Love Of Dough

[acegirl]

I am awaiting the endoscopy to verify if my positive for celiac blood test is correct. In the meantime I am researching recipes and such for my possible future without gluten. My dilemma is this. I love the feel of dough. Yeast, pastry, biscuit dough. Am I going to be able to continue that love affair for dough with the lack of gluten flours? Also I have been collecting "baking" recipes for years planning to make a binder of them. Should I forget that plan (because of the difficulty in substituting gluten free flour) and plan to eat and bake much less flour type food?

Thanks!

[Juliebove]

I too used to love to bake. I don't do much of it now at all. The gluten-free recipes I tried just didn't come out very well. There is a zucchini bread recipe on this site under the recipe section. It is pretty much the only thing I have found that always comes out well. I also have a recipe for foccaccia bread that I used to make. I used it for pizza and dessert pizza. It was a weird dough though. Very runny and you had to spread it out with a rubber scraper.

gluten-free dough does not look or react like wheat dough does. So it is very different. You won't be kneading the dough at all for most recipes. Another problem for us is that I try to bake without eggs or dairy. If you can use those things you might have better luck.

My daughter is also on a low carb diet now. And with me being diabetic, I also need to eat less carbs. So the less baking thing actually works out well for us.

If you do need to go gluten-free you will probably have to replace much of what is in your kitchen. Gluten lurks everywhere. I got rid of my canisters because of the design. I wound up just buying some Rubbermaid plastic containers.

[Takala]

Save the binder, because if you like something, you may end up spending hours trying to recreate it, and it might be a guideline. I've also done some conversions of recipes by substituting the flours and adding/subtracting what needed to be done.

Even if you don't eat it all yourself, the trick is to start making foods for others, if they like it, then you know you've gotten it right. I seriously dissed a dietician earlier today, for writing that gluten free food tastes bad, children would be unlikely to eat it and it could cause behavioral problems if it was forced on them, is un- nutritious and lacking in vitamins, and causes people to gain weight. I'm assuming she ate one or two loaves of rice tapioca bread that had been on the back shelf at a health food store for 4 months, and decided she now knew how to preach to the masses. Pardon me while I push this gluten free rock up the hill in my ankle chains, would you ?

Well, our "dough" may not be exactly like regular wheat "dough," but that is not to say that it can not be lovable in its own sticky way. And you might start looking at some of your new kitchen appliances in a different way after you start doing things with them. I have ground up pounds and pounds of almonds in my Oster blender, and the thing is still going strong years later, and it has saved us much money and it's fast, too. Before that, I didn't pay much attention to it. Now it has helped make hundred and hundred of pancakes and breads. I wonder if the person who designed this model had any idea of the other things that could be done with it. If you don't like food processors and want to be more hands- on ( and I don't use one) you can still do a lot of hand mixing with a spoon, fork, or pastry blender or mashed potato thing.

If you need to go lower carb, you can use higher protein seed and nut meals. Each of them acts a little differently, and the general rule is, they are better baked in a slightly smaller loaf pan, lower temperature, for a bit longer than regular grain flours.

Try checking out some of the gluten free baking blogs, like Shauna Ahern's Gluten Free Girl and the Chef. Lots of ideas there and she's very joyful about it.

[BakingQueen]

The best gluten free bread I have made actually has the consistency of a very thick cake batter. Once you get used to this "new" way of baking you will be able to bake as much as you want. Just don't expect the raw consistency to be the same.

[love2travel]

I know what you mean! I LOVE the feel of kneading dough. My pizza crust and pasta recipes are kneadable as opposed to spreadable plus Simona's Challah Bread posted on here is kneadable. It is strange getting used to spreading out dough that is akin to thick cake batter in pans for bread. However, focaccia bread is easy to make decently close to the gluten version. I made flatbread yesterday that you knead which is such a joy. So, it can be done!