The Joy of Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Baking (3 page)

A food processor with the metal blade attachment also works well but typically can’t grind flour as finely as a seed or coffee grinder can. However, you can grind a larger amount at once—often the full amount needed for recipe. With the exception of coconut, these
alternative
flours are more voluminous than the ingredients they’re made from. A good starting point is to use about three-fourths the volume of the amount of flour you want to make. So for 1 cup of almond flour, you might start with ¾ cup of almonds. Process the nuts or seeds for about 10 seconds and then remove the lid to check the consistency. Continue grinding as needed, using short pulses rather than an extended period of processing, until the flour has an even consistency. Again, be careful not to process the flour too long, or you may end up with a paste.

Using a blender takes some trial and error. Be careful not to overload the blender, as the nuts or seeds on the bottom will get packed under those above. This may happen anyway, so it’s a good idea to process for just a few seconds at a time and then stir to redistribute. Depending on the size of your blender, about 1 cup (240 ml) of seeds (3.5 oz / 99 g) or nuts (4 oz / 113 g) will probably be about the maximum for each batch. Blend at low speed to avoid creating too much friction and heat, which create nut or seed butter, rather than flour. If the ingredients are mostly ground into a flour but some larger particles remain, that’s fine. Just use the flour as is; that way you’ll avoid creating a paste—and the final baked good will simply have more crunch.

We’ve chosen to build our recipes around nut and seed flours, rather than flours made from beans and gluten-free grains, for two main reasons: glycemic load and flavor. Many grains and grainlike seeds are gluten-free and commonly available as flours (amaranth, buckwheat, corn, millet, quinoa, rice, sorghum, teff, wild rice, and, possibly, oats). They typically have good flavor, along with good nutritional value if used in whole-grain form. However, all are composed primarily of carbohydrates and therefore contribute significantly to the glycemic load, causing blood sugar spikes (whole grains less so than refined grains). If you can tolerate carbs from gluten-free grains, then by all means use them in your baked goods. There are
numerous excellent cookbooks to guide you in doing so, and we’ve recommended a few in the Resources section.

Flours made
from beans and legumes, such as black beans, fava beans, garbanzo beans, lentils, and the like, are very nutritious, but they are often difficult to digest and also aren’t nearly as tasty as nut and seed flours. Plus, legumes have a considerable carbohydrate component, and some people find that flours made from them have a significant negative effect on blood sugar levels. However, in our experience garbanzo bean flour doesn’t have as pronounced an effect, so we’ve used it in a few recipes. If you don’t have problems with bean flours, feel free to experiment with substituting them for some of the flour we call for in these recipes. We recommend starting with relatively modest amounts—perhaps no more than 25 percent of the flour called for in a recipe.

Beyond legumes and gluten-free grains, many other foods can be used to make flour. A few examples are tapioca starch, potato flour, and even mesquite beans. But, again, we feel that nut and seed flours produce the tastiest results without negative glycemic loads, so those are the flours we’ve focused on.

The second major way in which these recipes deviate from those for traditional baked goods is using commercially available sugar
replacers. Obviously, we cannot include sugar in recipes for people with blood sugar issues, nor can we use alternative sugars, from agave syrup to maple syrup to Sucanat—all contain sugars, and all have a high glycemic index. Yet, as many home bakers know, artificial sweeteners like Sweet’N Low and Equal don’t perform well in baked goods because they are so concentrated that they don’t caramelize, and caramelization is an essential aspect of proper crust and flavor development. Our sweeteners of choice are
Splenda (
sucralose) and stevia, which is totally natural and derived from a plant. However, pure stevia, when used alone, is so concentrated that it can’t supply the bulk and caramelizing qualities required. We do call for liquid stevia extract, however, to boost the sweet flavor, and also offer a couple of stevia-based sweeteners as an alternative to Splenda, which we’ll discuss first.

Splenda (or, more precisely, Splenda No Calorie Sweetener) is a commercial product designed to be substituted for sugar on a one-for-one basis. It is a combination of sucralose and
maltodextrin, and performs well in these recipes. Numerous studies have indicated that sucralose is safe in the quantities usually ingested. Feel free to use it in these recipes, as it really does taste and perform like sugar. Be sure to purchase the granulated version, which
is formulated for baking. Most supermarkets now offer generic versions of Splenda, which perform the same and can save you money.

