Pizza crust - Bob's Red Mill

My first gluten free pizza experiment with a GF mix was "meh".

I bought this bag of pizza crust mix at Whole Foods in London. Before making this crust, I have tried frozen GF pizza from Schär (ok, but the crust gets very soggy) and a frozen crust from the Norwegian bakery Brisk. Of these I liked the Brisk one best, but it doesn't taste real pizza. It tastes like a very airy white sponge with pizza toppings...

So I had hoped this would be good. And hoped it would not be. It's a long way to London for pizza crust mix, after all.

The mix contains: whole grain brown rice flour, potato starch, whole grain millet flour, whole grain sorghum flour, tapioca flour, potato flour, evaporated cane juice, xanthan gum, active dry yeast, sea salt and guar gum. You add water, oil and eggs.

The taste was too different for me. I also didn't enjoy the strange consistency of the dough, probably from the Xanthan and Guar gums. The consistency of the finished crust was better, but still spongy rather than chewy. Perhaps if I made only half the bag and made a really thin crust, I could try it again. But I'd rather not. Onwards and upwards in search for the perfect crust!

First three experiments - one flour mix

When I first wanted to learn about gluten free food, I happened upon Gluten Free Girl's blog. From her blog I picked up these suggestions for making one's own gluten free flour mix. Read more HERE.

My first mix were made up of:

I used 200 grams of sorghum flour, 200 grams of millet flour, 300 grams of Schär Mix Patisserie (primarily corn starch and corn meal), and 300 grams of Semper white mix (primarily wheat starch).

My first three experiments:
Pie crust for pumpkin pie - There is a little grittyness to the baked goods. I'm not sure where it comes from. The finished product also looks a bit darker and more crumbly than when using regular wheat flour. I LOVED the way it tasted. Or rather that it didn't have a strong taste. For med the texture was different, but the taste was similar to regular flour. I used my regular pie crust recipe, but weighed the flour mix instead of measuring.

Next time: I'll put the crust between plastic or parchment paper and roll it. Just cramming it into the pie pan was not optimal.. No other adjustments necessary.

American pancakes - Love, Love, loved them. They were very tasty. Still a little gritty, but less noticable than in the pie crust. My family also had the pancakes and no complaints. VERY different from the buckwheat pancake mix I tried a couple of months back. They did not taste as good when cold. I used my regular recipe and weighed the flour mix.

Next time: There will be one! No adjustment necessary.

Sponge cake - Tasted nice, but a failure in presentation. I used my regular recipe, but measured rather than weighed the flour mix. I then baked it for the regular time plus a few minutes. This turned out to be too little. It just fell to half its size as soon as it was out of the oven. The cake itself looked a little too dark inside.

Next time: I'll be sure to weigh the flour mix, bake it about 5 minutes longer than I normally would have.

My flour mix is almost used up now. Soon I will have to venture into a health-foods store to see what they have to try out next. Looking forward to it!

Introduction

After being disgnosed with celiac disease in early May of 2013, I have eaten gluten free. My mom and grandma are celiacs, so getting symptoms and eventually being diagnosed was unwelcome, but not unexpected. I made a very conscious decision not to go bananas with nutrition. I have now tried almost every gluten free product I have come across that sounded appealing to me at the time. I have also continued eating sweets and foods I liked which were gluten free, but not GLUTEN FREE, if you know what I mean. I now have the extra pounds to show for it. Add to it that my starting weight was pretty high. In sum - I have a challenge ahead. I need to lose a lot of weight.

Why did I not make nutritionally sound decisions? I have two partial answers. I wanted to know what was out there, what tasted good and what did not. But I also simply didn't have the energy. I knew, without a doubt, that I would wear myself out. One of my symptoms were lack of energy and I just sensed that I could not deal with it.

A few months into my gluten free adventure, I started to put on weight. The good news of course being that my innards were starting to work properly. Macronutrients started to actually make their way into my system, instead of going straight through.

And now, I weigh the most I ever have. And finally, I am ready to to three things simultaneously. Start experimenting with baking. Exercising. And eating healthier.