Saturday, May 13, 2023

Baking Gluten Free Goodies with Celia Wakefield

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: It's another delicious pair of recipes from our own Celia Wakefield. She's experimented with cooking for the vegan crowd; today, please enjoy these delicious gluten free baked goods, perfect for everyone avoiding wheat (and having tasted them both, perfect for the rest of us as well!

 

 

 

Yay, it’s my JRW Saturday (because tomorrow is supposed to be Mothers Day OFF). I am  sending my most heartfelt best wishes to all the moms/ mums/grands who keep the world in line and running smoothly - HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!


Julia, who has the largest heart evah, has invited not only me to join the fun but also my daughter, Olivia, not to be confused with the Maine Millennial and Youngest (my almost granddaughter). We are an intermingled family. To set our stage; Metropolitan Opera HD Saturday and the opera in question, Der Rosenkavalier, a Strauss marathon. Due to my leg hobble (much improved) I had decided to rest up and sent Victor and Julia off for an opera date. My day of R&R was enhanced by Olivia who had come to visit and check that we were behaving as she wished her parents so to do and that’s when the next Julia JRW Sunday bake came up.


I had never heard of celiac disease before we moved to Maine twenty three years ago. But within a few months I had met two families who were struggling to find baked food without gluten that was edible. A lot of spelt flour was in use but that too has traces of gluten. Then about ten years ago Olivia was tested and found she had celiac too. At least I knew what that was and what was involved. Things were improving in the market for the gluten intolerant. 

 

 

 

At first my pantry was stocked with several different flours to mix and match dependent on the GF recipe. I have always been a fan of arrowroot for thickening so leaving flour out of gravy and sauces was not a problem. Though I do think that potato flour works better. In the meantime the mills and large baking companies were working on delicious recipes using the ‘new’ flour which they were selling. 

 

Olivia having made some shifts with her work schedule now had a little time to get back into her kitchen and practice gluten free baking. Our scene was set, here we were on a cold March Saturday, and Olivia was baking for me. In fact for us because Julia was joining us for dinner post opera while the ‘boys’ spent the afternoon with Olivia and me [Ed note: Kingsley and Rocky, my Shih Tzus] getting very spoilt with lots of carrot treats. 

 

Olivia baked her famous GF biscuits for dinner. I say famous because the first time she baked them for us the family was here and as she brought the two dozen or so biscuits from the oven, she remarked that we would need to be quick or G’son #1, might vanish them. And she was right. Victor and I hardly got a bite each! And for dessert she baked these delicious chocolate chip cookies from the website: Gluten-free on a Shoestring.


However Olivia does have a hack for the recipe so I am using her quantities for success here. However I have also added the original recipe website where you can follow the Directions as well as reading Nicole’s comments on GF baking and she has a lot of experience:


Olivia suggests these recipe modifications:

  • 3 eggs (versus two)

  • 1/2 tsp of baking soda 

  • 2 tablespoons of milk 

  • 2 tablespoons of vanilla (versus one)

 

Once placed on parchment lined cookie sheets, chill dough in the freezer for 5-10 minutes and then bake (freezing keeps the GF dough from spreading when they cook). 


Here is the Gluten free on a Shoestring recipe:


  • Preheat oven 350 degrees

  • 2 ¼ cups (315 g) all purpose gluten free flour blend 

  • 1 teaspoon xanthan gum optional, check the  flour blend

  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

  • ¾ cup (150 g) granulated sugar

  • ¾ cup (164 g) packed light brown sugar

  • 8 tablespoons (112 g) unsalted butter at cool room temperature

  • 2 eggs at room temperature, beaten

  • 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

  • 12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips plus more as desired, up to 16 ounces total


These cookies are very drop in guest as well as portion control friendly. Bake the amount needed and freeze the rest of the dough in cookie shape. Olivia found  cooking the whole batch was a bit too much, since G’son #2, who keeps to a strict eating plan as he is into sports, would complain that if the cookies were there he would eat them. Olivia started only baking what was needed for a meal. But the added benefit was that when a friend unexpectedly dropped by with her two grade schoolers, Olivia could pull out the frozen cookies and encourage the kids to play baker which was a great success.The dough bakes up quickly (particularly in a countertop oven)


 

 

 

 

I made Olivia’s GF biscuit recipe, from Gluten free on a Shoestring, using King Arthur GF flour with xanthan gum in the mix. Having read Nicole’s baking recommendations a couple of times I wanted to be extra careful as there is nothing worse than a flat biscuit. I was very pleased with the result. So here are my hacks:


