Cookie Day One: Sans Gluten et Sans Reproche

[mrissa]

My godson Rob was diagnosed with celiac this spring, and while we haven’t made all the changes we would if it was someone in my household, there has been a lot more paying attention to what has wheat and barley and the like, what doesn’t, what does but can be made to work without it. Also, we have been saying for years that my goddaughter Lillian is almost old enough (and definitely enthusiastic enough about baking) to be included in Cookie Day. This year, the two things combined: we had Lillian spend the night and then spend all day having Gluten-Free Cookie Day.

Here is what we made.

First, in our pajamas, we made fully glutenated waffles for breakfast. Because Lillian hasn’t been diagnosed with celiac, and sometimes having the gluteny things you like when you’re not sharing them with your big brother is a good plan.

Then we got ready for the day and finished putting out the Christmas decorations (usually wayyyy too early, but I’m going to be in Montreal, so I needed to get it done if it was ever going to happen) and waited for my folks and my grandma. And then the reinforcements got here and we really got going.

We made: chocolate fudge with hazelnuts; double-layer chocolate/peanut butter fudge; caramels; strawberry shortbread with gluten-free flour*; chocolate-dipped apricots; chocolate mixed nut clusters; amaretti (tinted lavender–Lillian’s choice), some sandwiched with frosting and some with raspberry jam; Nutella cookies; and chocolate chip peanut butter cookies. We didn’t get to the blueberry meringues, so I’ll do those tomorrow before we really get going on the gluten-y cookies, and there was a teeeeeensy mishap when we were boiling the apple cider down for apple cider caramels, so that got scratched for the day.

And in the process, we taught Lillian about when you whip a lot of air into egg whites to make them fluffy, how to use a pastry blender to do exactly the opposite, how to use a pastry bag to pipe dough out, how to make frosting from scratch, and many other topics in the worlds of baking, chemistry, finance, and more.

All in all, a lovely day. More of it coming tomorrow.

*This was our only use of a gluten-free flour product. All the other cookies and treats were recipes that are just naturally made without flour. I know that some of the wheat substitute flours can taste pretty good for people who need them, especially with a strong flavoring like strawberry covering up the fact that they don’t taste quite the same, and they’re a good resource to have. But when I’m not working around another dietary restriction like nuts, dairy, or eggs, I prefer to make recipes that were gluten-free to begin with, rather than adjusting things to become gluten-free. Several of the above were also dairy-free, though, so ask if you’re interested.

Originally published at Novel Gazing Redux

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

If you are looking for a gluten-free pasta, the very best we have found is Tinkyada/Pasta Joy brown rice pasta. It neither stays painfully al dente, nor goes over in a flash to slime; you boil it for 14 minutes and then drain it and rinse it in cold water, much like wheat pasta, and the texture is quite acceptable.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I suspect this would not work for us because at least one member of the household hates brown rice as a thing. But we've found some pretty-edible quinoa-based ones.

[pameladean]

I guess it depends on how readily the person can detect brown rice, but I've used the Tinkyada brown rice fettucine to make pad thai (it's cheaper than brown rice noodles intended for that purpose), and while the noodles have that slippery nature that rice noodles have, they don't taste noticeably brown-ricey to me. Then again, I default to brown rice, so I may lack the sensitivity to detect whatever in its flavor profile is the problem.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Good data point, thanks!

[swords-and-pens.livejournal.com]

My wife can't stand brown rice pasta either. We've had good luck with the corn-based GF pastas, FWIW. The trick it to catch it slightly al dente, else it can turn to mush pretty fast.

[the_rck]

A while back, when my in-laws were doing a low carb diet, we found soy noodles in the store. They come pre-cooked in a packet in the refrigerated section (we found them at Hiller's. I haven't seen them anywhere else). My MIL quite liked them, but my FIL hated them.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

But when I’m not working around another dietary restriction like nuts, dairy, or eggs, I prefer to make recipes that were gluten-free to begin with, rather than adjusting things to become gluten-free.

