sue_n_julia | (no subject)

(no subject)

A dear friend of ours needs to cut gluten from her diet. This makes it hard for me to make treats for her at the moment, so I am experimenting with gluten-free flours. To make it even more challenging, she's also cutting out all nightshade plants, so using potato starch is out as well.

Yesterday, I tried using a buckwheat, rice, and soy flour mixture to make shortbread. What I got wasn't quite shortbread, but was still yummy, if a bit grainy. So not only do I need to work out how to balance protein content and flavor, but also fluid. Hmmm.

S

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I think Myfanwy used rice flour for Thaddeus and Dana's wedding cake since a relative is gluten-free. You might want to ping her.

Rice flour doesn't have any protein, so it's not a great substitute, particularly for shortbread. I remember that Myfanwy wasn't happy with the way the rice flour worked either, which is why I used buckwheat in addition.

S

I"ve been doing some interesting experiments with chestnut flour as a thickening agent. I have no idea how it might work in baked goods, but it might be fun to try! (Although, it does occur to me that it might not exactly be flying off the grocery shelves out your way. I could send a care package if you'd like to try it out.)

Unfortunately, chestnut flour contains...nuts. Which means I, the cook can't sample it. Nuts are off my menu for the indefinite future as my nut allergy has gotten more sensitive and seems to be triggered by more than just walnuts and pecans.

S

Ok, how about meringues? I'm sort of assuming from context that the goal is "sweet, solid objects not requiring dishes or utensils for consumption". How about fruit pastes? It may be easier to think entirely outside the flour-box than to try to find satisfactory non-gluten/potato/nut-but-flourlike baking recipes.

Unfortunately, she's also a lacto-vegetarian. The reason I was trying shortbread first (a mistake) was she really likes my shortbread.

mmcnealy has a bunch of gluten-free recipes on her website (including some adaptations of medieval recipes), though I think they do use potato starch:

http://www.curiousfrau.com/Food/index.htm

I'll check it out. I also need to do more general research on how these flours work.

S

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