This story has been floating around as a draft for some time. I believe it is finally finished, and I would now like to relate to you a sequence of events that took place last fall.
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I arrived at home one night some time ago to find the kitchen in disarray. Multiple bags of a variety of flours were open all over the counter top. On our little round kitchen table were three giant bowls clearly full with a mixture of said flours. Bottles of oil, a cutting board covered with chopped apricots, several bowls of yeast warming on top of the stove, the oven on and warming up. The laptop was sitting on the chair and a cookbook was propped open against the toaster beside piles of spices.
As I came in the door, Shelly, who’s back was turned to me, jumped. She turned laughing towards me after realizing it was just me. I smiled and took in the scene. As I was still digesting the disarray of the kitchen, Shelly’s smile of hello became one of amused horror and alarm. Her focus shifted to stove where, just as I turned to look, the warming yeast overflowed two of the three containers in which it rested. It poured out onto the stove top. We both broke down into laughter.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a better way to come home from a long day staring at a computer screen than to find my kitchen in the midst of the vaguely ordered chaos that is cooking. I quickly ditched my backpack and work clothes and went to join the fray, only to have Shelly tell me that the fray wasn’t quite ready for me.
Shelly was attempting gluten free baking. Perhaps I should spend a moment to back up explain. Shelly had been recently informed by her sister that her mom’s gluten allergy seemed to have been passed down. Both mom and sister suspected that Shelly had also inherited it. She has long showed many of the symptoms for no apparent reason. So we have been attempting a gluten free diet.
For those that do not know, gluten is a protein in grain. Mostly, it’s in wheat, but it also appears in several other grains in varying amounts. Gluten allergy, or Ciliac disease as it is also known, is often simply called wheat allergy. Wheat is the primary ingredient that must be removed from food intake. That means no wheat flour, which was the most important point for the night’s endeavors.
Gluten free baking isn’t the same as baking with flour - it’s gluten that really makes the flour stick together. So with out it things tend to crumble. In an attempt to make up for the lack of the sticky protein, gluten free baking typically employs a wide variety of flours and starches. Some work better than others, but none work quite as well as gluten itself.
Shelly had gone shopping earlier in the day in an effort to acquire all the ingredients we were missing. Unfortunately, even with the gluten allergy being as common as it is, the ingredients required to cook for it can be hard to find. There was one she hadn’t managed to acquire: tapioca flour - also known as tapioca starch. So back on with the jacket and out the door we went. That is, after Shelly salvaged what she could of the run away yeast. We left it to continue warming on the off, but still warm, oven.
We have three Price Choppers in range: Ghetto Chopper, Standard Chopper and Super Chopper. We headed for the Super Chopper, figuring that was our best chance. It also happened to be the closest. At the Super Chopper it took a ten minute search to determine we had no idea where the Gluten Free flours might be. Finally, after nearly giving up we asked the cashier if she knew where they might be, she didn’t, but her supervisor pointed us to the Gluten Free section. We had completely missed it. In our ten minute search, we had completely and utterly over looked a whole section dedicated to gluten free foods and ingredients. A whole section… that just happened to be dead in the middle of the cleaning products aisle with no other foods in sight. Yeah, I still have no idea how we missed it. In any case, we returned victorious with the needed flour.
Shelly’s mission was multi-pronged. She was attempting three gluten free baking recipes simultaneously, hence the three bowls of mixed dry ingredients. Two of the bowls were bound for gluten free breads (the recipes were for rolls actually, but we made a bread out of one and rolls out of the other). The third was headed for gluten free pizza crust.
When we returned, I wasted no time joining in with the work. I quickly examined the recipes she was working from. The wet ingredients had yet to be added to the dry. Eggs were cracked, milk was added - in one instance to the yeast and in others to the dry ingredients. Some oil went in, and in one case some buttermilk instead of milk. Finally the yeast that had been warming. We focused first on the pizza dough, as that was to be dinner. A beat of beating with the beater and the dough was ready. It seems a little odd to me still to beat pizza dough with a mixer. No tossing of the dough? That’s what the recipe called for, though, so that’s what we did.
With the pizza dough fully mixed the next step was to press it into an oiled pan. Finally, we covered it and left it somewhere warm to rise. We chose the stove, warm with heat rising out of the oven still.
With our pizza dough rising on the oven, we turned our attention to the two bread/roll doughs. One was to be a sweet dough and one was to be a savory one. We went to gather the spices and extra ingredients we intended to add to the breads. On my way to the spice pantry, I noticed the bag of tapioca flour we’d made that special trip for was, apparently, unopened. I could swear I had seen Shelly add a cup of tapioca flour to each bread. I took the bag and held it up for her to see. A brief moment passed before recognition dawned on her face. “What?” She said, “Wait… Huh…?”
And she went for the pantry. In it she discovered the culprit. Two opened bags of potato starch. She had bought a bag of potato starch earlier in day, not realizing we already had one in the pantry. Earlier that evening, she had spotted me moving the bag of potato starch we already had, and assumed it was the tapioca starch we’d just purchased. She removed it from the pantry, opened it and used two cups of it in our recipes with out ever realizing her mistake. She now wore an expression of stunned disbelief at what she done. There was a brief moment of panic over what this unintended alteration would do to our bread, but we decided to forge ahead. Shelly’s word of advice, when making gluten free breads, be sure to keep careful track of your various flours.
Finally we got to the fun part. For the sweet bread in went the chopped apricots, some extra sugar, vanilla and cardamon. For the savory we added rosemary, thyme, basil, garlic, onion, and a little extra salt. The recipes again called for the bread to be beaten with a mixer.
I, however, some how managed to miss that part. I’d been intending to try to learn to make bread for a while, and I was looking forward to trying my hand at kneading. So that’s what I did. I took out each loaf and spread flour on the table. I used the tapioca flour this time. I began to knead them, but as I did they just seemed to gain more and more air pockets. After a minute or two of this, Shelly, who’s attention had been focused elsewhere turned around and realized what I was doing.
“You aren’t suppose to knead these!”
“What?”
“You can’t knead gluten free breads, they crumble! They aren’t like regular bread.”
“Oops… Well, it’s kinda working, I just don’t think I know how to knead.”
She sighed, came over and took control. She had had practice kneading bread before. And sure enough, in her skilled hands, it worked. We both looked at it puzzled.
“Huh, what do you know? Wonder why they told us to beat it?”
“Beats me.”
One more kneaded loaf later and the dough went into the oven. We put one into a bread pan as a whole loaf. The other we spread out on a baking sheet as rolls. We covered the pizza with some store bought sauce and toppings gathered from whatever we had in the refrigerator and it followed the bread into the oven. Just about a half an hour later, we had a delicious pizza, a dozen very tasty rolls and a loaf of yummie bread.
A night well spent, by all accounts.