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gluten_freeAmerica's Test Kitchen (and all its offshoots) is known for its attention to detail, innovation, and thorough recipe testing. I had great success with nearly everything I made from these books. The first volume is good for basic white-bread type cookery with its rice and starch flour blend. The second volume introduces a whole grain flour blend—which, I'm realizing now, I never got around to trying—and also the concept of dairy-free recipes. In addition to being great cookbooks, these books are wonderful resources, especially if you're just starting out in the kitchen.
The How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook: I love America's Test Kitchen in all their forms, so I was very excited to see that they'd turned their formidable attention towards cooking without gluten. This book has an emphasis on baking and things that normally depend on wheat, but there are also chapters on savory dishes that use rice and grains, sauces and pastas (including homemade), and meatloaf and breaded items like chicken and pork chops. I'm mostly here for the baked stuff, but it's nice to know I could bread something if I had to. The chapter on grains felt a little forced, but it does include good information about the various ways to cook them, and it doesn't take up much room.
Their recipes are developed based on their own gluten-free all-purpose flour mix: white and brown rice flour, potato and tapioca starch, and non-fat milk powder. Most of their baked goods also call for xanthan gum, and they'll tell you when you absolutely can't replace or leave out the gum or the milk powder. It talks about substitutions for these up front in the introduction, so there's not a lot of that in each recipe, but otherwise, it has all the information you need to know each time you need it, and all recipes have measurements by U.S. volume and weight (ounces).
Like their other publications, every recipe is introduced with a lengthy explanation about how the recipe was developed. It can get pretty long-winded, but it's helpful to know how they adapted these recipes to make them gluten free and it gave me some tools to use if my own gluten-free cooking was turning out weird or unsatisfying.
Each recipe also has a little GF Testing Lab chart where it covers whether substitutions are an option or not and explains what'll happen if you use GF flour mixes from King Arthur or Bob's Red Mill; usually there will be textural differences, with some grittiness from Arthur and some level of bean flavor with Bob. Sometimes they recommend you don't use either mix because the results were so poor. That more than anything convinced me to try mixing up some of their own flour blend. I trust ATK, and this book is a good resource with a lot of basic recipes for things I'm likely to make, like waffles, pancakes, pizza, some sandwich breads that look amazing, cookies, pies, muffins, and cakes.
There are color photos for nearly every recipe, the kind of methodical explanations you expect from an ATK publication, an introduction that goes through the science of baking with and without gluten and rates some common gluten-free products like bread, pasta, and flour mixes, as well as a guide to gluten-free flours, grains, and leaveners.
The How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook, Volume 2: A great companion to the first book, this one includes recipes for their all-purpose gluten-free flour blend, but also introduces a new whole-grain gluten-free flour blend. Unlike the first book, the majority of these recipes are either dairy free or can be made dairy free through substitutions.
Their AP GF flour does have non-fat milk powder in it, but can be left out, or replaced with soy milk powder, and recipes use xanthan gum and/or powdered psyllium husks in the baked goods. They offer some possible substitutions for the xanthan gum in the introduction, and each recipe will tell you whether or not you can omit it or the powdered psyllium husks.
Their whole-grain flour blend is made of teff flour, brown rice flour, sweet rice flour, and ground golden flax seeds. They recommend Bob's Red Mill for all but the flax seeds, as Bob's grind is too coarse. Instead, they recommend a product with the totally ridiculous name of "Flax USA 100% Natural Flax, Cold Milled Ground Golden Flax Seed." Unfortunately this brand is no longer for sale, as far as I can tell, so we're going to have to use whatever flax is around, and I bet it'll be absolutely fine because we're used to cooking this way.
The introduction includes a lot of the same information as the first book: What gluten is, how to bake without it; dairy-free products; gluten-free flours, meals, grains, and leaveners, where to buy them, how to use them, where to store them. Their product reviews for gluten-free breads, pastas, and flours have been updated. They tested whole-grain breads this time around, as well as whole-grain premixed flour blends. They liked a couple of the breads, but could not find a whole-grain flour blend they found satisfactory. Like the first book, each recipe has a little GF Testing Lab box where it goes through possible substitutions, and if they're using their own AP GF Flour mix, they'll tell you if you can substitute King Arthur's or—and this is new—Betty Crocker's GF flours and the results. For the recipes that use their whole-grain blend, they don't recommend a premixed flour, so you have to use theirs or cry. The recipes are pretty evenly split between the AP and the whole-grain mixes.
