August 2010

Gluten Free Substitutions Part VIII: The Flours

August 30, 2010
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Welcome to the next installment of of the gluten free substitutions series here on Jenn Cuisine! We’re currently in the process of investigating various GF baking ingredients, and why they may or may not be useful. Last week I did a post about starches and why they can be important in baking, and previously I had discussed various binding agents to use. So this week we are pressing on to the flours!

Truth be told, at the moment I’m not feeling so awesome about my abilities to discuss gluten free flours with you . I had a bit of a baking flop this weekend. I mean a real flop. I attempted puff pastry. Maybe I was being too ambitious? I don’t think so, after all there is more than one very successful looking gluten free puff pastry recipe out on the web, namely by Jeanne of Four Chickens and Helene of Tartelette. My last gluten free puff pastry attempt unfortunately didn’t puff. Yesterday, neither did this attempt. After talking to the Twitterverse I don’t think it was all from my flour combo, instead I am thinking it is also my lack of decent puff pastry skills. But I did use some less starchy flours, and maybe that also contributed to its downfall.

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A Pasta to Remember Summer By

August 28, 2010
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Summer is a three-month symphony that nature offers up to celebrate the beauty of the world – she gives of herself to us color and flavor, changing the tones through each movement.  In the beginning, the berries punctuate the markets and then also my breakfast.  Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, currants, oh how I love them all.  I almost think the produce alone could make summer my most treasured season.  But now we are nearing the end (as the fresh chanterelles cue us to the soon-approaching Autumn, less than a month away!) and it’s worth appreciating the current chorus of tomatoes, peaches, and plums.  This meal is to enjoy those tomatoes and chanterelles, marrying Summer and Autumn together in an easy one-dish dinner.

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GF Substitutions Part VII: All About Starches

August 24, 2010
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Welcome to the next installment of Gluten Free Substitutions here on Jenn Cuisine! We are now really getting into the nitty gritty of gluten free ingredients, last week covering binding agents, and this week moving on to the starches. I think you’ll find this week is a bit easier, less complicated chemistry, hopefully. The binding agents really did need chemistry though, because their main purpose in GF baking is to replace the missing properties of gluten. Starches also can have some binding properties, albeit to a lesser extent. I promise to keep the chemistry a bit less this week…we’ll see how I do!

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Gazpacho Blanco

August 20, 2010
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Gazpacho has always been one of my summer loves. Just take ripe summer produce, throw in the processor, purée and enjoy. I committed the ultimate gazpacho sin when I first made it on my own, using *gasp!* canned tomatoes, but I was a poor grad student and it wasn’t summertime – I will say now never do that, ever. Wait for beautiful fresh tomatoes, it’s worth it. Gazpacho is often my choice when I go out to eat as well – there is just something so refreshing about the blend of cucumbers and tomatoes together, that even when it’s so hot out that you feel like you’re going to start melting like that ice cream cone the kid walking down the street is enjoying, you can take a few loud slurps with the spoon and instantly cool off a few degrees (and when it’s that icky out no one minds a few loud slurps anyways).

42 comments

Bruschetta

August 17, 2010
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Bruschetta was the first dish I ever tried to master. Not quite my first cooking memory, but it counts I think. It’s probably not the most authentic recipe, but I like how it tastes and I really enjoy the texture. It is the perfect poem to celebrate tomatoes (because food is just another form of poetry). Just perfect on some fried baguette slices, as the sun is wilting (along with the rest of us in this heat) down towards the horizon, a constant reminder these dog days are not over just yet!

31 comments

Gluten Free Substitutions Part VI: Binding Agents

August 15, 2010
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Welcome to the next installment of the Gluten Free Substitutions series! Now we are really getting into the meat of GF ingredients, and this post is all about one of the more enigmatic of the categories of gluten free – the binding agents. I like to think of these as the “gluten replacements,” because their inclusion often serves to give gluten free dough those glutenicious properties like elasticity, and air trapping. The air trapping is especially important because without being able to hold the CO2 made by yeast or baking soda, baked goods can’t rise. Elasticity (caused from development of a strong network of gluten proteins) is good because it allows one to work with the dough, or hold it together so that it doesn’t turn into a crumbly mess after baking. Of course a binding agent’s presence doesn’t guarantee gluten free perfection as the other ingredients are important too, but often it helps.

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