This is my philosophy on X-free things in general. I will happily enjoy your vegetarian dish that is doing its own awesome vegetable thing! (Well, at least some of the time. There are vegetables I still don't like.) But vegetables masquerading as meat substitutes? Thanks, but I'll pass. I understand why those things exist, but I would much rather have something that plays to the strengths of its materials, rather than trying to massage them into being acceptable substitutes for something else.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, we formed this theory around vegan cooking and have only recently expanded it to gluten-free.

I think it helps that we are not cooking vegan or gluten-free full-time, though.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

True. When all you have is a hammer block of tofu, you begin experimenting to see what else it can be used for. And like I said: I can see why people would want tofurkey and the like. It is not a thing I want, though, because my carnivorous palate will compare it to actual turkey and find it lacking.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, one of my friends who has been vegan for years told me that such-and-such a seitan substitute tasted just like beef. I had had beef the previous day and could tell him that, no, not really. I'm glad that it tastes enough like to make him happy! But I do think that the (I think it was) eight or ten years prior to that not eating beef may have blurred the details a tiny bit. And that's okay.

I love tofu. I just don't love tofu that has been meat-flavored. That especially defeats the purpose for me because I often want tofu when meat is difficult on my nausea issues.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

THat was an interesting thing about Taiwan cooking: tofu is viewed as an ingredient, not a substitute, so it wasn't uncommon to see tofu *and* meat included in the same dish, though you'd also see tofu without meat. It actually made it difficult for vegetarians visiting there because the presence of tofu didn't signal a dish was meat-free.

[vcmw]

I wonder if it's different for me because I grew up always eating both? I grew up as an occasional meat-eater in a mostly vegetarian household, and my husband is vegetarian. I quite like many of the fake-meat-things as things-in-themselves, while agreeing that if you ever eat meat they do not, in fact, taste even a bit like meat.
I will be having both turkey and fake turkey this Thanksgiving. (As my mom prefers one type of fake turkey and J. prefers another, we'll eat two types of fake turkey over the week.)

Mostly we use plain tofu and tempeh and seitan and beans and nuts in our home cooking, but occasionally processed fake meats are a fun treat. Especially as they tend to be saltier and have different textures from things we cook up ourselves.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ah! This sounds a bit like me and carob chips. They are not a substitute for chocolate, I just sometimes want them anyway as a childhood memory.

[vcmw]

Just like! (And I sometimes also get the urge to eat carob chips again. Though carob baked goods that have no sugar and no eggs and no butter and whole wheat flour are not brownies, no matter what my mother claimed when we were little. After that many substitutions it is definitely a different item. A not-at-all-interchangeable item.)

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Amen! The only palatable "veggie burgers" I ever found was ones that were pretty blatantly not even pretending to be meat. "Look, we're grain and portobello mushroom patties and that's good enough for us, so deal with it!"

I refer to myself as gluten-dependent. One of the weird gluten substitutes commonly used in many products makes me terribly sick to my stomach. I have not narrowed down which one, so I actively avoid "just like the real thing" versions.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I love veggie burgers of many, many kinds--all of them not pretending to be meat at all.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Bring me your double-layer chocolate/peanut butter fudge and that eftsoones!

[okrablossom (from livejournal.com)]

Are the chocolate chip peanut butter cookies dairy free? Because if they are wheat and dairy free I will beg you for the recipe. (Or if I could substitute veggie shortening?)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Absolutely they are. They are the easiest thing. They are 1 egg, 1 t. baking soda, 1 c. peanut butter, 1 t. vanilla, 1 c. sugar, and as many chocolate chips as you like. The first five ingredients mixed together until smooth, then the chocolate chips. Drop in balls, smoosh a little with a fork, bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I don't think I've ever seen a cookie/biscuit with that sort of distribution of ingredients before. What's the texture like? Hmm, and I wonder what would happen with the addition of quite a bit of cocoa powder...


Should you want to experiment further with shortbread, I found rice flour worked well in lemon shortbread when I was off wheat for a bit. The taste isn't identical but it is pleasant, and the texture is good (since I like my shortbread to be very short anyway). I can't remember whether we modified our standard recipe any further than substituting rice flour for wheat ditto, but probably not. I could try to find out if it would be useful.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The texture is such that people honestly argue with me about whether there is a grain in them. They cannot believe there is not some kind of flour, and most people guess wheat flour, because they are such an ordinary peanut butter cookie.

