Baked to Perfection: Delicious Gluten-Free Recipes with a Pinch of Science, by Katarina Cermelj

[runpunkrun]

A gorgeous book with beautiful photographs of the finished baked goods, process photos for some of the tricky bits, and friendly illustrations that demonstrate the science behind the recipes. Because it explains WHY you're doing things this way, it's got an America's Test Kitchen vibe, only Cermelj herself is gluten free and has a degree in chemistry, so it feels more personal than ATK's GF cookbooks.

Be aware, though, that this is a book for people who have no other dietary restrictions. Cermelj makes no attempt to accommodate those with other major food allergies/sensitivities and most recipes include milk, butter, and eggs, and the only substitutions offered are for recipes with a supplemental amount of almond flour. The few recipes that do happen to be dairy free or egg free aren't even noted in the index.

Most recipes use a gluten-free flour blend. These recipes have all been tested with five commercial blends: Doves Farm Freee plain GF flour, and store-brand GF flour blends from Aldi, Lidi, Asda, and Sainsbury's. Why, yes, this book is British.

There are also two blends you can whip up yourself:

1. 50% white rice flour, 30% potato starch, 20% maize flour

2. 40% tapioca starch, 30% buckwheat flour, 30% millet flour

Some recipes then call for additional flours like brown rice, sorghum, millet, and oat, and starches like corn and tapioca. Xanthan gum is used in most recipes, and the breads call for both xanthan gum and whole psyllium husk.

And some specialized ingredients:

• caster sugar
• double cream
• dutch processed cocoa powder
• vanilla bean paste

The recipes give measurements in grams (even the liquids) and temperatures in °C, and each one has a beautiful full-page photo, headnotes describing the finished product, and storage advice.

The extensive introduction covers the ingredients and tools used in the book, and most chapters include their own specialized details about the science behind particular items, like pie crusts, breads, and muffins vs cupcakes. The recipes range from basic (chocolate chip cookie, hamburger bun) to super fancy (eclair! millefeuille!!) and are broken up into: Cakes; Cupcakes & Muffins; Brownies; Cookies & Bars (+ 1 savory cracker); Pies, Tarts & Pastries; Bread; Breakfast & Teatime Treats; and Around the World, with most of the fussiest stuff being in this last, involving lamination and pastry creme and whatnot.

The breads mostly do not use custom blends and instead call for the exact amount of each of the flours used. I made the focaccia bread which was simple and tasty though I probably overcooked it, and the rice-free (!!) sandwich bread which had a lot, a lot, of steps, but was soft and chewy and delicious even though I probably underproofed it because it never rose into a proper loaf shape. I don't know what it is about Cermelj's recipes, but I've yet to nail any of them on the first try. You live, you learn. I'll try again.

This book is a tremendous resource, and after having it checked out of the library off and on for several years (NOT because I was using it, but in case I MIGHT use it), this time when I returned it, I bought my own copy.

You can also find Katarina Cermelj at her blog The Loopy Whisk where recipes are categorized by diet (nut-free, dairy-free, egg-free, vegan, paleo, etc) and by dish (mostly breads, breakfast foods, and desserts). I've made her gluten free white bread from the blog, and it was also good, even though, again, mine did not come out like the pictures. I'm blaming....England.

Contains: casual use of ableist terms (stupid, crazy); one of the handwriting fonts used for the diagrams is small and its ambiguous letters can be difficult to read; everything is in metric but there are conversion tables in the back.

Comments

Thank you for giving this intriguing book

[jesse_the_k]

the attention and test-cooking it deserves.

I did love the sciencey-explanations and I wish someone would make a comic-book cookbook about how baking works, GF edition.

Re: Thank you for giving this intriguing book

[runpunkrun]

Thank you for bringing it to my attention! It only took me two years to review it. :D

[celli]

ooh, I might have to check my library for that!

[runpunkrun]

It's soooo pretty.

[fred_mouse]

Thank you for the review.

I ... think we have a cultural difference here, but in what way is caster sugar a specialised ingredient? (This is a genuine question. I think of it as something that is ubiquitous. Certainly I'd expect to find it in the kitchen of anyone who bakes)

[runpunkrun]

I've never used it in my baking and it's rare that I've seen a recipe call for it. In fact, I just checked my local Kroger and it doesn't even look like they sell it!

[fred_mouse]

Oh! Anything that is egg whites and sugar is caster sugar in my recipes. Also, for creaming butter and sugar, I was taught that caster sugar is faster and will make for a lighter cake.

So, I guess I just think of it as a standard ingredient. And it is in the sugar section of every grocery store locally. I guess I've never thought to go looking when travelling.

[runpunkrun]

I just made some brownies that would have DEFINITELY benefited from caster sugar. The granulated sugar didn't dissolve properly and was still gritty after baking! I guess I'll have to spend more time whipping the sugar with the eggs next time.

[sonia]

Catching up late with these comments. I wondered if castor sugar is the same as powdered sugar (answer: no, powdered sugar is even finer and often has cornstarch mixed in), but while searching for that, in the comments to this Bob's Red Mill article, I found out that castor sugar is sold as baker's sugar in the US.

[runpunkrun]

That sounds familiar! Still no hits for it at my local Kroger, though.

[nerakrose]

caster sugar has finer granules than regular sugar. this is something I learned from the internet, caster sugar doesn't exist in my home country at all.

[fred_mouse]

Yes, the finer granules make it faster to work with, but also makes it more expensive to buy. It hadn't occurred to me that it wasn't just one of the things that everyone has. I'm used to substituting sugars for grains of sugar we don't have in Australia, but hadn't converted that to 'and thus our options aren't just a smaller set of the standard'.

[nerakrose]

thank you for sharing! I didn't know this baker before but I've bookmarked several recipes on her blog that I think I'll try before shelling out for the book.

[runpunkrun]

The recipes on her blog are very similar to what's in the cookbook, so it's a great place to start. I recently made this olive bread from her blog, and after proofing it for twice as long as it suggests and baking it for about fifteen minutes more than it calls for, I finally succeeded in making something that looked like her pictures. And it was very good.

[teaotter]

THANK YOU for this recommendation!!!

It's the first gluten free yeast bread recipe I've had that worked. I'm so happy to be able to bake bread again!

[runpunkrun]

I'm so glad it worked for you!!