The book covers breakfast, grain dishes, rice noodles, some breaded meats and fish, breads and crackers, cakes, muffins, pies, and fruit desserts. Again, a lot of the recipes are for basic things I'd totally make. Especially the hamburger buns, bagels, New York-style crumb cake, and graham crackers. And the doughnuts, except I will never make them because I don't deep fry. Still, they look SO GOOD. They're on the cover if you want to gaze at them lovingly, as I do, every time I pick this book up.
There are color photos for nearly every recipe. Each chapter has a contents page where it indicates which recipes can be made without dairy. There's an index, and nutritional information for each recipe in the back of the book, too, which is new.
America's Test Kitchen Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour Mix
After I posted my reviews of these cookbooks, a couple of people asked me to report back on my experience with using America's Test Kitchen's GF AP flour blend, so here I am giving the people what they want.
The Recipe:
America's Test Kitchen all-purpose gluten-free flour blend
24 ounces (4 1/2 cups plus 1/3 cup) white rice flour
7 1/2 ounces (1 2/3 cups) brown rice flour
7 ounces (1 1/3 cups) potato starch
3 ounces (3/4 cup) tapioca starch
3/4 ounce (1/4 cup) nonfat dry milk powder
This is supposed to make around 9 1/3 cups, so I put it in a 14 cup container, which gave me enough room to snap the lid on and slosh the contents around until mixed. It came out to around 8 cups after everything settled, but I measured by weight not volume, and I'll cook that way too, so it doesn't matter. I used Bob's Red Mill for everything. The milk powder can be left out or replaced with an equal amount of soy milk powder. I used the milk powder.
The Experiments:
I started out with ATK's chocolate chip cookie recipe. The cookies came out crisp on the edges and tender in the middle, browned nicely, and held together well. The flour mix is pretty neutral, no weird taste or mouthfeel. The cookies have a slightly gritty aftertaste, but you might only notice it if you're looking for it, as I was. I let the dough sit in the fridge for a full hour—instead of the 30 minutes it calls for—so maybe a few more minutes would entirely rid you of grit, and I might reduce the white sugar slightly, as the cookies are on the sweet side. Great results, though, and it's particularly easy to hand mix because of the melted butter and the dough's extremely goopy nature.
Next I made blueberry muffins. This was easy to mix by hand, too, because it also uses melted butter, and the batter's super thick so the loads of blueberries don't sink. The muffins bake up nice, soft and fluffy, yet firm enough to eat out of hand without crumbling into pieces. Only a hint of grittiness and, again, a little on the sweet side, and no flavor at all coming from the flour mix, which in this case I found to be a negative, as except for the blueberries, these had a distinct lack of taste. They looked real nice, though.
Then it was fudgy brownie time. This recipe is very similar to my favorite fudgy brownies made with wheat flour, so I had high hopes for it. The batter is extremely thick and gloopy, so it's really a workout to stir. The brownies cooked up tall and the top cracked into deep fissures, but it settled as it cooled, and two hours later (damn these gluten-free wait times) I broke into them and they were delicious. They're a little fluffier than my other recipe, but still moist, soft and smooshy in the center, chewy along the edges, with deep chocolate flavor and good texture. Even the gluten-eaters are pleased with these.
After that I made a half-order of hamburger buns, but I wasn't happy with them. They had a wet, rubbery crumb and the texture was more like tough cake than bread. I'm going to blame the yeast for being old, because it was, and myself for being impatient, because I am. The rolls had an earthy taste, probably from the oat flour and powdered psyllium husks, though it's a mystery why they turned out greyish brown when the rolls in the pictures were a beautiful gold.
Finally, with the last of my flour—all of these recipes were made with the same batch—I tried their buttermilk waffles. Just a basic white waffle. They had good texture and weren't too sweet, but it'll take some tweaking to make the batter work with my waffle iron; it never quite filled the space, leaving the top looking uncooked. They were soft in the middle and chewy/crisp on the parts that were a nice golden brown (the bottom, basically). I added some vanilla and cinnamon to the batter for extra flavor. They froze well and worked for a quick breakfast.
