gluten-free eats

Nut butters you have to stir the oil back into, the worst, am I right?

But last year I made a breakthrough. I'd been meaning to make peanut butter cookies for a while, but it meant I had to open a new jar of peanut butter and mix the oil in with a butter knife, and my hand gets all cramped up and the knife gets greasy and the oil splashes over the side, and it's a whole thing. So the jar had just been sitting on the counter. BUT. I started thinking about how much easier it'd be to just dump it into my stand mixer...but UGH the clean up......and THEN, it came to me:

A NEW TECHNIQUE:

1. Dump the entire jar of nut butter into the bowl of your stand mixer.
2. Turn it on low to start, then increase the velocity.
3. MIX THAT NUT BUTTER.
4. Pour it back into the jar.
5. Immediately make a thing using the already nut buttery stand mixer.

That's right: No waste, no extra clean up, and you get a food out of it. I've used this method with peanut butter and then made peanut butter cookies and almond butter followed by brownie bites, but it should work with any recipe that calls for a natural nut butter and a spin in the mixer.

It's especially worth it for large Costco-sized nut butters and, because you've mixed it up so darn good, it seems like they don't separate as quickly in the fridge, and with the oil distributed evenly throughout the jar, your baked goods will have the right amount of fat in them instead of too much fat, which can make them greasy, or not enough fat, which can make them dry.

Current Ingredients: confectionery coating (sugar, vegetable oil [palm kernel and/or palm], cocoa powder, processed with alkali, buttermilk, soy lecithin, natural flavors), gluten-free whole grain oat flour, cane sugar, palm oil, cocoa processed with alkali; contains 2% or less of: molasses, sodium bicarbonate, salt, inulin, soy lecithin, peppermint oil, ammonium bicarbonate.

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.

Current Ingredients: Brown Rice Flour, Brown Rice Syrup, Fig Paste, Raspberry Jam (Naturally Milled Sugar, Cane Sugar, Glycerin, Rice Starch, Raspberries, Apple Powder, Natural Flavor, Pectin, Citric Acid, Locust Bean Gum), Canola Oil, Cane Sugar, Gluten Free Five Grain Flour (Amaranth, Quinoa, Millet, Sorghum, Teff), Date Paste, Whole Grain Oats, Glycerin, Flaxseed, Leavening (Monocalcium Phosphate, Baking Soda), Sea Salt, Xanthan Gum, Natural Flavor, Citric Acid.