My fruit shortbread has rice flour in it already, so I'm not sure how having it be all rice flour would work.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

Hmm! But why does it do that? (This is me wondering, not me demanding an explanation. Although if you have one...) I'd have thought you'd need either something starchy or something in powder form, or both, or you'd end up with something more like fudge. Crunchy peanut butter or smooth? And what sort of sugar?

I don't know how rice flour shortbread would work with actual wet fruit - it's not a common shortbread variety round here. The lemon sort is just the same as plain, except for added grated lemon rind.

Wait, is shortbread one of those things like muffins and flapjacks that changes definition mid-Atlantic? (Pause for Googling) ... probably not. Basically flour (all wheat, wheat and rice or wheat and semolina), butter and sugar - dense and rich and very crumbly, anyway. Rice flour makes it more crumbly than all wheat flour, so I suppose it might not stand up to having fruit in as well.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't entirely know why it does that either. It works with either crunchy or smooth peanut butter, although when I'm using chocolate chips I tend to make it with smooth (which we call creamy) because there are already enough chunks. Unless I am running out of smooth, in which case I finish out the cup with crunchy and call it good. But really, the sugar plus egg plus peanut butter form an actual dough. You will be amazed! :)

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

I will earmark some time at the weekend for being amazed at culinary science. This sounds like a good thing to be, especially if it comes with cookies.

[brooksmoses]

My impression of how it works is that the peanut butter is approximately equivalent to a mixture of peanut flour (if such a thing existed) and oil, much as you would have with regular flour and butter in a "normal" cookie.

[okrablossom (from livejournal.com)]

Thank you! I think we may try these tomorrow.

[cathshaffer.livejournal.com]

Sounds lovely! I could use some of those lessons, myself.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

First, in our pajamas, we made fully glutenated waffles

I like what foresight can do to sentences.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I'd love to hear about the blueberry meringues - in particular, whether you think honey could be subbed in for any sugars in the recipe.

If I make cookies for Christmas and want them to be edible by all present, eggs are OK but they'd need to avoid milk, all grains, and all sugars except honey. It cuts down the possibilities quite a lot. Luckily, the person with the restricted diet is at least able to handle touching or being around other foods so I could make regular cookies for the rest of us - but it would be cruel to do that without providing a good alternative.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Are nuts acceptable? One can do some lovely things with honey in nut balls.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Nuts are good.

I found a pecan pie recipe a year or two ago which contains mostly nuts and honey, plus a few other things like butter (which is, oddly, legal on the SCD diet) and it's been a holiday staple ever since.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No, the sugar is really quite structurally essential, I'm afraid. Although there was quite a lot of powdered dried blueberry mixed into the sugar, it wouldn't be enough for someone who wasn't supposed to have sugar at all.

[sprrwhwk.livejournal.com]

I am a huge sloppy fan of the King Arthur gluten-free all-purpose mix. I've tried several others and the King Arthur mix is the only one I can legitimately substitute one-for-one with wheat all-purpose in most of my recipes. (Possibly with a tiny bit of xanthan gum for structure, although I'll often leave it out of even recipes which call for it to no significant ill effect, and in exchange possibly adding a resting step in the fridge so the batter or dough has extra time to absorb moisture, as the mix does that less readily than regular wheat flour.)

The individual boxes are small, so I buy boxes of boxes. I get them from Amazon, but a local Costco/BJ's/Sam's may have them as well.

I can tell a difference in taste and texture, but I'm fairly sensitive to the difference at this point, since I do occasionally eat food containing gluten by accident, and I've trained myself to recognize the taste so I am more likely to notice before I've eaten too much. I find the King Arthur mix's taste very similar to wheat all-purpose and quite palatable, even in applications like pie crust where it's fairly prominent on its own.

I share your sentiments about preferring recipes which were gluten-free to begin with, and unfortunately as you say I developed a secondary allergy to many of the common nuts, which curtailed my experimentation with their various flours and milks. The King Arthur mix has been a lifesaver since.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! I'm glad you found something that works for you!