Two tips for dairy-free and gluten-free baking!

Even though I didn't have class on Sunday and got to sleep past my customary 5:45am wake up time, I still got to do some baking this weekend. I suppose I should use a word other than "some", since it definitely was more than "some". Anyway... first of all... I realized even more how much I love, love, love baking... especially when I get to bake for people that I love (i.e. my wonderful family!)! 

Our Easter dinner dessert menu included: 

Dairy-free, gluten-free carrot cake cupcakes with dairy-free or regular cream-cheese icing

Dairy-free, gluten-free brownies

Dairy-free gingersnaps with candied ginger

Everything was delicious (if I may say so myself!)... and I learned some things I thought I'd pass along to those of you who'd like to try dairy or gluten (or both!) free baking. 

First... the best dairy-free butter to use is definitely Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks. They have a good butter flavor, are better for you, and bake very similar to butter. I tried the brownies a couple of times, and when I used shortening instead of the Earth Balance sticks, the brownies were much more cake-like: not as dense or chewy. 

Second... don't be afraid of using gluten-free flours. I used Bob's Red Mill Baking Flour (and added some xantham gum) and although I was concerned that it smells and tastes bitter prior to baking, it bakes very nicely. The brownies and the carrot cake both had ideal consistencies, and there was no funny taste at all when they were done. (In fact, they smelled delicious!!)

If you want to try them out.. feel free to check out my website, you can order a batch and I'll get them out to you ASAP! Then you can weigh in on if it truly is possible to have delicious baked goods made without "butter" or "flour"! 

Chocolate Doesn't Come from Cows

.... I know, crazy, right?? 

I was standing just to the side of the checkout at a grocery store the other day, carefully reading each and every label on the chocolate bars... since they hide milk in EVERYTHING... and when I had finally found two chocolate bars with no dairy at all (a cranberry-almond one and a raspberry one), I actually got into the check-out line to pay. Now unbeknownst to me, the check-out lady had been watching me the whole time, and said rather peppily.. and almost a bit mockingly (it could have been that I was already on edge just because of the day I'd had up to that point)... "Tough decision, huh??". I looked at her and replied, "Yea, I can't eat dairy, so I have to read all the labels first." "Oh", she said. Pause. "They can make chocolate without milk in it?? Really?" 

So I'd like to dispel a commonly-held belief.....chocolate doesn't come from cows. 

It comes from the cacao tree (cocoa beans) and is processed to create chocolate liquor, which can be further processed to produce cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Maybe the "butter" part of "cocoa butter" is what gets people confused. But... just like peanut butter, it has no dairy in it. The more cocoa solids chocolate has in it, the darker it is. The reverse is true as well... white chocolate only has cocoa butter in it, no cocoa solids at all. Unsweetened chocolate (for baking) and dark chocolate are the only chocolates that don't have added milk, however. Even the dark chocolates are hard to find without some kind of dairy in them. 

My co-teacher, who was born in, and lived in Russia until her 20's, said to me, "Why do they add all that stuff to chocolate? Chocolate is chocolate! If you want candy, go eat candy. But don't mess around with chocolate! We don't do that in Russia." :) 

Holla! bread... (I couldn't resist)

Yea, yea, I know it's "challah" bread... but when you spend 12 hours baking it (and various other lean & enriched breads) it's gonna get said that way at least once. (Or twice even). ;)

Here's the thing about challah bread that no one tells you when you buy it... it is made from SIX strands of dough. Yup. Six strands. Imagine braiding hair (this will be even harder if you've never braided hair in your life... just work with me here) using 6 different sections- if you lose your place, you're done, and it's back to the beginning to try again. Like I've found to be true with much of what I've been learning, practice really does make perfect; the more you practice a skill like challah braiding, the faster and more accurate you become. Case in point- our chef braided his loaf in about 30 seconds (after demoing it very slowly for us) without missing a beat. Here's chef working on his demo:

After saying the 4 step process in my head over and over again, I got my entire loaf braided on only the second try! (I think I owe a huge part in my success to braiding lots of hair and making lots of bracelets as a camp counselor! Yea Deer Run!) Here's my loaf prior to baking: 

Now here's the sad news about this challah bread.... we somehow forgot to add the granulated sugar, which resulted in our chef saying, "Ummm, you have a problem here," when we checked our loaves mid-way through baking. Not only are they waaaay to light to be challah bread, they also had a crusty crust (definitely a no-no for challah bread). When we ventured to taste them, our chef's statement that we must have forgotten the sugar was definitely proven true- it was like eating baked flour- not so pleasant.

You can see how crispy it is here- all those little lines are cracks in the crust. We're making it again next week to practice (and get it right this time!). 

Today we also made ciabatta, which is the craziest dough I've ever seen! You could hardly call it dough... it's more like the blob, oozing to cover ever surface it comes in contact with. It is a wet, sloppy mess that somehow when baked, makes for an amazingly flavored bread, absolutely perfect for sandwiches with lots of "wet" ingredients (think grilled veggies drizzled with balsamic, melted cheeses, the list goes on... mmmm!). 

