I’m headed to New York next week for more chocolate/ranch dressing work and I’ll be staying with a friend who has celiac disease, so I’ve been experimenting with gluten-free baking. I bought two Bob’s Red Mill products (although that Wikipedia article does not inspire confidence in the “gluten-free” label) “Sweet” Sorghum Flour and Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour, as well as a small bag of Xanthan Gum to give the doughs that gluten-y je ne sais quoi.
My roommate in Somerville is trying to eat gluten-free as well and her girlfriend is vegan, so Friday night I went all out and made gluten-free vegan banana walnut chocolate chunk cookies, with the banana standing in for egg, canola oil instead of butter, and the sorghum flour. I didn’t know how much X Gum to use so tried 3/4 teaspoon. WAY TOO MUCH! The cookies were weird in general but the dough was stringy, sticky, bubble-gummy, no good. And when I took the tray out of the oven there was a pool of liquid (oil? gum?) like I’ve never seen before. They tasted alright but the texture was horrible. Deemed a failure, some friends visiting from out of town ate them all before my roommate and her girlfriend got home to try them.
The next morning I made biscuits with the gluten-free all-purpose flour that were almost the same as normal but again with the mysterious liquid (these weren’t vegan so it couldn’t have been oil).
Finally, last night I made the chocolate chocolate mint cookies I’ve perfected over the last few months (4 oz melted 70% dark chocolate, 1/2 cup coconut flakes, 2 teaspoons mint extract, heaping 1/2 cup Ghirardelli 60% cacao chips). Again, I used the GF all-purpose flour but the smallest amount of gum yet, only a 1/4 teaspoon. They came out perfectly, just as fine and crunchy as with gluten (who needs it!). I turned out 27 cookies and I think more than half survived the night and breakfast (thanks for the shout out insoutswhathaveyous!) for my roommate to try. If she doesn’t “feel gross”, I’m going to test them on my friend in NYC, here’s hoping.