Nicole stresses chilling ingredients which work better when baking GF. I planned ahead and put my bowl, measured flour etc in the fridge for an advanced cool down. I also used a scale for accuracy rather than the American cup measure system. I grated a frozen stick of butter and returned it into the fridge too. I preheated the oven before I began the mixing part. I washed my hands in cold water to cool them and did do some of the mixing by hand as I found the butter was clumping. I also had to add more buttermilk as the dough wasn’t coming together as needed. I found the dough stayed cold to my touch so formed the biscuits by hand as I didn’t have an ice cream scoop large enough. Working quickly helped keep the dough cool and then straight into the oven worked. My biscuits baked in 15 minutes.


 

 

Olivia’s Gluten Free biscuit recipe from Gluten free on a shoestring:


  • 1 ¾ cups (245 g) all purpose gluten free flour blend (I used Better Batter)

  • ¾ teaspoon xanthan gum omit if your blend already contains it

  • ¼ cup (36 g) cornstarch (or try potato starch or arrowroot)

  • 1 tablespoon baking powder

  • ¼ teaspoon baking soda

  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt

  • 2 teaspoons (8 g) granulated sugar

  • 8 tablespoons (112 g) unsalted butter cut into a 1/4-inch dice or grated and chilled

  • 1 cup (8 fluid ounces) buttermilk chilled

  • 1 tablespoon (14 g) unsalted butter melted

  • Preheat oven to 425 degrees


Ingredient mix technique is on the website and in the videos. 

 

 

36 comments:

  1. Yum . . . the biscuits sound like a perfect addition to any meal. Thanks so much for sharing the recipe with us . . . .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Celia: Thanks Joan, I was pleased with the biscuits, but they don't keep well, eat 'em up!

      Delete
  2. Another delicious entry in the Celia canon! Thank you. My almost-daughter now has to be gluten-free, so I am saving this recipe. Happy Mother's Day to you and Julia and all Reds community moms.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Celia: You're most welcome Edith though as I see your bakes on Fb, I think you are the much better baker. Happy Mothers Day back to you and everyone on JRW.

      Delete
  3. Happy Mother's Day to you all. Thanks for the recipe.We don't need to eat GF, but it's nice to have a good recipe if any of our friends do. (We don't know of any at this point, but who knows what the future will bring. ) I'm a cookie freak, so I may fix them anyway.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Celia: HMD to you Elizabeth. I agrees it's aways nice to have a tested recipe just in case. Love thinking of you in Portugal. Many, many years ago, I was a teen, our family would fly to Ghana and stop in Lisbon sometimes for a vacation, sometimes only a fueling stop but back then everyone got given a little bottle of port going through customs etc. My sis and bro were younger than me and loved receiving the port. I think I probably doesn't happen these days.

      Delete
    2. Celia, what a charming customs gift. I think you are right, though; I doubt that happens anymore. How cool that as a teen you were flying to Ghana. What memories!

      Delete
  4. Another yummy recipe for those GF and not. Thanks, Celia!
    It was hard for me to bake GF treats 10 years when I was on a paleo diet. I am glad to see there is more availability of GF flour mixes & ingredients to satisfy the GF baker.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks Celia and Olivia, and Happy Mother's Day! Libby Klein, a new writer-cook on Mystery Writers Kitchen, also has delicious-sounding gluten-free recipes on that website.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Celia: You're Welcome Roberta, and HMD to you too. I'll go and check out Libby's recipes. I don't remember her name appearing when I searched so we all need to go and look at her recipes.

      Delete
  6. Thanks so much for the recipes, Celia. I've been eating GF for over a year now, but haven't tried my hand at baking. I used GF pasta made from lentils last night and it turned out pretty well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Celia: You're most welcome Gillian. If you have a Whole Foods near you look for their shelf GF pastas they are delicious. I also found a GF gnocchi in WhF but it seems to have vanished still good hunting.

      Delete
  7. Happy Mother's Day to all! And Celia, as far as I'm concerned, there are never too many chocolate chip cookie or biscuit recipes! Thanks! (Flora)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Celia: HMD to you too Flora, and you are correct. I had just sent all the copy off to Julia when Olivia texted me to say she had made an even better chocolate chip cookie than the one she made for us! (Sigh).