With later batches of this mix, I made something called a lunchbox brownie—a firm, cakey brownie—which was dry and only okay; a lemon pound cake, which was promising, but also dry, but I think I overcooked it. I also made their blondies, which were the best blondies I'd ever eaten, including all the ones with wheat in them.
There are also recipes that don't call for the flour mix, like their skillet cornbread and their granola, both of which I have made countless times.
The Conclusion:
When I started researching gluten-free baking, the thought of a flour blend tied to a specific cookbook made me scoff, but this is definitely worth the commitment. I have a lot of faith in America's Test Kitchen's recipes, and their flour blend is made of easy to find products, mixes well, doesn't feel weird in the mouth, goes a long way, and is convenient to have around. It's really nice to think, "I want waffles!" and open their cookbook and get started right away without having to haul out five different bags of flour. I also once used it as a cup-for-cup replacement for wheat flour, and my cake turned out great. So it might work as just a general AP flour as well, though you'll need to bring your own gums or gum substitutes.
If you can tolerate the ingredients in the flour blend—and also dairy because it's integral to a lot of their baked goods—I recommend the first book, especially if you're just starting out doing your own gluten-free cooking and baking. ATK's instructions may be tedious and fussy, but at least they don't leave you wondering what it is you're supposed to do next. The second book makes more of an effort to include dairy-free options, but their options are usually soy or nut based so that won't be a solution for everyone.
The How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook: I love America's Test Kitchen in all their forms, so I was very excited to see that they'd turned their formidable attention towards cooking without gluten. This book has an emphasis on baking and things that normally depend on wheat, but there are also chapters on savory dishes that use rice and grains, sauces and pastas (including homemade), and meatloaf and breaded items like chicken and pork chops. I'm mostly here for the baked stuff, but it's nice to know I could bread something if I had to. The chapter on grains felt a little forced, but it does include good information about the various ways to cook them, and it doesn't take up much room.
Their recipes are developed based on their own gluten-free all-purpose flour mix: white and brown rice flour, potato and tapioca starch, and non-fat milk powder. Most of their baked goods also call for xanthan gum, and they'll tell you when you absolutely can't replace or leave out the gum or the milk powder. It talks about substitutions for these up front in the introduction, so there's not a lot of that in each recipe, but otherwise, it has all the information you need to know each time you need it, and all recipes have measurements by U.S. volume and weight (ounces).
Like their other publications, every recipe is introduced with a lengthy explanation about how the recipe was developed. It can get pretty long-winded, but it's helpful to know how they adapted these recipes to make them gluten free and it gave me some tools to use if my own gluten-free cooking was turning out weird or unsatisfying.
Each recipe also has a little GF Testing Lab chart where it covers whether substitutions are an option or not and explains what'll happen if you use GF flour mixes from King Arthur or Bob's Red Mill; usually there will be textural differences, with some grittiness from Arthur and some level of bean flavor with Bob. Sometimes they recommend you don't use either mix because the results were so poor. That more than anything convinced me to try mixing up some of their own flour blend. I trust ATK, and this book is a good resource with a lot of basic recipes for things I'm likely to make, like waffles, pancakes, pizza, some sandwich breads that look amazing, cookies, pies, muffins, and cakes.
There are color photos for nearly every recipe, the kind of methodical explanations you expect from an ATK publication, an introduction that goes through the science of baking with and without gluten and rates some common gluten-free products like bread, pasta, and flour mixes, as well as a guide to gluten-free flours, grains, and leaveners.
The How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook, Volume 2: A great companion to the first book, this one includes recipes for their all-purpose gluten-free flour blend, but also introduces a new whole-grain gluten-free flour blend. Unlike the first book, the majority of these recipes are either dairy free or can be made dairy free through substitutions.
Their AP GF flour does have non-fat milk powder in it, but can be left out, or replaced with soy milk powder, and recipes use xanthan gum and/or powdered psyllium husks in the baked goods. They offer some possible substitutions for the xanthan gum in the introduction, and each recipe will tell you whether or not you can omit it or the powdered psyllium husks.
