gluten-free eats

This Honey Cornbread from Minimalist Baker is very easy to put together and bakes up tender, fluffy, and sweet. The honey flavor really comes through, so be sure to use one you like. It was nice next to some chili, but it was also fantastic under some strawberries as a dessert.

I used Trader Joe's unsweetened almond/cashew/macadamia milk, avocado oil, Bob's Red Mill medium grind cornmeal, and Minimalist Baker's GF flour mix, which is something you can just throw together yourself. I used math and made just enough for this recipe.

The Elements of Baking: Making any recipe gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free or vegan, by Katarina Cermelj:

A beautiful cookbook and an excellent reference for free-from baking. It contains a framework for adapting recipes to be gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, vegan, or gluten-free vegan, and explains how to mix and match if you follow more than one of these diets. It has case studies that demonstrate how Kat came up with these rules—and they are rules rather than vibes—as well as dozens of individual recipes that fit each category.

I was a bit skeptical at first because I wasn't sure who this book was for with this wildly variable free-from approach, but I know now, it's for me, and maybe for you if you love baking and are gluten-free plus something-else-free or have friends and family with multiple or overlapping sensitivities, as I think we're likely to get the most out of it. For everyone else, I recommend checking it out of the library first. (I did check it out of the library because that's always my first stop, but I just ordered my own copy from bookshop.org to celebrate Independent Bookstore Day.)

I'm eager to try out Kat's system for adapting gluten-free recipes to be dairy-free, not just the ones in this book, but also those in her first book Baked to Perfection, which is all gluten-free, but only incidentally dairy-free. I also have the option of taking the dairy-free recipes in this book and making them gluten free, and, if I really want to get into it, I can even try the gluten-free vegan recipes because I trust Kat and if anyone can take the eggs and dairy out of a gluten-free recipe and still have it work, she can. Except for the vegan cheesecakes (yes, plural), because, I'm sorry, but at some point it stops being a cheesecake, and I think it's once you've removed the eggs and the cheese.

I want to call this impeccable, and it nearly is, expertly presented and arranged, with lots of flowcharts and gorgeous color photographs, but I don't think she spends enough time considering what it's like to have multiple food sensitivities. For instance, she almost exclusively uses dairy-free products to replace dairy products, and dairy-free products often contain ingredients people with multiple sensitivities need to avoid, such as soy or tree nuts, so they're not a universal solution. Instead, I would have liked it if she considered neutral oils as a substitute for melted butter, or shortening in place of solid butter. There is some of that, but I think she could have gone further. There's no reason why you can't use oil in a brownie instead of butter. I do it all the time, but she never mentions the possibility. But that's a me problem. I recognize that a cookbook can't be all things to all people. Still, it's a small disappointment in an otherwise fantastic book. I've made four recipes from it so far and will keep going until I run out.

Highly recommended for those of us who can't buy anything at the grocery store without thoroughly examining the ingredients, and who sadly scroll away from recipes when they include a dealbreaker. The only thing Kat's system won't work on is gluten-free breads—because gluten-free breads be crazy—but she does include recipes for several gluten-free breads, including a base recipe for a simple white bread and one for an enriched brioche. Both can be adapted into more complicated bakes if you're feeing adventurous. Or you can peruse her gluten-free bread category on her blog, which I also highly recommend. Her gluten-free breads are the best I've ever made.

If you have any questions about the cookbook, recipes, or ingredients, just ask!

Bob's Gluten Free Vanilla Cake Mix is rice-, oat-, nut-, and soy-free and can be prepared dairy-free. You add butter or oil, three eggs, and water. I used avocado oil and Trader Joe's almond/cashew/macadamia milk instead of water, as I had a carton open and was trying to use it up. It was actually the reason I bought this mix in the first place.

The cake is very easy to put together. The instructions say to use the stand mixer, so I did, even though it goes against my nature because I hate washing things. I guessed and went with the paddle attachment, but I think I could have mixed it by hand like I wanted and it would have been fine, maybe even more tender. Beating the batter as directed gave it the consistency of stringy pudding (!!) (maybe we can blame the nut milk for this) and it did not spread on its own when squeeged into the pan. I had to spread it myself, but didn't get it even and thus had a crooked cake. It's was very low in the 9 x 13 inch glass pan I put it in, but it rises a lot in the oven. It didn't brown at all, though, so keep a toothpick handy to test for doneness if you go the dairy-free route. You can also bake it as a layer cake or cupcakes and cooking times are provided.

I might have overcooked mine a bit as it wasn't as moist and tender as I'd hoped, but it was still light and fluffy. The vanilla flavor isn't as nice as if you'd used extract, but I suppose there's nothing stopping you from adding an extra dash on your own. It's very good with some sliced and sugared strawberries, like a shortcake, and also very good with a vanilla buttercream, like a sheet cake. I used this vegan buttercream from Minimalist Baker with Miyoko's salted vegan butter, the lower amount of powdered sugar, and a splash of nut milk, and it came out really nice.

