Food Memory And The Story of the Tasty Pastry

This morning as I sat on the bus it dawned on me that I have forgotten how some foods taste. I suppose in many ways this is a good thing. Since starting on the celiac diet four years ago I had to "give up" many foods. I say "give up" because as I discussed on my previous post, what I gave up seems to have been nicely balanced by what I gained (not counting weight!).

Anyways, as the bus zoomed past McDonald's I thought to myself "What does a McDonald's cheeseburger taste like?" Try as I might I could not recall. As my stomach rumbled I continued the thought with "Ohhh, cheeseburgers on portobello mushrooms". That's my current substitute for a decent hamburger bun...2 big portobello mushrooms brushed with olive oil and lightly grilled. OMG its delicious. So obviously, McDonald's cheeseburgers were not a big deal to give up.

I don't really remember what "regular" bread tastes like. I suppose when I smell it (my goodness that is a heavenly smell) I get a sense of what it tastes like. But truly I don't know what bread tastes like anymore. Now this inability to remember what gluten food tastes like is reeking havoc on my baking career! How do I make a decent GF pastry, loaf of bread, cookie or cake, if I don't remember what the original tastes like???

This recently became an interesting subject of conversation when I created my first batch of GF croissants. Now, I ate them and I know they were darn good. In fact, I ate two at one go so they were really good. But did they taste like croissants??? No clue. So here is where the non-celiacs in my life should prove useful. Although, as you will see this is not always the case.

Take my husband, who is known in our house as "The Consultant of Everything". He is very particular if I give him something GF...he chews it slowly and then gives me an assessment of how "GF" it tastes. Now, while annoying at times, this does prove useful to me particularly with new recipes. So I gave him one of the croissants I made, fresh out of the oven, with a steaming cup of tea. I never said a word. I just handed him the pastry and walked away. Not a word came out of him as he ate the croissant.

A little while later, I asked him how it was and all he said was, "Really good."

"Did it taste like a croissant? " I asked.

"I guess. I don't remember", was his response.

So apparently I must hand him a survey form to complete after he eats my baking. Arghhhh. At least I determined they tasted really good and it was not my desperate GF palette that was fooling me into thinking this was a tasty pastry.

Next, I brought them into work and shared with a co-worker who is not a celiac but has been really supportive of my baking business. I gave her three, one for her, her husband and their little girl. I looked at her and said "I don't think they taste like croissants but they are really yummy." Apparently, they never made it home. She came up to my office the next day and informed me that they were delicious. Then she proceeded to tell me not to improve them. "Keep them exactly as they are. They remind me of a cross between a chocolate croissant and a cannoli."

My heart sank. While I was glad to know that a non-celiac appreciated my first attempt at a GF croissant, I was a bit taken aback by the cannoli reference. I looked at her and said "Tracey, I have never eaten a cannoli in my life. I have no idea what they taste like! This does not help me."

So here I am with a recipe for GF chocolate croissants that are super tasty but don't entirely taste like croissants. Rather, they are a cross between croissants and an Italian pastry I have never tried and never will try given my celiac disposition. So, can I sell these as GF croissants? Do I need to hone the recipe further to ensure they really taste like a croissant is supposed to taste? How about this....I have developed a GF pastry known as Croinolli, and my goodness is it ever yummy!

Some Things Are Just Better Gluten-Free

As a small business owner, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are invaluable ways to network and increase clientele base. As such, I am regularly on Facebook and belong to many gluten free groups from around the world. Recently, I was reading some comments posted on one of these online forums where a woman stated that she would give anything to "get off the gluten free diet because it was is so unhealthy". I read this and was puzzled. Unhealthy, what was she eating? In my mind, gluten–free eating is no unhealthier than gluten eating. In fact there is so much more unhealthy gluten food available than gluten-free. I read further into the comments and realized that to this woman gluten-free food meant packaged foods. I could not help but respond and state what was obvious to me: that naturally gluten- free foods like lean proteins, vegetables and gluten- free grains (take your pick) are actually quite healthy in and of themselves. I advised that she cut back on the packaged gluten- free foods and start looking at what was gluten- free, naturally.

This posting, and my comment, got me thinking about all the different foods I have been "forced" to try since I went on a celiac diet and how most of them are actually quite healthy. Many foods have entered my life in the last four years that never would have if it had not been for celiac disease. Gastronomically, I am not the most adventurous person. My favorite food as a kid and still is homemade macaroni and cheese. However, there is only so much rice and corn pasta a gluten-free girl can consume. I recall that the first "different" gluten free grain to enter my life was quinoa. I first tried quinoa flakes as a substitute for plain porridge. It had a great texture but the flavor was a bit off putting. I was expecting (or wanting) the Cream of Wheat experience I had grown up with. Needless to say, I loaded it up with a heaping tablespoon of brown sugar and it was fine …so much for healthy. However, I did go onto discover a myriad of tasty and, healthy quinoa recipes like the Mango Quinoa salad I am including here. This salad is one of my summer favorites but honestly you can eat this anytime. In fact, I had it one Christmas Eve a few years back.

