Gluten Free All Purpose Flour

I've been through a handful of gluten free all purpose flour mixes and I'm still experimenting. I'm coming to the realization that it's hard to find a truly "all purpose" gluten free flour. Some baking, like cakes, require a lighter flour while you may want a heartier flour in bread. So with that said, I'm trying out a new flour mix from the Gluten-Free Girl. Her theory is you can use a variety of flours as long as you stick to the 40/60 ratio. You simply need 40% of your flour mix to be whole grain and 60% to be white flour or starches. She lists off gluten free whole grain flours and gluten free white flours or starches here. Pretty simple concept but a little math skill involved. You can also play with the flavor and sub some of the whole grain flour with a nut or bean flour, included in the flour list, which will change the flavor depending on how you intend to use the flour.

Another tip I've picked up is that it's better to weigh your flour. So yesterday my flour mix experiment/math lesson began! I wanted a total of 2,000 grams (based on how big of a container I wanted to fill) and chose my flours from the two lists.

Here's how I broke down my mix:

Whole Grain Flours:

Brown Rice Flour- 400 grams

Sorghum Flour- 400 grams 

White Flours/Starches:

Cornstarch- 300 grams

Potato Starch- 300 grams

Tapioca Flour- 300 grams

White Rice Flour- 300 grams

It's important to make sure you shake the flours together really well. It's better to mix them in a clear container so you can see that the flour mixes well into one color. The 2,000 grams I measured out filled a large 4.3 liter (about 18 cup) bowl. Since I didn't use a clear container, the first time I opened the bowl to scoop some out, there were still layers not mixed so I had to recover it and give it a few more shakes.

I tested out the new flour in a cupcake recipe. They turned out great and I can't wait to use my new flour mix in more recipes!

Chocolate Cupcakes

4 eggs

1 1/4 c. white sugar

2/3 c. sour cream

1 c. milk

2 tsp. vanilla

2 1/4 c. GF all purpose flour 

1/2 c. cocoa powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. xanthan gum

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat together eggs, sugar, sour cream, milk and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, baking powder and xanthan gum.

Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix well. Pour into 24 greased muffin cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes. I used 12 muffin cups and an 8 x 11 inch glass pan. I baked the cake for an additional 15 minutes.

Wonder what happened to that half a cupcake? :)

Almond Graham Crackers

This graham cracker recipe was so easy and they turned out really delicious! My kitchen had a wonderful cinnamon smell as these cooked in the oven! They ended up being a little soft so they may be more like thin almond cookies but I may try cooking another batch longer to see if that helps, because there will be a second batch for sure. I'm not a paleo dieter but I took this recipe from a Paleo Kid Snacks cookbook. I like looking through paleo recipes because they are, number one, gluten free, but they are also free from refined sugars and highly processed oils. There are quite a few restricted foods on the paleo diet like cheese that I really dig so I couldn't go all out!  

Almond Graham Crackers

2 1/4 c. blanched almond meal (or finely ground almonds)

3 tbsp. coconut oil

3 tbsp. maple syrup

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl or stand mixer and mix on low until the dough begins to form a ball. Place the dough between two pieces of parchment paper on a large cookie sheet.

Using a rolling pin, flatten the dough to an 1/8 thick. Pole holes in the dough every couple inches. Bake for 12-15 minutes until the edges begin to brown. Remove from the oven and immediately cut into squares with a pizza cutter.

Cool and enjoy!!

Summertime Adventures

We are so enjoying how adventurous Sawyer has become! He just loves playing in any kind of water; the hose, puddles, pools, squirt guns, you name it! If it splashes, he's there!

He's just growing up so much and I love watching him grow and learn everyday! 

Back in June we took a trip to the allergist to have Sawyer tested for a wheat allergy and we were really excited to find out he didn't react! We proceeded to give him a couple noodles of wheat penne pasta that evening to test it out. But that night he cried the whole... night... and the next day came the diarrhea. So now we know he has a gluten intolerance not an allergy, but I am still hopeful that he will outgrow the intolerance over time. For now we will enjoy all the fun alternatives the gluten free life has to offer! 

There are so many things to be grateful for though! We had Sawyer's 15 month check up on Monday and he checked out healthy and pretty average on all the growth charts; weight: 23.3 lbs (54%), height: 32 in. (72%) and head: 18.5 in. (52%). Keep up the good work Sawyer Bug!  

  

We spent some time yesterday picking and eating apricots from the neighbors tree and today I canned a couple jars of raspberry apricot jam! Yummy! Here's a few pics from the adventure.

I made eight jars and that didn't even use up half of what I picked! I used the recipe on the jar of pectin and it was super duper easy. The neighbor's tree is still overflowing with apricots so I think they'll be a round two apricot jamming session. 

We made a trip to The Pie Pizzeria to check out their gluten free pizza for lunch! I wish I could explain how bad I wanted pizza after a huge "cauliflower crust" pizza fail experience last week. Should have blogged about that one! Let's just say soggy crust is a no go in my book. I actually have a picture of the crust before I baked it because it was so beautiful and looked so pizza-dough-ish. Not so after baking... But if you're curious, here's the link to the recipe I used. Maybe someone else will have better luck than I!  

But The Pie was amazing and hit the spot for sure! 

Back Again!

Well after almost exactly six months since my last post I've decided to pick up blogging again, this time with a new name! My blog is now called Gluten Free Cookin' Mama! After eliminating the top eight food allergens from my diet while nursing my son, we successfully added all foods back in, with the exception of gluten.

I've made some great, and some not so great recipes over the past few months and so many times I've wanted to start the blog back up to share them. Hopefully I can capture some great food tips, thoughts, and other randomness that will encourage and inspire you!

