A New Lesson in Baking

One of the most perplexing aspects of a gluten-free, dairy-free diet is how to create baked goods without them tasting absolutely terrible. I've always loved to bake, and have always been very good at it. I grew up enjoying the many concoctions that were created using either regular all-purpose flour or Bisquick/Jiffy. When it came to strawberry shortcake, only Bisquick would do. One of my weaknesses was eating the shortcake dough before it ever made it into the baking pan! It had that subtle sweetness that appealed to my tastebuds. Now, I must reserve that kind of baking for myself or when baking for some sort of occasion outside the home. For family baking, I must use the multitude of flours that I now have at my disposal, such as: teff, quinoa, white sweet sorghum, white rice, brown rice, tapioca, buckwheat, and garbanzo bean flours - none of which can be used on their own. Their individual properties must be blended with 2 or 3 other flours to produce the proper effect in a given recipe. Since these flours contain no gluten, I also have to replace the protein with something else. Guar gum is an option but is expensive. Xanthan gum performs equally well and costs less, so that is what I use. A person can pre-mix these flours for specific purposes ahead of time, but that requires additional space for more storage containers, which I don't have. Bob's Red Mill already has some flour mixes for all-purpose and biscuits. I've yet to muster up the courage to delve into the world of gluten-free baking using my other flours individually.

Baking, regardless of your dietary concerns, is a virtual chemistry lab. In order for all of the ingredients to work together to make something delicious, you must have just the right amount of each ingredient or the finished product simply will not turn out. Unlike cooking on the stovetop, there's much less flexibility in baking when mixing in the key ingredients.

Today, I made an attempt at making wheat-free shortbread from scratch, as I have 6 1/2 pounds of prepared strawberries ready for devouring in the form of strawberry shortcake. I used a recipe from Bob's Red Mill and I followed it until I screwed up and poured in all of the wet ingredients rather than just pouring until the flour was just moist. I compensated with a bit more flour, added some extra sugar, kneaded until I thought the dough consistency was to my liking, and placed it in a cake pan rather than rolling and cutting, as the directions suggested. The dough tasted terrible! However, I decided to chance it and bake it anyway. To my amazement, the finished product tasted far better than it did in dough form. Perhaps this should be a lesson to me to not give up so easily on my efforts. If you'd like to try your hand at this, here's the recipe:

Bob's Red Mill Wheat-free Shortbread

INGREDIENTS:
2-1/2 cups Wheat Free Biscuit & Baking Mix
2 Tb Sugar
1/2 cup Butter or (1/4 cup Vegetable Oil)
1/2 cup Milk or Water
1 Egg, slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a cookie sheet, set aside.In a mixing bowl, combine mix and sugar. In another bowl blend melted butter (or oil if using), water and egg. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients until just moistened. Knead 10 times on lightly floured work surface; roll out to 3/4” thickness. Cut dough with floured cutter. Place shortcakes on prepared cookie sheet and bake for about 20 minutes, until golden brown. Add your favorite fruit and whipped topping