Their whole-grain flour blend is made of teff flour, brown rice flour, sweet rice flour, and ground golden flax seeds. They recommend Bob's Red Mill for all but the flax seeds, as Bob's grind is too coarse. Instead, they recommend a product with the totally ridiculous name of "Flax USA 100% Natural Flax, Cold Milled Ground Golden Flax Seed." Unfortunately this brand is no longer for sale, as far as I can tell, so we're going to have to use whatever flax is around, and I bet it'll be absolutely fine because we're used to cooking this way.
The introduction includes a lot of the same information as the first book: What gluten is, how to bake without it; dairy-free products; gluten-free flours, meals, grains, and leaveners, where to buy them, how to use them, where to store them. Their product reviews for gluten-free breads, pastas, and flours have been updated. They tested whole-grain breads this time around, as well as whole-grain premixed flour blends. They liked a couple of the breads, but could not find a whole-grain flour blend they found satisfactory. Like the first book, each recipe has a little GF Testing Lab box where it goes through possible substitutions, and if they're using their own AP GF Flour mix, they'll tell you if you can substitute King Arthur's or—and this is new—Betty Crocker's GF flours and the results. For the recipes that use their whole-grain blend, they don't recommend a premixed flour, so you have to use theirs or cry. The recipes are pretty evenly split between the AP and the whole-grain mixes.
The book covers breakfast, grain dishes, rice noodles, some breaded meats and fish, breads and crackers, cakes, muffins, pies, and fruit desserts. Again, a lot of the recipes are for basic things I'd totally make. Especially the hamburger buns, bagels, New York-style crumb cake, and graham crackers. And the doughnuts, except I will never make them because I don't deep fry. Still, they look SO GOOD. They're on the cover if you want to gaze at them lovingly, as I do, every time I pick this book up.
There are color photos for nearly every recipe. Each chapter has a contents page where it indicates which recipes can be made without dairy. There's an index, and nutritional information for each recipe in the back of the book, too, which is new.
America's Test Kitchen Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour Mix
After I posted my reviews of these cookbooks, a couple of people asked me to report back on my experience with using America's Test Kitchen's GF AP flour blend, so here I am giving the people what they want.
The Recipe:
America's Test Kitchen all-purpose gluten-free flour blend
24 ounces (4 1/2 cups plus 1/3 cup) white rice flour
7 1/2 ounces (1 2/3 cups) brown rice flour
7 ounces (1 1/3 cups) potato starch
3 ounces (3/4 cup) tapioca starch
3/4 ounce (1/4 cup) nonfat dry milk powder
This is supposed to make around 9 1/3 cups, so I put it in a 14 cup container, which gave me enough room to snap the lid on and slosh the contents around until mixed. It came out to around 8 cups after everything settled, but I measured by weight not volume, and I'll cook that way too, so it doesn't matter. I used Bob's Red Mill for everything. The milk powder can be left out or replaced with an equal amount of soy milk powder. I used the milk powder.
The Experiments:
I started out with ATK's chocolate chip cookie recipe. The cookies came out crisp on the edges and tender in the middle, browned nicely, and held together well. The flour mix is pretty neutral, no weird taste or mouthfeel. The cookies have a slightly gritty aftertaste, but you might only notice it if you're looking for it, as I was. I let the dough sit in the fridge for a full hour—instead of the 30 minutes it calls for—so maybe a few more minutes would entirely rid you of grit, and I might reduce the white sugar slightly, as the cookies are on the sweet side. Great results, though, and it's particularly easy to hand mix because of the melted butter and the dough's extremely goopy nature.
Next I made blueberry muffins. This was easy to mix by hand, too, because it also uses melted butter, and the batter's super thick so the loads of blueberries don't sink. The muffins bake up nice, soft and fluffy, yet firm enough to eat out of hand without crumbling into pieces. Only a hint of grittiness and, again, a little on the sweet side, and no flavor at all coming from the flour mix, which in this case I found to be a negative, as except for the blueberries, these had a distinct lack of taste. They looked real nice, though.
Then it was fudgy brownie time. This recipe is very similar to my favorite fudgy brownies made with wheat flour, so I had high hopes for it. The batter is extremely thick and gloopy, so it's really a workout to stir. The brownies cooked up tall and the top cracked into deep fissures, but it settled as it cooled, and two hours later (damn these gluten-free wait times) I broke into them and they were delicious. They're a little fluffier than my other recipe, but still moist, soft and smooshy in the center, chewy along the edges, with deep chocolate flavor and good texture. Even the gluten-eaters are pleased with these.
