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Thursday, May 3, 2012

Gluten-Free Baking

I have not one, but eleven new ingredients on my kitchen counter.  Things I have never purchased, baked with, or even heard of before!  This gluten-free baking thing is not for the faint of heart.


I am finding The Healthy Gluten-Free Life to be an amazing resource!  The author explains all of the different flours and ingredients used in gluten-free baking.  Her recipes all have full page color photos and simple instructions.  I'm excited to start trying them.

Using the book as a guide, I made my shopping list at Vitacost:

whole grain teff (never heard of this!)
potato starch
potato flour (different from potato starch?)
sorghum flour
xanthan gum (not even sure how to pronounce these two!)
tapioca flour
whole millet
whole amaranth
coconut nectar (for coconut ice cream)
green pea flour (seriously, there is such a thing?)
almond meal

So far I've only made one simple recipe - Almond Lemon Cookies.  Julia was not a fan of these, but she doesn't like lemon baked goods anyway.  Lucy and Esther enjoyed them.  I need to grind up the teff, millet, and amaranth with my Vitamix dry container and then tackle gluten-free bread baking.  I'm a little scared of how it might turn out!



5 comments:

  1. Ahhhh Gluten free baking/cooking....good times! :-) Good luck!

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  2. Most of the recipes I have seen use potato starch/potato flour as the same....I think one of my bags has both names on it!

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  3. Ah...but you never were faint at heart. You go girl!!

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  4. The Healthy Gluten Free Life (Tammy)May 3, 2012 at 6:38 PM

    Hi! Thanks for posting on The Healthy Gluten Free Life! To answer your question, no, potato starch and potato flour are NOT the same thing. Potato starch is the actual starch from potatoes, while potato flour is the entire potato ground up. You see potato starch often in GF baking, potato flour not as much. It has a strong flavor but adds a great texture so a little goes a long way. To make things nice and confusing, tapioca starch/flour is the same thing...some call it flour some call it starch...why they do this, I'll never know! :-) It is a starch though. Hope that helps!

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