Baking with Gluten Free Flours

               I have heard that many people who are gluten intolerant have given up trying to make their old favorite baked goods.  They want to have the same taste they remember, but stay within their gluten restrictions.  Based upon my own experiences, I can tell you, this can be tough.  I have experimented with many different flours, and I have come up with some very mixed results.  Some of the flours have such strong tastes that the baked good ends up only tasting like the flour, nothing more.

              This last holiday season I found three flours that worked really well.  They gave me a good finished product without the gritty texture that you get from some gluten free flours.  The three flours I used were oat, coconut, and almond.  The oat and almond flours were used for the body of the baked good as with regular flour, while the coconut was used for both body and flavor.

                These flours can be found in bulk bins and in packages.  The bulk bins of these flours are at Outpost Natural Foods and Whole Foods.  I, personally, started with the bulk bins, getting only the amount needed for a recipe.  Doing it this way, I was able to find out how the flours worked for a given recipe without having a lot left over.  Now I have the confidence to buy these flours in larger prepackaged amounts.  These prepacked flours can be found at Woodman’s, along with many others, as Woodman’s has a great assortment of gluten free flours.

                One thing I do have to say about using these flours, is that if I weighed the flour instead of using measuring cups, I came out with a better outcome.  To help me with this, I found a great cup to weight conversion chart on the King Arthur Flour website.  Visit www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/ingredient-weight-chart.html if you have a scale, otherwise keep using your cup measures.

                I hope that with these gluten-free flours you will try baking again.

Mary Jane's Farm

                My mom and I are always looking for new gluten-free recipes to try.  One place that we can regularly turn to is the magazine Mary Jane’s Farm.  A magazine full of ideas on how to live a more natural and simple life, oftentimes the recipes featured are already gluten-free or advice is given as to how you can make it gluten-free.  Not all the time, I must say, but certainly a good deal of it.

                Recently my mom and I tried Mary Jane’s Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Skillet Brownies.  They turned out really well, even with us forgetting the sugar.  My mom then made the brownies a second time for a work function.  This time she remembered the sugar, but replaced the peanut butter with a chocolate ganache.  The brownies were a hit.  Nobody even cared that they were gluten-free.

                While most Mary Jane’s Farm issues have at least one gluten-free recipe, not all of them do.  That does not mean you shouldn’t still read those issues though.  There are always great articles and news bits, no matter if there happens to be a gluten-free recipe in that issue or not.  We have personally found Mary Jane’s Farm at Woodman’s and Outpost Natural Foods, but check with your favorite bookstore as well.  If you would like a subscription to Mary Jane’s Farm, visit MaryJanesFarm.org.

Endangered Species Chocolate

                Some people say there isn’t anything better in life than chocolate.  Here is an opportunity to enjoy chocolate, help the world become better, and be gluten free.

                How do you accomplish all that?  Well, by Endangered Species Chocolate.  With many varieties of flavors, my favorite ones are the Dark Chocolate bars made from 72% cocoa.  This was the case with the Dark Chocolate with Hazelnut Toffee I tried recently, but I also liked the Dark Chocolate with Caramel & Sea Salt that had 60% cocoa.  

                Be sure to look at the inside of the wrappers as they each have different animal facts.  Also, each bar sold helps conservation efforts as 10% of the net profits are donated to different wildlife conservation charities.

                Endangered Species Chocolate can be found at Target, Woodman’s, Outpost Natural Foods, and Whole Foods.  For more information about Endangered Species Chocolate, visit www.chocolatebar.com.

Annie’s Homegrown Cocoa & Vanilla Gluten Free Bunny Cookies

              I know I have talked about Annie’sGluten Free Bunny Cookies before, but I am writing about them again because we have found an entirely new way to use them.

                Recently my mom and I were trying a recipe where graham crackers were needed.  As we were trying to make the mix we were creating gluten-free, we decided that in place of the graham crackers we would use Annie’s Homegrown Cocoa & Vanilla Gluten Free Bunny Cookies.  They don’t taste like graham crackers, but we thought of them because of the regular mixed Bunny Grahams I so much like to eat.  We could not use those, of course, because they have gluten, so we thought the Cocoa & Vanilla Gluten Free Bunny Cookies were worth a try.

              They worked perfectly.  While yes, we were missing the graham taste the recipe required, our mix turned out just as we wanted.  The bunny cookies broke up the sweetness that was created by the caramel and the chocolate as well as added an extra surprise flavor once we bit into one.  This successful use of these cookies as a substitution made us wonder what else we could have them stand in for.  So far we have not tried anything yet, but I am curious as to how they may work as a crust or coating of some kind.  Once we get a chance, it will be interesting to find out.

                With Annie’s Homegrown products showing up all over the place (I’ve even seen some at Sam’s Club), it’s worth checking whatever grocery story you happen to be in for these cookies.  The two places where I have personally seen them most recently is Woodman’s and Outpost Natural Foods.