First Efforts: Baking Up a GF Storm!

So, the baker can’t bake. Well…not with wheat, not for me to eat! I consider myself a decent baker. I love to make bread of various sorts. For gosh sakes, I just perfected my slow rise Italian bread last year. It was so good people asked what bakery I bought it at. Sadly, no more of that. Total bummer. So….the quest for decent tasting, gluten free baked goods is on. Let me tell you what I baked in my first month of being GF.

First I bought some cookbooks of my own as well as borrowing several to pore over. My initial effort was some tasty cookies: oatmeal raisin. They were sweet and crunchy and everyone loved them. Great start, I thought. Next, I created some lovely, delicate coconut raspberry muffins and a bit later a loaf of cinnamon
current bread, which was delightful toasted with butter lightly spread on the warm slices. Score!

Early on in my odyssey to wheat-less I tried out a multigrain bread as my first bread effort and was not that happy with it. The teff flour in it made it taste sort of muddy. It was supposed to make it look and taste like whole wheat bread but I did not think that to be the case. Plus, it got very crumbly which made it a total disaster to eat as a sandwich. So I didn’t make any more of that. I did blend it up in the blender into some useful GF bread crumbs; better than having to buy them for four times the cost of regular bread crumbs!

A week later I screwed up my courage and made Italian bread with fennel seeds and golden raisins. Now I must say that it was delicious out of the oven, especially with some butter scraped on. You spoon the bread dough--which is sort of loose and squishy--into a traditional French bread mold that is wavy, holds two long loaves, and has tiny holes to let in hot air which creates a certain pattern in the surface of the dough. It was not quite as good the next day but was still very edible, especially toasted. Without gluten you don’t need to knead and you can’t do much to shape the bread. It's hard to twist, braid or fold bread. Some recipes can be adapted and some probably not. I hope to be able to make challah egg bread again someday!

Speaking of adaptation, I have a recipe for breakfast cookies I made a lot last summer. They are very healthy and tasty, and great to take on hikes or eat for a mid-morning snack. I took the ingredient list and revised it to be GF. The first time they were OK but not quite up to snuff. I tried again and made them recently with some flour revisions. Now they are almost as good as they were with wheat. Instead of the whole wheat flour I used a brown rice flour mix and in place of the white flour I put in some coconut flour, quinoa flour and a touch of teff flour. Of course, I had to add some xanthan gum to keep them together. Pretty much all gluten free baking includes a gum, of which xanthan is the most commonly used. So the breakfast cookie was my first baking adaption and I now count it as a success story.

Next, I made some yummy almond biscotti this past weekend, which were well received. They were crunchy, slightly sandy, very almondy and great with tea/coffee. You would never guess there was no wheat flour in there.

Last Sunday I made a sour cream coffee cake for dessert at my mom’s place. It had chopped walnuts, lots of cinnamon sugar and bits of fresh apple baked into the tender cake. I have to say that it was as good as any coffee cake I have ever
baked. No one had any problem devouring it! Success in the dessert category!

And my latest effort (last night) was some white bread I made late last night when I discovered I had nothing for lunch the next day. It started with a mixture of bean flour, tapioca flour, corn starch and sorghum flour. It was a flour mix I created in a big baggie; dumped and blended really well. I measured out some and mixed it up. The dough had warm milk, eggs, yeast, a bit of butter and some honey and quinoa flour in it. It tasted a lot like homemade white bread,  had a nice crumb and smelled heavenly baking. I enjoyed some as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch today and had a slice with butter and tomato jam for dessert tonight. Success in the plain sandwich bread department…. Score! I had been scared I would never find decent bread for lunch material. I am betting I can make some tasty French toast out of it too! The recipe came with several versions, and I actually made one of them—the quinoa variation.

It was a huge relief for me to find that I could make tasty breads, wonderful muffins and cookies that people were stealing out of my cookie jar! And yes, you need a cookie jar; GF baked goods need to be carefully stored. Some have to be kept in the fridge. I have a special bread bag someone gave me a while ago and it kept that golden raisin bread really well for longer than I expected. You can also freeze things, which I do, so you have them fresh when you need a treat. Just wrap them tightly and use them fairly soon. I love to pull a cookie from the freezer and enjoy it with tea or a glass of cold milk. The picture with this blog is of my cookie jar, my bread bag and my loaf of quinoa bread I just made. :)

Even with all these yummy baked goods I have lost weight in the first month of my new GF diet life style. And I feel good about what I am baking. I know it is not going to make me ill from wheat. My plan is to be thoughtful in what I make, eat in moderation and avoid things made with a lot of sugar. I am actually getting excited about all the possibilities I have found in my new cookbooks. I might just sell all my bread cookbooks on eBay. Who needs 'em!