      Delete
  8. Oh, yum!!! Thank you, Celia, these cookies will be perfect for my gluten free nephew!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Celia: You're most welcome Jenn, and who knows maybe in the cupcake series! haha.

      Delete
  9. Happy Mother's Day, y'all! <3 Those recipes look delicious, Celia. So delicious, I'd be liable to be like the Grandsons. With tasty sweets, I'm more likely to have "more go than whoa." :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Celia: HMD back at you Rhonda, yes feeding grandsons is an endless task.

      Delete
  10. Hank Phillippi RyanMay 13, 2023 at 10:38 AM

    These are wonderful! Thank you so much for sharing… I wonder if gluten-free is just generally “healthier”? Any thoughts on that?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Celia: You're most welcome Hank. You have been busy and I love the Duckie stories. We think we saw the loons on our lake a couple of days ago. Your question is a good one. I don't have a definitive answer but my guess is that manufacturers are having to be more precise with ingredient lists. When baking, I think flour is flour, but processed flour is definitely not as good for one as the whole wheat version. I would have to look into rice or oat flours. In fact there are so many different flours being used now. Oh dear I'm not much help am I?

      Delete
    2. You are ALWAYS a help! And duckies say hey.

      Delete
  11. Thanks, Celia. I love buttermilk biscuits, gluten-free or not! And Happy Mother's Day to everyone. I'm having my eighty-seven-year-old widowed mother-in-law Vreni (short for Verena) over for dinner tomorrow night in honor of the day (as my husband and I do every year.) She still lives alone in the family house, will drive herself the fifteen miles to our place, and has requested tacos for dinner. Most Swiss her age haven't even heard of tacos, but Vreni has loved them ever since the first time I made them for her and my father-in-law over thirty years ago. She's blessed to be able to be so independent--and so are we!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Celia: Most welcome Kim, and off the top I want to say I loved, loved Pesticide, and now I need to go and get your latest. I gave you a good review on Amazon. Anyway HMD to you to Vreni and more kudos to her. My Victor is 96 but I did take away the car keys a couple of years ago. Please tell her I am rooting for her.

      Delete
    2. Kim--tacos! I love it! So many versions and so good! (Flora)

      Delete
  12. Those cookies look delicious! The family we used to spend Thanksgiving dinner with got complicated because one member of the family was lactose, intolerant, another vegan and another celiac… yikes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Celia: Many thanks Hallie, they are good. Yes I understand when faced with dinner guests who have different allergies, if that's even the correct term now. Looking back I can see my poor mum with a lunch table of my fathers foreign business guests. She was so careful so avoid the various meats etc. so choose a rice and shrimp dish. One of them was allergic to shrimp but of course no one had bothered to inform my pa. Thank goodness for omelettes.

      Delete
  13. Thank you so much, Celia! We are cooking dinner tomorrow night for our neighbors, and 92-year old Lise is gluten intolerant, but loves homemade goodies. It will be a treat to have biscuits!

    Happy Mother's Day, dear JRW pals.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Celia: Goodness Kim, saved by the bell or GF recipe. I'm so glad Olivia came to stay at a strategic moment. Good luck and of course HMD to you all too.

      Delete
  14. Thank you for another Celia and Julia show! Fortunately we have no one in the family with gluten intolerance. But it's nice to know resources are available if needed. Happy Mother's Day to you and all the Reds!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Celia: You're welcome Pat, Happy Mothers Day to you too and to everyone else.

      Delete
  15. Glad you are recovering well. These sound yummy! Thank you, and Olivia, for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Celia: Very welcome Kait, and thank you for your good wishes I believe they all help.

      Delete
  16. Thank you, Celia! I'll keep these handy in case I ever need them. Meanwhile, happy Mother's Day to you and to all the moms and future moms and those who are even better than moms!

    ReplyDelete
  17. From Celia: Most Welcome Judi, always good to be prepared. Have a very HMD to you and to all who have mothered others. We are the village.

    ReplyDelete
  18. yum!! And the video is great too!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Such an inspiring blog post! Celia Wakefield's expertise in baking gluten-free goodies is truly remarkable. As a baker in Riyadh, incorporating ERP software into my business has been a game-changer. With efficient inventory management and streamlined operations, erp software riyadh has helped me produce and deliver delicious gluten-free treats to my customers. It's the secret ingredient that ensures success in the baking business. Thank you for sharing this valuable information!

    ReplyDelete