Gluten-free baking has also turned me onto some magnificent flours. My personal favorite is sorghum. I cannot speak enough about the merits of this flour and it is staple flour in almost all of my baking. It is highly nutritious and better for you than the common rice flour found in most baked and packaged gluten-free products. I will talk more about the glories of sorghum in another article but for now know that it is the primary flour I bake with. Almond flour has also been a delightful "discovery" for me. Who knew how versatile this simple nut could be. Forget about pastry pie shells, try the pressed almond pie shell found in Elana Amsterdam's new book "The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook". It is simple, fabulous and easily adapted to a chocolate or savory version. This book is available on Amazon.ca or at Chapters.ca.

I suppose I am the last one to be talking about healthy gluten-free foods. Here I am, The Sweet Toothed Celiac, baking up the unhealthy indulgences the woman on the forum was probably bemoaning. I suppose what I am driving at is gluten-free food is essentially as healthy or unhealthy as gluten food. It is all about moderation and using common sense. However, being celiac forces you to get a bit more creative and to find variations and substitutions that you might otherwise not have had to think of. If you are a newly diagnosed celiac this all might seem daunting, but really it does not have to be and trust me it does gets easier.

Looking beyond the food, being gluten- free has also introduced me to so many interesting, resourceful and inspired people that I would not have otherwise met. There is a commradorie amongst us celiac and gluten-intolerants. Not only do we want to share our plight with the world but we want to share with our fellow celiacs the glorious discoveries we have made, whether it is a restaurant, a recipe book, a food product or even a support group. Look at Ellen Baynes, from the Victoria Chapter and what she has accomplished in the last year with the fabulous Celiac Scene website. It's the celiac community's very own social networking site. People like these help us find the tools, resources and products to stay healthy as celiacs. Gone are the days when all that was available were the frozen loaves of bread and rice cakes that you had to choke down and that had zero nutritional value. With people like Ellen, celiac disease and the gluten- free lifestyle is finding a tremendous voice.

My gluten-free lifestyle was also the inspiration for my business, The Sweet Tooth Cakery. If it had not been for celiac disease I would never had considered a baking business. I have always loved the baking process, including cake decorating, but before going gluten-free it was simply a much loved hobby. Now, baking provides me with something that gluten baking never did…I call it the "GF factor". Perhaps it is the challenge of creating something as delicious and moist, if not more so, than the gluten variety. Or, as I recently explained to a group of people, perhaps it is how baking now makes me feel somehow "more human". Creating food for others is a really intimate experience and to be able to provide a product that is genuinely appreciated, as it is amongst celiacs, is even more special. As a baker you pour a bit of yourself into everything you make, especially cakes and pastries which are time consuming indulgences.

People often ask me what I miss the most since I went gluten-free. Honestly, I am hard pressed to come up with an answer. If I miss anything about gluten eating it is the ease of ordering in a restaurant or café. But do I miss any one food? Strangely, no. I can create, substitute or do without most of the gluten food out there. With the exception of cereal, crackers and the occasional package of cookies (yes, even I the baker do buy packaged cookies once in a blue moon) I no longer rely heavily on pre-packaged or manufactured gluten-free foods. In fact, I often find myself going into coffee shops now and looking at the displays of pastries, cakes and cookies and thinking up ways to make that gluten- free. Case in point: one day this past October, after hitting the coffee shop for my morning dose of caffeine, I developed a bit of an unnatural urge for biscotti. That night I went into the production bakery I bake out of and decided to whip up a test batch. The next day, I brought some samples to some co-workers to get opinions. One of the girls, a temp who had just started a week prior and had no clue about my gluten-free baking business, sent me an email after eating her biscotti. It read, "BEST BISCOTTI EVER!!!!" I smiled and thought to myself, some things are just better gluten-free.

Mango Quinoa Salad

¾ cup of quinoa pearls (not the flakes or flour)

1 clove of garlic

1 mango, peeled, pitted and cut in to 1" cubes

1 jalapeno chili, seeds removed and finely chopped

½ cup of raisins

1 ripe tomato, chopped

Juice of one lime

¼ cup of cilantro sprigs chopped

¼ cup of parsley sprigs, chopped

½ tsp salt, to taste

Place quinoa into sauce pan with 1 ½ cups of water. Bring to a boil and then let sit for 15 minutes.

While the quinoa is cooling prepare the rest of the ingredients and put into a bowl. Add the cooked quinoa and toss ingredients together.

