Lately, Saturday mornings find me standing at the kitchen counter rubbing the sleep out of my eyes with my heart sinking into my growling stomach. I want to make pancakes and I don't know where to start.
I make killer pancakes...usually. I won't take credit for the recipe, which I got from my King Aurthur Flour cookbook. But after years of tweaking a detail here and a detail there, I love --everyone loves-- the results.
And then I went Gluten-Free.
I know there are GF pancake mixes you can buy, but you have to understand: I'm making pancakes for an army. I haven't actually counted, but I'm making at the least, 30 4-inch pancakes. Those pre-mixes are expensive! And besides that, I sort of have a thing for making it myself. I don't want to just add water. I want to understand what's going on with my food. I'm a DIY cook, and I want to know what's so special about flour and how I can imitate it without gluten.
I haven't figured out the science of it yet, but I'm starting to sense the elements and today, I tried something. Just for the heck of it. See what happens. And the result? These are some pancakes I can live with. For now. I won't be done figuring it out until I can make crunchy, nutty, hippy pancakes AND fluffy, white 'n light Diner pancakes. But today, for the record, this is what I did (based on my King Aurthur Flour recipe) and a little bit of what I'm thinking when I'm assembling the ingredients:
3 cups Montina* All-Purpose Baking Flour Blend (A generous 10 lb bag of this was given to me--woo! It contains White Rice Flour, Tapioca Flour and Montina Flour, which is an Indian Ricegrass according to the website. I like the idea of Tapioca Flour for making the pancakes/waffles a little crispy)
1 cup Bob's Red Mill* 'Sweet' White Sorghum Flour (I have a feeling that this makes the mix a little more sticky, binds it together like gluten might do. And it has 'sweet' in the name. Sweet is good in pancakes)
2 tsp Guar Gum (Xanthan Gum is the same but more expensive. I'm not sure why I added this. Another binding agent, I think. It just seems to be in everything. This is the 'something new' I tried today.)
4 Tbs sugar (I just used a combo of white and raw sugar. I'm stressed out about the gluten today, I can't worry about alternate sweeteners.)
1 Tbs baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
4 eggs
2 cups milk with ~2 Tbs lemon juice (to make sour milk)
2 cups Plain Yogurt
1/2 cup (I stick) melted butter (which I melt on the griddle in my metal 1c measure after I've measured the flours and milk and yogurt. I like to use the same utensil for everything 'cause I hate looking at dirty dishes all weekend. We all know no one's going to wash them right away and I did all the cooking.)
Mix wet. Mix dry. Combine. Griddle-up them flapjacks. Live with it.
Do you have a favorite GF recipe site? Please share!
*I'm not a name-dropper, but there seems to be preferences on the GF recipe sites I've read as to what brand has the best choice of flours, mixes, etc. It's also good to become familiar with what's out there, to make shopping easier.
2 comments:
I don't know of any GF sites but they sounded yummy! Maple Syrup works great if you want an easy alternative sweetner. I haven't had hardly any sugar for about 4 years = really familiar with sweetners of other sorts. I would probably use olive oil too over butter but we have been animal product free for about 3 months now. Just keep trying and you will find something! I find just typing in the name of the recipe I wish to find in Google does wonders and I always look with things that have ratings or comments on them. There must be a GF blog some where!
awesome pancake photo, too!
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