ½ tsp Baking Powder
¾ tsp salt
1 tsp Xanthan gum
2 eggs
1 c milk or soy milk
1/3 c vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 c blueberries (rinsed and drained)


I used this recipe, took out the blueberries, added one ripe banana, and a half cup of walnut chunks. To convert it to potato instead of corn, I used 3: 2/3 (9:2) ratio of Jowar to potato starch, and only ½ tsp of Xanthan gum.


Banana-Nut Muffins (Potato Starch)

1 ½ c (9:2 Sorghum flour/Potato Starch)
¼ c Soy flour
¼ c Sugar
2 ½ tsp Baking Powder
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp Xanthan gum
2 eggs
1 c milk or soy milk
1/3 c vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 ripe banana
½ cup walnuts

As far as mixing, the only important thing is to make sure that it is mixed very well. I typically mix everything, prepare the muffin tins, and mix it again.