Switched to gluten free for medical reasons. I’m attempting to convert old recipes or find new ones. Not having a lot of luck. Would love to compare notes with others on converting old recipes. Due to food allergies and intolerances, I make a lot of things from scratch. Ingredients like xanthan gum, coconut, almond and 1 to 1 flours are a problem for me. One of the recipes I’m still working on is a decent pie crust. I’ve tried the Bob’s Red Mill recipe for a teff 5 minute pie crust and it’s halfway. I’ve experimented with other flours and flour mixes in place of the teff but can’t find anything I really like the taste of. I used to like making a matzo brei occasionally. The gluten free matzos get soggy when mixed with egg. Would like to try to make a homemade matzo from scratch to replace the gluten free option, but so far, the recipes I’ve tried haven’t worked well. Looking for decent gluten free bread machine recipes. So far, I’ve only found one I like. Working on my own gluten free flour blend and would appreciate any tips and tricks related to flour blends. Would be curious to hear how others converted their favorite recipes. Thanks.
The How Can it be Gluten Free books from ATK are really good for this - they not only explain why they made each change in adapting recipes, they explain what else they tried and why it didn’t work to get to what they ended up with. Even if you can’t use all the ingredients they do, you’ll learn how to figure it out.
+1 on the How Can It Be Gluten Free book. The ATK flour blend is our go-to (although it contains xantham gum).
So I use a lot of almond flour, but that’s safe for me. My wife is more the baker, but its usually a mix of bobs and almond flour, and for each recipe its a bit different.
Also been trying out watermelon seed flour. Its sweeter, so it seems good for cookies and the like. Its higher in protein, but also fat content. It also is a bit more runny than almond flour batter, but works nicely for things like waffles and pancakes I think. Still nailing down getting it fluffy the right way, again mixing in some general purpose bobs flour to find the right mix.
Then you’ve got your brown and white rice flours. The white rice flour is a bit more neutral in flavor, and like the watermelon flour good for stuff like pancakes. For more of a breading kind of flour, or at least more thickening, the brown rice works.
Not exactly recipes, just some stuff I’m mixing in to try, but I hope this at least helps!
The watermelon flour sounds really interesting. Do you make it or is there a good place to buy it? I’ve used flax and pumpkin seed flour in some recipes, but I just grind gluten free flax or pumpkin seed to make the flour. I use a coffee/nut grinder. If you come up with some recipes using the watermelon seed flour, I hope you’ll share them. So far, I’ve been making apple pancakes just using teff flour. It seems okay. I put a little psyllium husk in to make it more fluffy. Haven’t tried the white rice flour. Is it worth purchasing? I have the brown rice and sweet rice flours and figured that would be enough. I’ve seen several recipes on the Internet for waffles using sweet rice flour or mochi. I’ve been buying several specialty flours to experiment with but haven’t found a lot of recipes I like with them. I have tigernut, chestnut and just bought okara to try. Found out okara doesn’t work like soy flour. It has an interesting taste but very crumbly. I haven’t been able to find a decent source of soy flour for years. Always on the look out for new and interesting recipes to try.
Pre-made for the flour, I’ll have to ask my wife about the recipes. I can say that she often uses almond flour, so there may be some more swapping in there for you, but I’ll see what recipes she’s got saved up
When I make a pie crust I use Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose gluten free flour. It’s a bean flour and the only thing I have found it’s good for.
-8.5 oz flour
-1 tbsp sugar
-1 tsp salt
-1.5 tsp xanthum gum
-1 egg
-8 tbsp butter, cubbed
-some cold water
Add the dry bits to a food processor, pulse to combine, add the butter and pulse a bit. Then add the egg and run it while adding a little water until it comes together in a sticky ball. Turn it out on some plastic wrap, fold a few times, wrap it up, and chill it for 10-15min. Then press/roll it out on a floured surface. Sometimes I get the moisture wrong and need to press it into a tin but usually it rolls up on the pin and out pretty easily.As for breads I found a roll recipe on theloopywhisk that uses lots of starch and psyilum husk gel to get a nice fluffy loaf. https://theloopywhisk.com/2023/12/02/gluten-free-white-bread/ I sub in potato starch for the tapioca and use it for flatbread and pizza too.
Thanks for the recipe suggestions.
I’ve also changed to gluten free for medical reasons.
One thing I just can’t get over is that I can’t eat pasta. I’ve tried several gluten-free ones and they’re all just worse than the last.
Can’t get that texture right. Want my al dente spaghetti. >:(
I guess I’ve been lucky with that. I actually like the lentil pastas. They aren’t the same as the wheat based ones and they don’t taste the same. However, I do like the taste of the lentil pastas in their own right. It is annoying though that most of the companies making gluten free elbow macaroni have decided to discontinue their products. Seems like as soon as I find a product I halfway like, it’s discontinued.
