Perils of Gluten-Free baking

Through my Gluten-Free cooking travels, I have come to realize a few things. I will list these things here:

1. Bob's Red Mill Xanthan Gum tastes disgusting when inhaled. Yes, I realize how weird that sentance sounds. When you have scooped a teaspoon full of the powder-y stuff and breathed in the cloud that eminates from it, you will get what I am talking about!
2. How many ridiculous things corn is in. Just last week I discovered that Clabber Girl Baking Powder gets it's powdered goodness from cornstarch. Who knew?? Not me I tell ya! Now I searched and searched and can't find corn-free baking powder anywhere near where I live, so I have to make my own. By-the-way if your in the same corn-free boat, the recipe to make your own baking powder will be provided below:

1/4 c. Baking Soda
1/2 c. Cream of Tartar
1/2 C. Arrowroot Powder

3.     How much I miss (missed ;) ) the texture of Gluten-full baked goods. I don't know if you have a Costco near where your live, but I do and let me tell you, I LOVE that place. My two favorite things to get when I used to go there during my Gluten-full days were the dinner rolls and the blueberry muffins in the bakery. OMG. I once ate 9 of these dinner rolls in 1 day. They are sooooo light and fluffy. The blueberry muffins are rich, buttery tasting, and not too sweet. I personally don't like my muffins too sweet, I like muffins to taste more like cake and less like old-fashioned donuts. Now, I tryed really hard to replicate the rolls, but I can't seem to figure out how to get flaky, chewy, and tasty rolls. Oh well. 15th times the charm. I was however, able to re-create some wonderful Gluten-free, Corn-free, Soy-free blueberry, lemon poppyseed, and orange-cranberry muffins or bread. Oh my goodness!! They taste amazing. The best part is that you can alter them for whatever flavor muffin you want.

Now I don't know about you, but I always have to think about varying the flours I bake with. The people I cook for have to be on a rotation diet, which means they can't eat something that has the same flour in it two days in a row. So I have to bake many things, with many different flours. Some of my favorite flours are:

• White Rice Flour
• Brown Rice Flour
• Amaranth Flour
• Garbanzo Bean Flour
•  Potato Starch Flour
• Tapioca Starch Flour
• Sorghum Flour
• Millet Flour

Now if your new to gluten-free baking something you must know is that gluten-free baking is not like regular gluten-full baking. Regular baking you, pretty much, use only one type of flour. With this flour you get fluffy, chewy, soft, and crunchy bread. With gluten-free baking you have to use a combination of the flours I listed, in order to achieve any of those textures. You also must use different flours if you have to be on a 4 day rotation diet.

With this recipe i've found that Sorghum, Brown Rice, White Rice, Amaranth, and Millet flours work really well, but if you use Millet make sure its with Lemon or orange flavorings. The reason you have to do this is because Millet has a bit of an iron-y flavor to it, so with the citrus flavoring you can't even tell.

Basic Muffin or Bread Recipe

1 c. Canola Oil
1 1/2 c. Millet, Sorghum, Brown rice, or White Rice
1 c. Tapioca Starch Flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbs. Xanthan Gum
1 c. Milk ( I use low fat or fat free)
1 Tbs Corn-free Baking Powder
1 tsp Vanilla
1 1/2 c. Sugar ( I'm still testing the Splenda version of this recipe, I'll adjust the sugar content when I get it perfect)
4 eggs, cage-free organic

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Whisk together flours, salt, baking powder, and xanthan gum until combined well. Stir together milk, oil, vanilla, and if your using it lemon or orange zest.
3. Beat together sugar and eggs in a large bowl. Add flour and milk mixtures alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture and mix just until combined.
4. Pour into greased or non-stick sprayed bread pan or mufin tins or mini bundt pans. I typically do a combination bread pan, mini muffins, and mini bundt pan.
5. Bake mini bundts for about 20 minutes. Bake mini muffins about 12-15 minutes.
6. Bake bread pans for about 30 or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Variations:
Lemon:
1 Tbs Lemon Zest
2 Tbs Poppy seeds

Orange-Cranberry
1 Tbs Orange zest
1 c. Frozen or fresh cranberries

Blueberry
1 1/2 Frozen or Fresh Blueberries (I love Wymans frozen organic baby blueberries. They are very small and tender!)
Make sure to keep a little bit of the flour out from the batter. Then toss the blueberries in the flour before adding to the batter, this will keep the berries completely incorporated in your cake.

Check this recipe out at Gluten Free Homemakers Recipe Carnival - Here.