Gluten Free Baking

I am thinking where I might struggle most with this lifestyle change is when it comes to snacks.  I am glad to see that my favorite multigrain tortilla chips (Food Should Taste Good brand from Costco) are actually certified gluten free.  I ventured to Bulk Barn on the weekend and picked up a few GF flours, rice pasta, quinoa and kasha.  I had never heard of kasha (it is buckwheat, which is GF), but thought it looked like it might make a nice subsitute for steel cut oats.  I have no idea what buckwheat tastes like, but thought I might cook it up for breakfast sometime.

I decided to try making some muffins the other night.  I had done a bit browsing at recipes and saw a couple that called for almond flour.  I didn't realize that almond flour is just ground almonds.  I decided to try this recipe and for a first try at GF baking, I think they are great.  However, I don't think I would use a recipe that calls for only almond flour.  There is a lot of fat in nuts, so the muffins have an oily taste to them. 

I was itching to try the GF all purpose flour I had found at Bulk Barn.  I tracked down a highly rated GF Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.  I think that the recipe came together well.  It looked similar to other chocolate chip cookie doughs.  I would say that it was definitely a little stickier than usual, but they baked up nicely.  I have to caution you, when you are using GF flour, DO NOT taste the dough.  I don't know how the magic happens, but the cookies don't taste bad, the dough tastes awful!  I tasted the cookies last night and thought they tasted funny, but Jay figured they taste pretty decent.  I tried another one this morning once I had the awful taste of the dough away from my brain and the flavor is just fine.  I think there might be a tiny bit of an aftertaste, but it's not bad.  I think I will tuck them into the freezer for emergency snacks :) 

I read a blog post last night about making your own GF all purpose flour mix.  The lady who wrote the blog said it was her mission to create a mixture that gave good texture to baked goods, but also tasted good, whether as dough, or when baked.  She discovered that she did not care for the taste of garbonzo bean flour (or chickpea flour) and looking at the stuff I got, that is actually the top of the list of flours used in it.  She found that they tend to have a strong flavor that is often hard to mask.  At some point I may go back to Bulk Barn, or possibly Nutters and buy some larger quantities of different flours and use a 'recipe' to mix up a good all purpose GF flour.  Definitely a learning curve...