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Gluten free cooking
Sep. 4th, 2013 02:08 pmI am often frustrated by cooking gluten-free cakes and I realise that this is because the process is in conflict with my own definition of good cooking.
I have always thought that a good cook is not someone who can make something delicious from a vat of cream, some quality cheese and a slab of venison. Anyone could do well with those ingredients. A good cook is someone who can look in the fridge and make a meal for six from three fish fingers, half an onion and some left over mashed potatoes.
A good baker is someone who can assemble a cake from its stripped down components – some sort of fat (or oil, or fruit), some sort of binding agent (most likely egg), some kind of flour, something sweet (sugar, chocolate, fruit, honey), something liquid (fruit, milk, yoghurt). Those elements can be assembled as you like. Sometimes this leads to flops, but I’ve had some great successes. I remember, but could not replicate, a particularly delicious butter cake in which I used up some mango and substituted some strawberry yoghurt for milk.
But gluten-free cooking is all measure, measure, follow the recipe, no substitutions, niggle, niggle, niggle. It is so necessarily petty and rule-bound. Because once you remove the gluten, the whole cake becomes problematic so you then have to make sure you include your half teaspoon of xanthum gum per neatly measured cup of flour
I find this aspect of the gluten-free life really frustrating. You might as well just make packet cakes if you can’t actually use any creativity while you are baking. (Though even the packet mixes are hit and miss – some of them are simply inedible and others are OK).
I have always thought that a good cook is not someone who can make something delicious from a vat of cream, some quality cheese and a slab of venison. Anyone could do well with those ingredients. A good cook is someone who can look in the fridge and make a meal for six from three fish fingers, half an onion and some left over mashed potatoes.
A good baker is someone who can assemble a cake from its stripped down components – some sort of fat (or oil, or fruit), some sort of binding agent (most likely egg), some kind of flour, something sweet (sugar, chocolate, fruit, honey), something liquid (fruit, milk, yoghurt). Those elements can be assembled as you like. Sometimes this leads to flops, but I’ve had some great successes. I remember, but could not replicate, a particularly delicious butter cake in which I used up some mango and substituted some strawberry yoghurt for milk.
But gluten-free cooking is all measure, measure, follow the recipe, no substitutions, niggle, niggle, niggle. It is so necessarily petty and rule-bound. Because once you remove the gluten, the whole cake becomes problematic so you then have to make sure you include your half teaspoon of xanthum gum per neatly measured cup of flour
I find this aspect of the gluten-free life really frustrating. You might as well just make packet cakes if you can’t actually use any creativity while you are baking. (Though even the packet mixes are hit and miss – some of them are simply inedible and others are OK).
