Elevation And Rice Flour

[catfish]

I have tried several different baking mixes and recipes that require various flours, and every time I use one with rice flour it turns out very, very gritty. I live in the foothills of Colorado, over a mile above sea level. Is the altitude preventing the rice flour from cooking in the appropriate baking time, or is it the same down at sea level? Is there anything I can do about this? I can't imagine that these mixes are supposed to taste like they have sand in them.

[angel-jd1]

I'm not sure about the elevation thing. Hopefully someone else knows the answer to that.

Mine is more of a question. How long have you been gluten free? I know when I first went gluten free, pretty much everything baked with gluten-free flours tasted gross!! It is a completely different texture to get used to. Now that I have been gluten free for some time. I LOVE the foods. I think that it takes some getting used to and adjustment. Just my two cents

-Jessica

[catfish]

I've been gluten-free for almost 2 months. I agree that it takes some getting used to, but some things like cake I just need to have "smooth". And things like cookies which have a fairly "dry" batter to start with turn out so gritty that they taste more like they came from the sand box than from the oven- I simply can't eat them.

[angel-jd1]

That is how I felt at first also, but it does get better. You will get more used to the texture of the different flours.

-Jessica

[Guest Florida Jean]

Catfish.....

If you can resign yourself to the fact that "This is how it's gonna be..."

I would almost bet you WILL get used to it.

Experiment with different recipes using different flours and you will

be surprised!

I make all of my cakes now with Betty Hagman's flour mix that I mix

myself and no one...and I mean NO ONE can ever tell that it is not

wheat flour! Don't forget the xanthan gum! That is important.

Trial and error and a good attitude and perseverance and you'll be baking like an old pro!

Cute quote I heard: "Because of perseverance, even the snail made

it to the ark!"

Good Luck!

Jean

[lovegrov]

Most rice flours are inherently gritty.

richard

[terri]

I think with time we forget how the real stuff tastes, and the rice stuff starts to taste better and better. The best bread I found is Buthanese Red Rice Bread at Whole Foods. I can actually halfway enjoy it! The worst is that Tapioca bread. Yech! I made a gluten-free banana bread and it turned out wonderful. That's one I'll keep! And Betty's french bread is so easy to bake and very yummy. Haven't tried a cake yet but am getting the urge soon. Frankly celiac3270's gluten-free peanut butter cookies have become the love of my life. I use part splenda and part sugar to keep the calories down. My version has 1 1/2 cups peanut butter, 1/2 cup splenda, 1/2 cup sugar and one egg. YUM!

[catfish]

Thanks guys. I guess it's probably not the elevation then. I am trying a lot of experiments and I am slowly learning what will and what will not work for me. I found that the Manna from Anna bread tastes the most like regular homemade bread that I have found so far, and I plan to make a loaf using garfava flour next since it seems close to the same sort of thing. I have found that the pasta recipe in Bette Hagman's gluten-free Gourmet is pretty decent if I only cook it for 2 minutes as opposed to 10-20 minutes, although it is very time consuming to make without a pasta machine (any tips?).

I have found some gluten-free brownies that taste okay when they are frozen, but I don't care for them unless they are frozen (because of the grittiness factor) and then of course there are Pamela's chocolate chunk cookies which are a very adequate snack- I especially like the chocolate in them, it is very smooth and creamy.

All the same, I don't think I'll ever get used to the grittiness factor in the majority of gluten-free baked recipes, it just isn't in my nature to "settle". I'll just keep experimenting until I find what works. I'm going to experiment with using baby cereal mixes for cooking this week. Gerber makes some rice cereal flakes which I think might have some potential for making cookies...