Adventures in Baking

Yesterday I decided to stop wallowing in self-pity about the evil diet and to attempt to do some allergen-free baking. While reading recipes, I checked Hutton's allergy test results for the fifteenth time and realized SORGHUM was on there as well. For most people, living without sorghum is a no-brainer, but if you happen to be a diet that limits most grains, it's hard, because it's a gluten-free grain that is present in many gluten-free substitutes and recipes. But then, nothing to freak over. I'll just use millet instead.

I decide to attempt two recipes: a cookie and a muffin. The first attempt: an almond cookie recipe from the allergy-free cookbook. I mixed together almond butter, almond oil, almond extract, and almond - oh yeah, millet, and then some brown sugar. (I was pretending that Hutton doesn't have a yeast-problem, and that cookies won't feed yeast. Hey, they're decorating cookies for Valentine's Day in his class! I don't want him to suffer because of yeast!) The resulting "dough" was very crumbly, but I managed to press it together and form cookies out of it.

They came out of the oven, hot, crumbly, and somewhat tasty, looking like this:

The boys liked them, though, even though most of the cookies crumbled before making it to their mouths. That was part of the experience, though. Eat cookie, spread crumbs around counter and get them all over clothes.

Before I made the second batch, I mixed in an egg white, and the dough became much more doughy and actually kept some cookie form. The boys like those, too, plus they didn't leave crumbs everywhere. Ding! Write that down in the allergy cookbook -- ADD EGG.

Second attempt: a muffin, made from millet, oil, other stuff I can't recall. I mixed everything together, and it made a lovely batter. Looked like it might work. I filled a muffin tin with batter, and popped it in the oven. Checked on them at 15 minutes. Eh. More time. Checked on them again. Hmm, they look done. I took them out of the muffin tins. Hmm, why is there all this moisture left in the muffin tin? Why does the paper not come off the muffins well? Why does this muffin taste like ass? (Well, that's a guess. I haven't tasted ass, but it probably tastes a lot like the muffins.)


I thought I'd keep the scraps of muffin to attempt to make bread crumbs, and called my friend, the home economist supreme, for advice and muffin trouble-shooting. I read her the recipe over the phone, and her comments were, "Why didn't you use baking powder?" Huh? "Maybe you should try shortening instead of oil." OK. And, "I'll come over tomorrow and help you bake." YAY! (After tasting the muffin scraps today, they still tasted like ass, so they were trashed. My friend and I figured out it was the oil. Note to self: never use canola oil again for baking. Or make sure it's very fresh.)

Today Culinary Master came, looked through my pantry, and whipped up two batches of baked goods, using the same basic mix of millet, tapioca flour, almond meal, potato milk, ghee and almond oil. And BAKING POWDER. One half of the mix went into muffin tins, with blueberries and some sugar added; the other half of the mix was "drop biscuits" with some herbs thrown on top.

After several minutes of baking, the experimental baked goods emerged. The verdict: the muffins weren't very puffy, but were very tasty. The "drop biscuits" didn't look like biscuits, unless you're using the British sense of the word. Essentially, they looked like giant herb cookies. They were tasty, too, though.

Although the doctored recipes won't win any food beauty pageants, I will definitely try them again! Thank you, L, my culinary master! Did I mention L doesn't have gluten-free baking experience? Yes, she's a master!