I'm so incredibly blessed to report that Sawyer has come such a long way from when we first experienced food intolerance issues when he was only six weeks old. Here's this guy at about six weeks:

And here's this guy now!

He's a gluten free champ, not by choice really, but I pray that some day he will outgrown his intolerance so he can experience all the foods God created for us to enjoy!

Coconut Lime Chicken

OH goodness! This was dinner tonight and it was SO GOOD! The original recipe that I altered can be found here.

Coconut Lime Chicken

2 boneless, skinless chicken breast*

3 tbsp. oil (I used grape seed)

1 lime, juiced

1 tsp. ground cumin

1 1/2 tsp. ground coriander 

2 tbsp. La Choy soy sauce

1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt

2 tbsp. sugar

2 tsp. curry powder

1/2 c. coconut milk

Pinch cayenne pepper

1 tsp. chili sauce

1/2 c. fresh cilantro, chopped

*There was plenty of marinade to do more than two chicken breasts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl combine oil, lime juice, cumin, coriander, soy sauce, salt, sugar, curry, coconut milk, cayenne, and chili sauce. Place chicken into ziploc bag with marinade. I only let the chicken sit in the marinade for about 15 minutes but you could marinate it however long you want in the refrigerator. Place the chicken and marinade in a baking dish. Bake chicken for about 45 minutes. Serve with sauce from the pan and top with chopped cilantro.

     
I also found these really yummy sweet potato puffs at the grocery store that we had with dinner as well. Yeah, kind of random... but they were awesome! And allergy friendly!

Hope you enjoy this silly picture of the little man! His new goofy face just CRACKS ME UP!

Sesame Noodles

Just wanted to share a quick dinner idea! We like to do a vegetarian meal once a week to help cut down on grocery costs but you could easily add chicken or shrimp to this dish! Check it out!

Sesame Noodles 

16 oz. package brown rice pasta (fettuccine style)

6 cloves garlic, minced

6 tbsp. sugar

6 tbsp. oil (I used grape seed)

6 tbsp. rice vinegar

6 tbsp. soy sauce*

2 tsp. sesame oil

2 tsp. chili sauce

6 green onions, sliced (I did not include) 

1 tsp. sesame seeds, toasted

*Make sure you get La Choy soy sauce- it's gluten free!

Cook brown rice pasta according to package instructions. The water turns really cloudy when cooking brown rice pasta.

Meanwhile, in a saucepan combine garlic, sugar, oil, vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and chili sauce and cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves.

Pour over pasta and toss to coat. Throw in the sesame seeds. (I also tossed in a bag of broccoli.)

 
Super quick, super delicious dinner!

(Original recipe here from allrecipes.com) 

Bread Experiment

Seeing since it's been over a month since I posted, I've got some updates on Sawyer's progress! He has been doing so well with the solids since we started a couple months ago. We stuck with rice cereal through the month of December and on January 1 we brought out the purees! So far we've conquered sweet potato, apples, avocado, oatmeal, squash and banana. His little system just needed some extra time to adjust to solid food so now it's exciting to get rolling with the new foods again!

Last week we tried out oatmeal for the first time. I found this oatmeal cereal recipe and mixed in some organic apple juice for a little flavor. Sawyer's reaction was pretty funny! I tried to snap a few pics of Daddy feeding him but missed the really funny faces. He wasn't really a fan so we tried it again mixed with sweet potato and another time with banana and he liked it much better.

On Thursday I tried out a recipe for gluten free rice flour bread that I got from a friend. I called it an experiment because any gluten free bread type recipes I've tried have usually failed miserably so I didn't have high expectations. For the first time ever making this bread it didn't completely fail. It turned out to be too moist so maybe less liquid next time? Anyways, here's the recipe if you want to give it a shot!

Rice Flour Bread (bread machine recipe)

1/3 c. rice milk

1 c. warm water

2 tbsp. flax combined with 6 tbsp. water (or 2 eggs)

1 tsp. apple cider vinegar

4 tbsp. oil

2 tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 1/2 c. brown rice flour

2/3 c. white rice flour

1 1/2 tsp. xanthan gum

2 tsp. quick rise yeast

Add the ingredients to the pan in the orders listed for your bread machine. Mine is wet ingredients first so that is the order I listed them above. Warm the milk in the microwave for about 30 seconds before adding to the bread machine pan. I didn't have white rice flour so I used all brown rice flour (which could have made the bread so dense). My bread machine is pretty old school and I wasn't sure what setting to use so I chose the "Whole Wheat" cycle... again, part of the experiment.

The end product came out to be a dense, short loaf of bread, but nonetheless, bread!

Sliced up it was not edible unless I toasted it well to remove a lot of the moisture. But once it was toasted it really wasn't too bad.

I found a gluten free bread ebook for free on Amazon today that I started reading. She has a lot of great tips for bread making so I may try one of her recipes next.

But while we're on the subject of failing recipes... here's a banana pancake recipe that I tried out that definitely flopped. The pancakes looked so pretty and yummy on her blog! Maybe you can try to make some adjustments and see if you can find success!

Banana Oat Pancakes

3 small bananas, mashed

2 tbsp. coconut oil

1 tbsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. honey or maple syrup

2 tbsp. flax combined with 6 tbsp. water (or 2 eggs)

1 c. oat flour (ground up rolled oats)

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Stir together bananas, coconut oil, lemon juice and honey/syrup. Beat in flax mixture/eggs. Combine remaining dry ingredients in a separate bowl then add to wet ingredients.

The batter is pretty thick so you may need to spread it out a little when you pour it into the pan.

And........ here's what they looked like. Flat.

Does it help if I add chocolate chips and bacon???

Well, yes. The pancakes failed. But I still have two cute boys that always make me smile!