For those who prefer not to use Splenda, fortunately,
stevia is also available as Stevia Extract in the Raw, an excellent sugar substitute that employs stevia for sweetness. The cup-for-cup version of Stevia Extract in the Raw, specifically formulated for baking and cooking, is made by combining an extract from the leaves of the stevia plant with
maltodextrin, which is enzymatically derived from either corn or wheat. In the United States, maltodextrin is typically made from corn, and that is the source of the maltodextrin in Stevia Extract in the Raw. (If you’re sensitive to gluten, take note: In the United Kingdom maltodextrin is often made from wheat; however, the processing is so extensive that, according to the manufacturers, no gluten remains—so all maltodextrin is, at least theoretically, gluten-free.) Maltodextrin is a carbohydrate, and it is absorbed into the bloodstream as sugar is, but adds less than 1 gram of carbs per serving (Stevia Extract in the Raw contains even less, only ½ gram) and is balanced out by the fiber in the nut and seed flours.

Another product that works well is a blend of stevia extract powder and fructooligosaccharides derived from vegetable sources (fructooligosaccharides have a sweet flavor but are essentially indigestible fiber). One such product is
New Roots Stevia Sugar. Note that it is more concentrated than Stevia Extract in the Raw, so the recipes in this book call for half the amount of sweetener if using New Roots Stevia Sugar instead of Splenda or Stevia Extract in the Raw. One downside to New Roots Stevia Sugar is that it’s quite expensive and available mainly through mail order. Despite these downsides, we include it here because it’s more widely available in the United Kingdom, whereas Stevia Extract in the Raw was only recently approved.

We tried several other sugar replacers, such as
Truvia,
Z-Sweet, and
Organic Zero. These are all excellent products, but they all use
erythritol for bulking. As a result, they tend to melt too quickly for thin products like cookies, scones, and pancakes. However, they do work well in cakes. If you choose to experiment with using these sweeteners, do so selectively, and study the equivalencies carefully. For example, Z-Sweet and Organic Zero can replace sugar (or Splenda or Stevia Extract in the Raw) in equal quantities, whereas if using Truvia, the amount needed would be less—closer to the amount of New Roots Stevia Sugar called for. These erythritol-based sweeteners work especially well in certain contexts, like toppings and glazes, and where they do, the ingredient list offers the option of using them.

We experimented with making our own sugar replacers using erythritol (an essentially noncaloric sugar alcohol that doesn’t affect blood sugar levels), polydextrose (a sweet, indigestible
soluble fiber), and other such ingredients, but we found that none of them performed as well in these recipes as either
Splenda or
Stevia Extract in the Raw. Plus, some of those ingredients can be difficult to come by, whereas Splenda and Stevia Extract in the Raw can both be found in most American supermarkets.

In the end, we settled on three products that work in all of our recipes for baked goods: Splenda (or supermarket-brand Splenda generics), Stevia Extract in the Raw, and
New Roots Stevia Sugar. Splenda is widely available and New Roots Stevia Sugar is available by mail order in the United States and the United Kingdom. Because we believe that many readers will be using Stevia Extract in the Raw, which we hope will become more internationally available by the time this book is published, or Splenda, we have written the measurements for these products. But for those using New Roots Stevia Sugar or similar brands, you will need to use half the amount, as indicated in the recipes.

You’ll note that the measurements for the sugar replacers are given in volume only, not in weights. While weights are generally more accurate than volume measurements, sugar replacers typically rely on a highly concentrated sweetener combined with a bulking agent, and their weight-to-volume ratios vary widely. In all cases, they are much lighter, cup for cup, than sugar. If sugar isn’t an issue for you and you wish to use it when baking, simply substitute the same volume of sugar as indicated for Splenda and Stevia Extract in the Raw.

One final note: We also call for liquid stevia extract in a few of the recipes to boost the sweetness without throwing off the balance of ingredients needed to create a final product with good texture and caramelization. Liquid stevia is highly concentrated—just a few drops is equal to a teaspoon of sugar—so it isn’t used in large volumes. The amounts we call for are usually less than 1 teaspoon. Liquid stevia, for sale under the Sweet Leaf and NOW brands, is available at almost any natural foods market. However, it is relatively expensive in stores, so refer to our Resources section for a mail order option that greatly reduces the cost.

