A New Day Bakery

Maybe I am a glutton for punishment, but oh well! I have decided it is time to set up an etsy shop for gluten free baked goods. A way to lose money? Perhaps, I hope not, but one never knows!! I feel like it is time to take the plunge, a first step into something else. If you want to take a look, and I don't know maybe buy some *wink wink* you can do so here!! I have only done the cookies that I feel are stable and delicious, not ones that I am still trying to perfect. Okay, I am always trying to PERFECT all of them, but these ones are pretty dang delicious!

Gluten Free Snickerdoodles- Xanthan Gum Free!

So, I have decided to try and not use xanthan gum in my gluten free cooking. Now, if you are a gluten free baker you may know how common xanthan gum is and how useful it is. Instead of xanthan gum I have decided to use psyllium husk. It is a bit of trial and error to find the right amount of psyllium husk to replace the xanthan gum. Some sources I have seen say you can substitute it 1:1, others 1:2-3 (xanthan to psyllium). So, I have made cookies a few times using psyllium husk. The first time I did chocolate chip cookies with a 1:1 ratio. They turned out flat and crumbly. Next time I did peanut butter cookies with a 1:2 ratio. After the dough had sat in the fridge for a day it produced pretty darn good cookies! The first batch I baked after just a couple of hours in the fridge were a big thin. Today I did snickerdoodles with a 1:3 ratio ( a HEAVY 3, maybe closer to 4). They held their shape beautifully, but were crumbly once you bit into them. Le sigh. It looks like somewhere between two and three is the magic amount.

Although they were crumbly they were still melt in your mouth yummy!

Minor Gluten Free Baking Rant

Sometimes I think life throws me a curve ball when it comes to my baking. I go along, feeling like I'm doing great at this whole gluten free (and egg free, and dairy free, and sugar free, and now soy free...) cooking thing, and then wham!! I mess up.

Take today for instance. I decided to make chocolate chip cookies again. Last time they turned out PERFECT. Soft, chewy, and oh so delicious. Well, I have decided I want to try and use psyllium husk instead of xanthan gum in my baking. So, in went the psyllium husk. I also had to substitute olive oil in place of the shortening or coconut oil as we are out of coconut oil and the shortening has soy. After mixing it all together I thought, "huh looks kinda runnier than last time." Oh well, into the fridge into went for an hour, and then I baked them up.

That's what came out. Not lovely pillowy, chewy, soft, perfect cookies. Instead I have thin, crumbly cookies that you can't pick up without them disintegrating. *SIGH*. Now the bad thing is I changed two things, so I don't know how much is attributed to the psyllium husk and how much to the olive oil. 

Sometimes this baking thing is rough.

Gluten Free Sandwich Bread

So I made two loaves of bread tonight, based off of a different recipe then my very first gluten free bread. It is amazing the difference I feel in my abilities of gluten free baking in just a few short months. I think it was the beginning of February that I made my first gluten free bread. It looked like this.

Granted, it wasn't a loaf, more of a roll, but it wasn't the most beautiful thing in the world. Yummy? Yes. Attractive? Not so much. In the three months since I have done more baking, although not a ton of bread, besides the English Muffins from the previous post. I have made those a few times. Tonight was a sandwich bread recipe. And it turned out looking something like this.

Excuse the color, my phone did something weird, the bottom isn't really that yellow color. I wish I had taken a picture of the inside, because it was lovely! The texture was wonderful, and they both rose nicely. They are not perfect loaves of bread, but they are pretty good, in my opinion, after just a few months of gluten free baking. 

Now, I followed a recipe, and while the texture is amazing, the taste is not exactly what I want. Everyone else thought it was good, which it is, but since I have a lifetime of baking in front of me, I am being more critical. I will make the recipe again, but definitely tweak a bit. Probably substitute oat flour for the amaranth, and add in some salt for a start.