pizza crust, redux

So I scrapped the recipe posted earlier, I'll try it eventually however for today I am dealing with a crappy 12 year old coming off of her 5 day cycle of steroids, so I had to make something that sounded good to her ears (this week, any other time she'd be game).

I headed to the kitchen and hauled out my GF flours.  Took a peek at the tapioca flour and potato starch carb counts and WOW, jaw dropping.  As I have packages I'd rather not waste I'll use this on occasion and minimally until gone.  Same goes for the brown rice flour.  I am also looking at non yeast recipes for now as I am struggling with issues when I eat it ever since I was on antibiotics in Feb. I haven't been quite right since despite using probiotics.

So for today I pulled out the chickpea flour, sorghum flour and almond flour and picked apart our fave gluten free pizza crust recipe.  If I recall correctly I added 1/2c sorghum flour, 1/8 c brown rice flour, 1/2 c almond flour, 1 tsp xanthan gum, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp apple cider vinegar, 1/3 c egg whites, 1 tsp sea salt and enough almond milk to make a good looking dough.

I spread it on parchment paper while the pizza stone heated up.  I spread it using baggie over the hand method to prevent stickage and waste.  Popped it in a 350* oven for 10 min to bake and then pulled it out, added the topping and popped it back in for another 10 min.  My daughter ate HALF the 12 inch pizza.  Holy cow.  The crust was divine, I am still trying to place where the crust would also well in baking.  It was sweetish though no sweeteners were added, so I see a dessert in our future using this.

Quest for best gluten free bread-Attempt 1

While perusing a new blog I found myself at yet another new blog.  There I found a bread recipe that seemed to have a tremendous response to. I had all but one ingredient, teff, I've never heard of it but I'm sure as I familiarize myself with the GF baking world I'll become quite intimate with it.

So today I gave it my first attempt, because there has to be something more palatable than $7 GF storebought bread that tastes hideous. So still no speaking the gluten free flours language yet,  I bravely took on the recipe for Whole Grain Gluten Free Bread over at Wheatless Foodie.  I decided to sub the teff with sorghum flour and hoped that it wouldn't be an egregious error.  Well, I tossed together what I thought was the list of ingredients.  I am baffled by the need for six egg whites so my mind went off wondering what I was going to do with all the dang egg yolks I am accumulating. From there it pondered the necessity for egg whites in GF bread baking, I made a mental note to do some research because I hate waste and if I can use whole egg I full intend to.

I mixed my arm off, telling myself that my grandmother didn't have mixers once upon a time and she did just fine, plus I could use the exercise.  I left it in the bowl to rise and instead took my knitting out and listened to the beautiful birdsong with my girlie and we were treated to a beautiful male cardinal wooing a lovely female cardinal from across the yard. When I returned and was  sorting it to bread pan and parchment lined baking pan for rolls I remembered that I forgot the apple cider vinegar (gasp!), as I was pulling the rolls out of the over I remembered I forgot the baking powder too! (gasp!gasp!) and as I type and review the recipe I see I also forgot the flax seed.  oh bother.

Well, the bread turned out beautifully despite my brain cramps. I am finding my brain isn't fully functioning this week, I think it's lack of fuel as I find without gluten in my diet my blood sugar isn't see-sawing and I don't get hungry in the least.  My brain gets dumb and I find I am getting cold easily, so I am making an effort to keep up the meals as I feel better after eating. Anyway, back to the bread....

We were quite pleased with the outcome, it looked like regular bread and smelled divine.  The loaf cooked up to about half the height of a standard loaf, still respectable considering my screw ups.  We found it chewier and had a rather cooked corn taste to it, not displeasing to us.  All in all a successful first attempt.  I'll be giving it a second go either tomorrow or Thursday morning.