Most of the recipes in this book rely on baking powder and eggs for leavening. (A few use baking soda.) Where we call for
yeast, it’s included for flavor only, not leavening, as there are so few carbs available to feed the yeast. Baking powder often contains some starch to absorb moisture and stabilize the mixture. Unfortunately, that bit of starch may (though rarely) be derived from wheat, so people who are highly sensitive to gluten may react to commercial baking powder. If this is an issue for you, you can make your own baking powder by combining two parts cream of tartar with one part baking soda. We recommend making up a small
batch; for example, combining ½ cup (2.5 oz / 71 g) cream of tartar with ¼ cup (1.75 oz / 50 g) baking soda. Simply whisk them together until thoroughly combined, breaking up any lumps with your fingers. Store your homemade baking powder in an airtight container in a cool, dry place. If it absorbs any moisture, it will lose it’s leavening power, which is one reason why we recommend that you make it in small batches. It’s easy to make more when you need it.

This combination of cream of tartar and baking soda is what is known as single-acting baking powder. As soon as the ingredients get wet, they contribute leavening due to a chemical process in which the acidity, or low pH, of the cream of tartar reacts with the high pH, or alkalinity, of the baking soda, releasing carbon dioxide in the process, and thereby causing baked goods to rise. Because this reaction begins as soon as the ingredients get wet, you need to bake products made with single-acting baking powder as soon as possible.

Commercial double-acting baking powder contains a second acid that doesn’t activate until it’s exposed to high temperatures, creating a second phase of leavening. If, like most people, you aren’t sensitive to commercial, double-acting baking powder, you can use it in all of these recipes.

Most of these recipes call for
salted butter. This was a tough call for us because professional bakers always prefer to work with unsalted butter. But because many of our readers may be vegans or may wish to avoid butter for a variety of reasons, we offer the option of replacing the butter with a butter substitute, such as Smart Balance (or other natural margarines), and these almost always contain salt. Therefore, we formulated these recipes to use salted butter.

This also explains why some of the recipes have so little added salt: some salt is already included in the butter or margarine. If you use unsalted butter or margarine, simply increase the amount of salt as follows:

If you choose to use margarine, we recommend Smart Balance or Earth Balance. Both are interchangeable with butter. These recipes were primarily tested using butter, but when we did test with margarine, we chose Smart Balance Original Flavor Buttery Spread. If you use
a different brand, please read the label closely and be sure to avoid any that contain hydrogenated oils. Hydrogenated oils (aka trans fats) are associated with a risk for certain health conditions (possibly including type 2 diabetes), so we advise that you steer clear of these.

You can also substitute any type of
vegetable oil, but it’s a more complex proposition, because oil contains more fat and less water than
salted butter and margarine—and of course no salt.

Use the following substitutions in recipes calling for butter. Substitute the appropriate amounts of vegetable oil, water,
and
salt for the amount of butter listed.

We prefer cold-pressed corn, canola, or safflower oil. That said, choose the oil you prefer and that’s best for your own body’s needs. Just two caveats: Don’t substitute oil for the salted butter or margarine in recipes calling for lemon juice. There’s a synergy to the combination of lemon and buttery flavors that will be missing if you substitute vegetable oil. Also, use olive oil only when specified. We recommend saving flavorful (and more costly) extra-virgin olive oil for savory toppings and using regular olive oil in the doughs.

Whenever we call for eggs we mean large eggs, not extra large or medium. A typical large egg weighs about 1.65 to 1.75 ounces (47 to 50 g). We use 1.75 oz (50 g) as the standard. It’s fine to substitute liquid eggs or an egg replacer for the eggs in a recipe. Be sure to check the ingredients list carefully though, as some brands of egg replacer contain gluten or starch. If you use liquid eggs, use the weight of eggs called for in the ingredients list. If using a powdered egg replacer, reconstitute it according to the instructions to equal the number of eggs called for; use it as a wet ingredient, not a dry ingredient.