Notes from Gluten Free Girl's baking class at 2009 GIG Conf.

[cruelshoes]

Shauna James Ahern, the Gluten Free Girl, taught a baking class at the 2009 GIG conference. Here are the notes I took. Let me know if you need me to clarify anything.

GF baking is a blessing - it turns us all into mad scientists in the kitchen.
Don't be afraid to make mistakes. We will all have some things that don't work out.
Find a use for your failures - failed bread, make breadcrumbs. Failed cookies, crush them up for a cookie crust. When all else fails feed it to the dog.

If something doesn't work out, try again, changing only one ingredient. Take notes and keep changing one thing at a time until you get what you want.

Keep a journal of what works and what doesn't. That way you don't try the same failure twice.

Choose recipes that are easiest to convert - less than 1C of flour to start.

Gets her best inspiration from gluten cooks and then goes from there.
Dorie Greenspan - Baking at Home
Harold McGee
America's Test Kitchen
http://www.davidlebovitz.com/

When she creates a flour mix, she uses a 3 part mix - equal proportions of the 3.

Base flour - sorghum, brown rice flour, etc.
Starch - arrowroot, cornstarch, tapioca, potato, etc.
"personality flour" - choose one that has the characteristics you want

Personality flours
Amaranth - sweet, soft, good for cookies
Quinoa - strong flavor, good for savory dishes or with chocolate
Sweet Rice Flour
corn flour
coconut
teff - good for muffins and quick breads. Has gelatinous properties. May be able to omit xanthan when using teff.
Millet - good crumb for yeast breads

Her current favorite flour mix - equal parts of sorghum, tapioca starch, potato starch, brown sweet rice flour (grinds her own)

When converting a gluten recipe - use 1.5 part of flour mix above, and .5 part additional personality flour with the properties you want.

to replace wheat flour, use 1.25 cups GF flour to replace 1 cup wheat flour.
She uses xanthan or guar at 1 t. per cup in most recipes. Is switching over from xanthan to guar due to cost, and has not noticed any effect on her recipes.

GLuten has 2 properties
Elasticity - replace with xanthan or guar. Also flax.
Protein - can make up for that with additinal egg whites (whip to stiff peaks and fold in at the end). Can also add milk powder or bean flours.

When making a pie crust, she uses lard. If using lard or butter, freeze it first, and them grate in with a microplaner of cheese grater.

There is a video on how to make gravy on her website. Instead of slowly adding liquid to the roux like in a gluten recipe, slowly add the roux to the liquid. provides better results.
_________________
-Colleen

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