After that I made a half-order of hamburger buns, but I wasn't happy with them. They had a wet, rubbery crumb and the texture was more like tough cake than bread. I'm going to blame the yeast for being old, because it was, and myself for being impatient, because I am. The rolls had an earthy taste, probably from the oat flour and powdered psyllium husks, though it's a mystery why they turned out greyish brown when the rolls in the pictures were a beautiful gold.
Finally, with the last of my flour—all of these recipes were made with the same batch—I tried their buttermilk waffles. Just a basic white waffle. They had good texture and weren't too sweet, but it'll take some tweaking to make the batter work with my waffle iron; it never quite filled the space, leaving the top looking uncooked. They were soft in the middle and chewy/crisp on the parts that were a nice golden brown (the bottom, basically). I added some vanilla and cinnamon to the batter for extra flavor. They froze well and worked for a quick breakfast.
With later batches of this mix, I made something called a lunchbox brownie—a firm, cakey brownie—which was dry and only okay; a lemon pound cake, which was promising, but also dry, but I think I overcooked it. I also made their blondies, which were the best blondies I'd ever eaten, including all the ones with wheat in them.
There are also recipes that don't call for the flour mix, like their skillet cornbread and their granola, both of which I have made countless times.
The Conclusion:
When I started researching gluten-free baking, the thought of a flour blend tied to a specific cookbook made me scoff, but this is definitely worth the commitment. I have a lot of faith in America's Test Kitchen's recipes, and their flour blend is made of easy to find products, mixes well, doesn't feel weird in the mouth, goes a long way, and is convenient to have around. It's really nice to think, "I want waffles!" and open their cookbook and get started right away without having to haul out five different bags of flour. I also once used it as a cup-for-cup replacement for wheat flour, and my cake turned out great. So it might work as just a general AP flour as well, though you'll need to bring your own gums or gum substitutes.
If you can tolerate the ingredients in the flour blend—and also dairy because it's integral to a lot of their baked goods—I recommend the first book, especially if you're just starting out doing your own gluten-free cooking and baking. ATK's instructions may be tedious and fussy, but at least they don't leave you wondering what it is you're supposed to do next. The second book makes more of an effort to include dairy-free options, but their options are usually soy or nut based so that won't be a solution for everyone.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-14 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-15 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-14 11:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-15 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-15 12:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-15 01:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-15 05:06 am (UTC)I should point out that I wrote these reviews before I got comfortable with replacing dairy products with whatever I felt like replacing them with, so as written, the first book isn't non-dairy friendly, but the recipes may still work with some tweaking. For example, the chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and blueberry muffins all call for melted butter, which makes it super easy to replace it with (slightly less) liquid oil.
So it's possible you can make other recipes work dairy free, but, of course, you'd have to do all the work yourself. At least in the second volume they do it for you.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-15 03:15 pm (UTC)I'm also happy to learn the second volume trends away from the white-flour taste. I learned to bake from the wellspring of whole-wheatery, the Tassajara Bread Book, and I found the volume 1 recipes just too sweet, too crumbly, and too carbalicious.
* besides you, that is.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-15 04:22 pm (UTC)Even before I started using more adventurous flours, some of the starchy rice-based recipes in the first volume turned me off, and I like sweet, sticky, starchy things! But those blueberry muffins--they looked perfect, but they had no soul, man.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-15 06:23 pm (UTC)The one thing that I really wish is that they'd published it a few years later, after the new crop of GF flour blends had come out. Their point of comparison for the Bob's Red Mill mix, for instance, is the old mix rather than the newer 1-to-1 mix. (The old mix is the bean-y one which I refuse to use for anything.) Would have loved to see that one and the Cup 4 Cup included in their comparisons and substitution guidelines.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-15 06:40 pm (UTC)A third volume with updated reviews and recommendations would be awesome. Like I said, the flax meal they like for their whole grain flour mix is now unavailable, and there are a lot more gluten-free products and alternative flours out on the market now. I'm sure they could do amazing things with cassava flour.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-16 11:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-17 11:38 pm (UTC)