UKC

Has anyone got any recipes for the above. Normal flour is seemingly giving the wife no end of problems so we are having a bash at gluten free cooking. Having previously made bread with gluten free flour for my sister in law I have come to the conclusion I may as well have used plaster!
So any tips on alternative flours, chickpea, buckwheat etc. would be great.

Cheers

In reply to the sheep:

Crickets

In reply to the sheep:

I recently made fresh homemade corn tortillas, which were beautiful. Enjoying doing things the hard way, I bought some field corn, boiled it with some calcium hydroxide, left it sit overnight and then made it into a dough with the food processor. It comes out wet, so added masa harina flour until it was the right texture, pressed out tortillas and cooked a stack of them in my pan. You could just make up a dough from masa haraina flour, but the taste won't be as good.

For chickpea flour, look for recipes for farinata, socca and pudla, which are Italian, French and Indian respectively and halfway between a bread and a pancake, but delicious.

In reply to the sheep:

Gluten free flour is like fricking cement, for starters, if you're making a normal loaf it's easier and tastier if you lose the idea of making a dough and make something that's more like a stiff cake batter. You can add whatever fruit, mashed vegetables etc to the mix too, to add additional moisture.

If you're making flatbreads, try brown rice flour.

In reply to the sheep:

Coconut flour? Not that I've had much luck with it myself, but I did only try pancakes with it once.

In reply to the sheep:

Good-looking corn flathead recipes here:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=corn+flatbread+recipe

In reply to captain paranoia:

Corn can cause an inflammatory reaction in some coeliacs, I know the OPs wife isn't stated as being coeliac.

In reply to tspoon1981:

That may be true, but corn is widely used by coeliacs, and for gluten-free foods. My niece, brother-in-law and friends are fine with it.

Without a detailed list of foodstuffs the OP's wife is sensitive to, we can only make suggestions. The OP's wife can get them herself, assuming she knows what she's sensitive to.

In reply to the sheep:

Not tried, but from reading about, chickpea flour is the one that offers the most similar structure for breads compared to wheat.

In reply to the sheep:

I've had some success with 250g of buckwheat flour (+ extra for dusting), 1/2 teaspoon of active yeast, and 1 tablespoon of olive oil.

Mix the flour and yeast together and work in about 3/4 cup of cold water and the olive oil until you can form a soft dough. Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 mins, adding more water or flour as required. Then put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover, and let it sit for another 10 minutes.

Then heat a non stick frying pan until it starts to smoke. Tear off a peice of dough and form into a flat, round shape with your hands and cook (minutes) on each side until you see it start to puff and brown on the edges.

If memory serves, I also made them with brown rice flour (which I find tricky) and spelt flour (which I find to be brilliant for anything).

In reply to the sheep:
I would heartily recommend you acquire a copy of " gluten free bread and cakes from your bread maker" by Carolyn Humphries. If you don't have a bread machine you can adapt the recipes without too much imagination- just mix with a hand mixer and do the proving in a warm place. Anyway, in the book there is a recipe for a white gluten free flour mix that I use for anything that uses plain flour with the addition of a good teaspoon of xanthum gum (available in most supermarket free from sections )per 200g of flour and baking powder when self raising flour is called for.
50g/2oz tapioca flour
50g/2oz cornflour
100g/4oz potato flour
450g/1lb white rice flour

Mix it all together.

I find it works fine in any cake recipe but you will need to Google gf bread recipes if you don't buy the book I recommended. It does soak up more liquid than normal flour so your mixtures will need to be a tad more sloppy. For Yorkshire puddings try Phil Vickery's gf recipe. Be prepared for a fair amount of trial and error. I buy my flours online from www. healthy supplies .co.uk If you don't want to buy the book pm me and I will email you a few recipes but I 'm off to Haute Province tomorrow until 18th April so won't be able to get back to you until after then.

In reply to the sheep:

My crickets comment above wasn't a joke. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_flour

I haven't tried it but apparently they use it in the Wahaca restaurants.

In reply to aln:

The big new gf flour is going to be banana flour made from green bananas.

In reply to the sheep:

Mrs L reckons Xanthum gum is the magic ingredient for gluten free breads.

In reply to the sheep:

Was it Gluton free bread that was reported this week to be free on prescription?

In reply to the sheep:

I used white rice flour and tapioca flour.

Cheers all, had a bash with a 50:50 mix of gram and buckwheat flour with some rapeseed oils and seasoning. Kneeded into a dough and flattened into discs and cooked in a hot pan. Went down well, the wife was happy and the kids polished of theirs and had seconds.

In reply to the sheep:

Cut a circle out of some old pillow cases, fry until crispy. Yum yum

In reply to the sheep:

Stop eating bread and pastry if it's so disagreeable to ones physiology. Dont understand the need or requirement to replace starving peasant rations with other starving peasant rations. ????

D

In reply to Dauphin:
Constructive and helpful!