A Sunday To Myself

It's Sunday.  It's a warm, beautiful day outside and I have the day to myself. The hubby isn't home and I surprisingly don't have any plans. 

There are a lot of things I "should" do.  I'm sure there is something more I could find to clean; I really do need to exercise; I've got some work hanging over my head that it would be nice to get done; and the list goes on. 

On a day when there are many things I "should" do, what do I choose to do?  Did I mention it's a warm, sunny day and for some reason I am resisting turning on the air conditioning?  Yet, I chose to spend the day in the kitchen with the oven on baking.

Yes, baking....

It started with the desire to make something for our new neighbors.  They showed up on Friday.  I'm trying to be neighborly, and not be resentful that they didn't buy my house instead.  They looked at it twice!  Anyway, back to neighborly.... what says welcome better than cake?

 This past week I made the previous, beautiful angel food cake.  Isn't it pretty?  And tall?  I'm very proud as it's not so easy to make tall, pretty cakes like that at 6, 400 feet elevation.  So that success, made me try a new cake today, a Mocha Chiffon Cake.  If you live above 3,000 feet and you have not yet done so, go to Amazon.com right now and order Susan G. Purdy's cookbook Pie in the Sky.  It is phenomenal! 

 So, I started my day out with Susan's McCall Mocha Chiffon Cake.  And if I do say, so it turned out pretty nice.  The new neighbors seemed to be surprised and thankful to have someone say welcome, so that is accomplished.

 No matter where you are located the key to a pretty angel food or chiffon cake falls in two areas.  One, the eggs.  The egg whites are going to need to be whipped with cream of tartar and then folded into the cake batter.  Any recipe will tell you how to do this, but just one tip from me.  If you are at sea level, you will whip them until they have stiff peaks, but at higher elevation only whip until they are soft peaks so the egg whites have room to grow and don't collapse.

 Second, after baking how you cool the cake is important.  I was always taught to hang it upside down.  Thanks Mom!  This keeps the elasticity of the eggs and the cake doesn't collapse.  Wine bottles work perfectly for this purpose!

 One would think a cake might be enough, but no, I wasn't ready to leave the kitchen, so I decided to play with crackers.  I'd been asked if the crackers I made for my birthday party could be made gluten - free.  Well, "I'm sure they can - I'll play with that" I said!  So I decided I had time to play today.  I used the Multi-Seed Crackerbread from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking cookbook as a base. 

Before I start let me state that the King Arthur Flour recipe is excellent, if you can eat gluten.  Also, there are many gluten free cracker recipes online, so search for them and check them out.  Particularly, I intend to try some of the recipes on Gluten Free Goddess.  But, today I was ready for a challenge and to try to learn a bit more about the challenges in gluten free (GF) baking.  To start with I just replaced the flours with other flours I had.

Christine's GF Multi-Seed Crackers - First Try

 This cracker is very open to change, use whatever seeds and herbs you want.  I’ve also made it with just seeds and no herbs, but it could be the other way around if you wanted.  You can also use a wide variety of flours or even a GF flour mix you might have around.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup flour ( I used the following)

1/4 c. Amaranth flour
1/2 cup Brown Rice flour
1/4 cup Quinoa flour
1/4 cup oat flour

1/4 cup whole yellow cornmeal
1 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup assorted seeds, such as sesame, poppy, fennel, caraway, anise, and flax
1 Tablespoons assorted dried herbs such as, rosemary, basil, dill, tarragon, and thyme
1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

1/2 tablespoon coarse salt (optional)

 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees with the rack in the center position.  Use a baking sheet or baking stone.
2. Combine the flours, cornmeal, and salt in a medium bowl.  Mix in the olive oil thoroughly, then add the water.  (I just used a fork and spoon to mix, but a food processor would work also.) You may not need the entire cup of water, so hold back a couple tablespoons and check the texture.  It should be stiff, not crumbly.   With the GF flours you may need to get your hands in there to work it into a ball. Turn the dough onto a board and knead it until it holds together in a stiff yet supple ball of dough. 
3. Combined the seeds, herbs, pepper and salt.
4. Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces and cover them with plastic wrap.  Working with one piece at a time, scatter about 1 Tablespoon of the seed mixture on the work surface.  Press the dough onto the seed mixture, add seeds to the top of the dough and begin to roll it out.  Flip over and keep adding more seeds.
5. The goal is to get the dough as thin as possible and full of as many seeds as possible.  Once you have the dough as thin as you can get it put it on parchment paper on the baking sheet.  I found that by rolling it out onto the parchement that helped with these crackers because the GF dough doesn't hold together quite enough to turn over as often.  (If using a baking stone have that preheated).
6. Bake until the top is medium brown, 7-10 minutes.  Repeat with each piece of dough.  Cool completely on wire racks before serving.  Break into the pieces as needed.
7. Crackers will stay fresh for about a week in a baggy or other airtight container.

The above cracker is good, but tends to be a bit crumbly which speaks to the lack of gluten (elasticity) in these flours. So I adjusted my recipe and added Zanthum Gum, which can be used to replace gluten. Of course, if I was a proper scientist I would have made the exact cracker with added Zanthum Gum. But I am not and have never claimed to be a scientist.

Christine's GF Multi-Seed Almond Crackers - Second Try

 Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup flour ( I used the following)

• 1/4 c. Almond Meal
• 1/2 cup Brown Rice flour
• 1/2 cup Quinoa flour

1/4 cup Quinoa Flakes

2 teaspoons Zantham Gum

1 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup assorted seeds, such as sesame, poppy, fennel, caraway, anise, and flax
1 Tablespoons assorted dried herbs such as, rosemary, basil, dill, tarragon, and thyme
1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

1/2 tablespoon coarse salt (optional)

 Use same Directions as above in first recipe.

Both of these crackers were good.  I might try a cracker sometime using a slightly beaten egg white to see how that works, but in trying these the next morning, they both are still crisp, held together well, and break cleanly into nice pieced.  While I would continue to play with them if I were searching for the perfect GF cracker, the reality is this makes a good base and one could use a wide variety of GF flours to make your perfect cracker.