I picked this mix up at my local Kroger analogue over in the "natural" section with all the other Bob's products. I'd try it again. Though I'd cook it a little less at 30 minutes, and maybe throw in that extra dash of vanilla extract.

Current Ingredients: Sugar, Potato Starch, Tapioca Flour, Whole Grain Sorghum Flour, Baking Powder (Monocalcium Phosphate, Baking Soda, Cornstarch), Salt, Xanthan Gum, Natural Vanilla Flavor Powder (Sugar, Cornstarch, Vanilla Oleoresin).

I've made Loopy Whisk's focaccia twice now and it has become my go-to focaccia bread. It has a crisp crust on all sides and a tender and chewy middle with an open crumb. I shove some sliced Kalamata and Castelvetrano olives in the top and they stay soft and don't dry out or burn in the oven and give the bread a nice salty/briny/greasy element.

I make it exactly as written and it looks just like the pictures. It instantly became my preferred method to make focaccia. Before I was routinely making Bakerita's focaccia bread in an 9 x 9 inch metal pan, and it was very good, but difficult to get out and the bottom never got crispy. Though it always crisped up nicely when rewarmed in the oven, so that's 100% down to the cooking method. There's nothing stopping me from making that recipe in a sheet pan except that it has rice flour in it, and I'm trying to cut back on my rice intake. The other focaccia bread that I've shared here before is Snixy Kitchen's focaccia, which did get crispy all the way around when I cooked in a 8 x 8 glass pan as it practically boiled in the oil, but it has to rise twice, and that really drags out the process.

Loopy Whisk's focaccia is rice-free and only rises once, in the pan. I put it in a quarter sheet pan lined with parchment paper, as recommended. I put that sheet pan on top of a heavy duty sheet pan that preheats along with the oven, and this helps give the bottom crust some extra heat and intensify the crunch. The dough expands to fill the sheet pan as it rises, then it shrinks away from the sides as it cooks, giving it a nice crust along the edge (unlike when made in a cake pan) and it literally slides right out of the pan.

All three of these focaccia breads taste great and, thanks to the psyllium husk, are very satisfying to chew. They're also easier to make than a loaf of bread, so if you've never made gluten-free bread before, but want to give it a try, this is a nice, low-stakes place to start. It helps a lot to have a stand mixer, and I do, but if you've got the verve, you can mix the dough by hand.

All three of these breads freeze well, too. I just wrap them in foil and stick them in a ziplock bag. Then when I want bread for dinner, I take out a portion and let it defrost on the counter before popping it in the oven to warm up. To reinvigorate the crisp of the crust, unwrap it first so it gets nice and toasty.

My recipe for baked oatmeal cups has changed a lot since I first posted it, but the other day I forgot to put the sugar in and accidentally stumbled onto something great for me, a person who doesn't tolerate sugar well in the mornings. These are sweetened only by applesauce, have a soft, chewy texture, and make a nice breakfast or snack.

Ingredients:

2 cups rolled oats (222 g)
1/2 cup oat flour (50 g)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce (200 g)
1/4 cup water (55 g)
2 Tbsp oil (27 g)
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups frozen raspberries (200 g)

( recipe )

Questions? Ask 'em!

Our prompt for October is bread!

To fill this prompt, you can:

1. Slide into the comments of this post and share a link to a recipe, product, or resource and why you like it.
2. Write up a favorite recipe and post it to the comm.
3. Post a review of a related product or cookbook to the comm.
4. Try someone's recipe and reply to their post (or comment) with any changes you made and how it turned out.

Monthly prompts are only for inspiration and not a requirement. You can post whatever you like to the comm whenever you like as long as it meets the community guidelines.

Katarina Cermelj has written another cookbook. The Elements of Baking teaches you how to make any recipe gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, vegan, or even gluten-free vegan, and it uses quantitative rules, not just vibes, which means it tells you exactly how to convert pretty much any baking recipe into whatever free-from version you want, and it has 140 recipes. It's slated to come out in October, but you can pre-order a copy now.

I have a lot of respect for Cermelj's work. I have her first cookbook, Baked to Perfection (link goes to my review), and follow her blog, The Loopy Whisk, and her breads are truly excellent. I've made her soft sandwich bread, a free-form batard, an olive loaf, and a chewy Mediterranean dinner roll, and they're all delicious and have a texture appropriate for their forms.

Cermelj is also heavily into desserts, which I haven't tried because she's also heavily into dairy products, but as mific shared in our dessert prompt post last month, elodieunderglass posted some photos of a GF rough puff pastry made using Cermelj's recipe, and the results are impressive.