Gluten-Free?...

 

I'd planned to do a little gardening and then perhaps a bit of needlework yesterday, but when Grandson has a plan, Grandma jumps. It all began with a text and then FaceTime, as Grandson wanted to try his hand at a little gluten-free baking for his Mom, who has Crohn's. We're all looking for foods to make her life easier, and this young man is always looking out for our daughter-in-law. I told him that, with the exception of gf bread flour, I thought I had everything we needed.

We he got here, we decided to try baguettes. The flour he brought was gf all purpose flour, so our first order of business was to make it "bread flour". A little online research revealed that the addition of baking powder would do the trick. 

When we followed the recipe from King Arthur Baking for gluten-free baguettes, the water created a soupy mess. Definitely needed more flour. Then we learned about xanthum gum...which I didn't have. In retrospect, it really needed that to hold the final ingredients together. I consider myself an accomplished adequate baker by now, but I admit, this whole gluten-free business had me more than a bit frustrated. Things tasted good enough, but the texture left me unimpressed.

Then, Grandson thought we should try gf tortillas, having just tasted my regulars ones from dinner the night before. After lots of trial and error trying to roll them out (unsuccessfully), I decided to try rolling them between two layers of parchment paper. That worked well as long as we were careful peeling the dough off the paper.

He took the results home around 4:30 pm for his mom to try. (She loved everything, but mostly our efforts on her behalf.) I cleaned up the kitchen and then had a concert last night for Handsome, so I got changed and left for the park around 6:30.

Needless to say, I didn't get to anything else yesterday, but went to sleep last night with a smile on my face. There's nothing better than a "good tired" after a day spent with our eldest grandchild. It was a good day, indeed.