As if life around here isn't complicated enough, now I have
a new challenge: finding delicious gluten free and dairy free recipes.
I just recently
learned that Bubba is gluten intolerant. We were already dealing with his
casein allergy (a milk protein), and his peanut allergy, and my soy allergy.
Yes, with each additional allergy, entire food categories are eliminated.
If you have ever been quoted as saying: "I just love
pizza. I can't live without it, " watch out, you just might find yourself having to cut gluten (pizza
crust has that) and dairy (um, hopefully I don't have to mention that cheese
is a dairy food item) from your diet.
But I digress. What in the world is xanthan gum? That is the
question. At our house, we spend a lot of time reading food labels, ingredient
lists, nutritional information, recipes, and we do a lot of cooking from
scratch. It's partly because we're concerned with eating a healthful diet, but
mostly because we need to watch out for allergens in our food. While reading
food labels we frequently would encounter xanthan gum. We would laugh about it,
wonder what it was, joked about how delicious it was and about how we were all
out of it and needed to add it to our shopping list. Little did we know that it
was "a thing." Yes, you can walk into a store and actually buy
xanthan gum.
And how do I know this? Because I found myself in the
position of having to bake gluten free/dairy free brownies, and I learned that you
need to use xanthan gum when you bake with wheat flour substitutes. It has something to do
with having to make up for the elasticity that is lost when gluten is taken out of a recipe. Now, I can't speak for other recipes, but the first gluten free/dairy free brownie recipe I tried did not turn out too well. The brownies ended up being dense, crunchy, and not very chocolaty. And since I used oat flour, they sort of tasted like really bad oatmeal cookies.
However; being one to not give up so easily, the adventure will continue. I will explore strange new ways of baking, I will seek out new recipes and new ingredients, I will boldly bake what I have never baked before. Let's hope that it's yummy!
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