A world of discoveries in Asian food stores

Head off to your local Asian market and spend time discovering the variety of goodies available. A myriad of alternatives await you from tapioca crackers to mung bean noodles to tofu soup to rice desserts wrapped in banana leaves. Though most labels might seem intimidating in their native language, almost all will have an English ingredient list. The tapioca crackers from Indonesia for example had tapioca flour, water and salt listed. Now be aware that most of the desserts come with a hefty dose of refined white sugar but if ideas are what you are looking for, the Asian market has all the ingredients to allow you to make your own low sugar alternative. A steamed rice Philippine cake wrapped in a banana leaf cane be made with glutinous sweet rice, coconut milk, a banana leaf (they come frozen in the food aisle) and substitute the sugar with your sweetener of choice. A tofu pudding, a traditional Chinese dessert of creamy soft tofu in a sugar syrup served warm can be made with an agave syrup - you control the sugar content.

Meandering through these aisles with your mobile phone allows you to use technology to instantly understand what your a looking at. A quick web search of what "chana" is brings up wonderful chickpea or garbanzo flour recipes commonly used in Indian cuisine in dishes such as vegetable pekoras. The great thing about many of these foods is that inherently they are not only gluten free but lactose free. Coconut milk or rice milk is often substituted for the milk as pasteurized cow milk in many of these countries is not native to their cultures. Try substituting sugar with low glycemic agave or coconut sugar. Try making a vanilla Thai custard which is not only easy but contains healthy antiviral coconut milk or bring home ingredients for the classic Thai sticky rice with mango dessert or Pick up some Japanese mochi (sticky sweet rice buns filled with red beans) or even a fresh young coconut with a straw to sip the freshest natural good for you juice you've ever had then scrape off the coconut meat to grate on your desserts.

Enjoy your trip to the Asian store, it opens a world of possibilities!

Art of Baking Gluten Free

As you start to venture out making your own creations, there are a few basics that can help guide you in your substitutions. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, first use an existing recipe then tune your ingredients. Prepare to summon up all your patience as sometimes getting the final result can take several tries. For one recipe I am still working on, I've done 11 tries and counting! But I hope these guidelines can help you somewhat.

When substituting wheat with any of the "ancient" grains (as many of these alternative grains have been used for centuries in some cultures before wheat was brought to their shores), keep in mind that wheat absorbs water at a higher rate than other grains. Wheat swells to soak up the moisture you add to it. So soaking the flour in your liquids before mixing can help the common complaint on dryness with GF goods. Too little moisture often results in a crumbly texture, too much hydration and the crumb will be dense and heavy. This rule holds most true with breads. As you experiment you will find each recipe to be a little different. When baking cakes, remember that leavening, or incorporating gasses into your batter to give it volume and shape by using baking powder or yeast, may require only a short soak to make a nice difference in your cake(5 minutes). There are exceptions, when using egg foam as you will quickly lose volume after beating since the trapped air in the foam allows for proper leavening of your cake.

In addition, if you use finer ground flours like fine ground rice or almond flour you increase the surface area of the grain adding to the changes in the hydration required. In one GF tart crust recipe I used almond meal and experiencing crumbling so much that I had to use an egg to bind everything, I substituted finely ground almond flour and removed the egg. The result was a perfect crust - held its shape without crumbling, could be filled without getting soggy and was crispy. Huge difference from the original.

In many cake recipes, try using a fine ground rice flour (Gustos Mills makes a good one) instead of the regular rice flour and you will see a significant change in the texture of your cakes, the grainy texture will now have a moist mouth feel.

Finally, try using warmer liquid to accelerate the swelling and absorption of the liquid into your grain. Particularly true with bread where a thermometer is indispensable - 120 typically for yeasted doughs.

Hopefully these tips can help you as you modify your favorite wheat recipes. Your journey may be sometimes frustrating but with a little bit of trial and error you won't miss any of your favorite desserts.