Note: Quinoa can be cooked in a GF vegetable broth if you so desire.

Chocolate Cake: The Mother of All Cakes

Oh do I ever love chocolate cake.

When I first went "celiac" back in 2006 I think chocolate cake was the first thing I really craved and the first dessert I attempted to bake. I tired a number of mixes. Must were unmemorable, with the exception of Pamela's. This is probably one of the best (if not the best) GF cake mixes out there. You can use the actual cake mix or the even the brownie mix to make an incredibly moist and chocolaty cake. If you go to their website you will find recipes on how to adapt the mixes...absolutely fabulous! The mixes are available at most local grocery stores...I know Save-On-Foods, some Safeways and Good Nature Health Food in the Westview Plaza carry a range of Pamela's mixes. If you are in a fix spend the money and buy a package. It costs about $7 to $8 but it is well worth it. Your non celiac friends will have no clue.

Having said all that, I am not a cake mix person. If I don't need a cake within an hour, than I am going to make it from scratch....all of it. There is nothing better than a made from scratch cake, with fresh, wholesome, local ingredients. So after trying out the mixes I set out on a journey to find the perfect chocolate cake mix recipe. This journey found some pretty decent recipes. Analeise Roberts' Gluten Free Baking Classics is, in my humble opinion, one of the best books out there on the topic gluten free baking. However, I was not terribly impressed by the chocolate cake/cupcake recipes in this book. What I ended up doing was turning to the almighty Google and just searching the Internet. Which was a good call, as I found a recipe that I adapted to create what I now call my "Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake". When paired with a real chocolate butter cream, or my personal favorite, a chocolate ganache, you will find yourself in a glorious chocolate paradise. If you ever watch The Simpson's you may recall the episode where Homer is dreaming of travelling through the land of chocolate and randomly biting small dogs and lamp posts. That kind of pure joy is what I feel like when I eat a piece of this cake....oh so good.

What made this recipe jump out at me was the simplicity of it. It did not require any of the gluten free flour mixes. While it does require three different flours, I didn't have to have them in a proportional mix. The other thing that jumped out at me was the use of sorghum flour. At that time I had never used sorghum flour and so I had no idea of the versatility of this flour. I just went out bought a small bag and gave it a go. In another post I will discuss the merits of sorghum flour (I have a small refrigerator and freezer stuffed with bags of the stuff). Lets just say, I truly believe sorghum is what makes this such a fabulous recipe....well that and all the cocoa and butter cream!!

Now, I don't mean to be proprietary but I will not be divulging this recipe. If you want to taste it, you must order it from me. I also want to say this also makes a FABULOUS dairy free/vegan cake. I made this cake as gluten free and vegan friendly cupcakes for a work function (so that myself and the token vegan on staff could finally partake in the food at an event) and no one knew the difference. That to me is testament to the greatness of the recipe.

Welcome!

Sweet Toothed Celiac:

I can't eat wheat but I sure like the sweet!

Oh the horror!! To be denied the heavenly tastes of pies, cakes and pastries all because of a silly intolerance to gluten. Well I guess its not so silly really.

Well I am having none of it. I am going to figure out a way to make sure I, and fellow celiacs everywhere, can once again experience the joy of eating a fluffy piece of chocolate cake covered in a wonderful bit of buttercream heaven. Or how about something as simple as a tasty brownie with a cup of coffee. I am not asking for much...am I?

Lets get something straight...there are a lot of bakeries out there claiming to be gluten-free (GF). But for us serious celiacs (i.e. those of us who don't even entertain the thought of cheating) the only true safe bakery is one that ONLY does GF baking; that or our own home kitchen. I love baking and one day I dream about owning my own GF cakery so I can bake and decorate beautiful cakes and make the celiac world (and the dairy-free and vegan worlds) happy, happy, happy!!

Until I get the money and have a plan in place to start my own GF cakery/cafe, I am quite happy to be working out of The Spelt Bakery here in Vancouver and blogging to the world as the Sweet Toothed Celiac. I will share with you my thoughts about the wonderful world of GF baking and I promise I will not talk about the "dry as dirt" GF cakes or those wonderfully original rice flour cookies (that's sarcasm). I believe in GF baking that is simple and that produces a product that, well pretty much, no one knows is GF.

This should be an interesting journey. Along for the ride will be my husband and official photographer Jerry. He is the official taste tester for the non-celiac world. He is quite frank in his opinions about whether something "tastes GF". He will also diligently photo document all my sweet delights and I am sure a few sweet disasters.

I hope you will comment back and follow my adventures in the baking world of celiacs. I hope I will be able to help people navigate the world of GF baking, recommend places to shop in Vancouver and online, books to read and bakeries to check out.

So get your aprons out and your mixers ready, this should be fun.

j