"The Blob" (aka ciabatta dough)

Our ciabattas after baking (delicious!)

While our ciabatta and challah breads were proofing, we made up some scones. Each group had to come up with their own flavoring ideas; my group decided on doing both sweet and savory. For our sweet scones, we made a combination of cranberries, chopped apricots, and lemon zest soaked in freshly squeezed orange juice. One whiff of that mixture, and we knew we had a winner! I sampled a bite... and they are AMAZING. 

Our savory scones were, if possible, even more amazing! We chopped up some sun-dried tomatoes, fresh spinach, and onion, then mixed in some feta cheese and finished them off with a sprinkle of parmesan-romano cheese. Whoa. They were SO good (I tried the tiniest of bites, and was blown away!)

Finish product: 

Scones- fresh ones- are simply wonderful! They are soft, a tiny bit crumbly, and delicious! Once I get a good recipe for dairy-free ones, I'll be sure to let you all know! I'll also try working on a gluten-free one. I have a HUGE respect for bakers who are coming up with gluten-free baked goods- it seems that every other word in a bread lab is "gluten"- that's how important it is to baking good breads! 

The good & the bad of the day (we showcase one of each for a critique at the end of each class). 

Which came first, the ciabatta or the baguette?

Two of the best-known bread shapes, one of which we made in class today, have been around for a while... but one has been around for far less time than you think. Ciabatta is the classic Italian loaf that makes awesome sandwiches (all the yummy goodies stay trapped inside because of the crust). You can't say "baguette" without automatically thinking about a long, narrow crusty loaf of French bread. So which one do you think has been around longer??

The answer surprised me.... I was thinking for sure the baguette has been around forever; in actuality, the baguette has only been around since the 1920's! The ciabatta, on the other hand, has been around a great deal longer.

Although I miss the artistry of cakes, I love the hands-on process of baking breads... and there certainly is still some artistry involved in the shaping, cutting, and toppings of these breads. After just one class, I feel a bit brainwashed by our culture about what bread is "supposed" to look like. These artisan breads are beautiful in their "imperfections"- and they have incredible flavor! I'm probably never going to want to buy bread again! Also, interestingly enough, the US government mandates that all flours be "enriched" with nutrients, since to make flour used to make white breads, essentially all of the nutritional value is removed. There's a movement in Oregon for millers to be able to make unenriched organic flours... but ALL flours are currently required by law to be enriched.

This morning we prepped our baguettes made with poolish (a preferment that makes it possible for us to finish the bread during our class). We also made baking powder biscuits... even though they had butter in them, I gave them a try- and WOW- they are good... like really, really good! In the afternoon, we made Kaiser rolls, which are lighter in crumb texture- they don't have large holes like the baguette. In the coming weeks, we'll be making bagels, pizza dough, scones, and challah bread (just to name a few!).

Here are some pictures:

Poolish (flour, water & yeast)

Testing to see if the dough is ready to cut & bake

Chef making an "epi" bread (baguette cut like a wheat stalk)

Our finished baguettes

Inside our baguettes (great holes!)

Baking powder biscuits

Yummy, flaky layers! :)

Toppings for Kaiser rolls: poppyseed (blue/gray), wasabi sesame (green), and sesame (white)

Trays of Kaiser rolls ready to proof (the white things on the table are the stamps that make the starfish shape)

Finished Kaiser roll

A beautiful, soft crumb :)

As one of my group mates said today near the end of class... "I'm all breaded-out"... I came home and wanted to eat mounds of vegetables, fruit or protein. I settled on a dish of my mango sorbet and called it a night. ;)

A Revelation!

After I spent the night looking up information on "stress & overeating" (true story- it's most often work-related), I began to bake some sugar cookies for a special event in my class. I decided to watch that documentary "Kings of Pastry" that my chef had talked about in class, and about 5 minutes into it, was blown away by this comment...

"The idea in France is to eat the best, best possible on a daily basis, but just in small quantities so your brain is happy everyday. You know, there is no, you don't starve yourself and eat like a pig at the "all you can eat" on Saturday night. They don't exist in France- the "all you can eat." Chef Jacquy Pfieffer

It was like a missing piece of this puzzle in my brain finally was put into place, and then "Everything in Moderation" really made sense to me. Before, this was my ideal way of life, now it can become my real way of life! What an amazing way to relate to food- to recognize the fact that scientifically, our brains respond in certain ways to certain foods, and that some foods really do make our brains happy! The missing piece in our culture is that we begin to think in terms of quantity instead of quality. We find those happy foods, and instead of "indulging" in a high-quality, small-quantity portion, we keep going and going and going (myself included!), and partly because what we're eating lacks quality. Some people go to the other extreme too, and are so careful about what they eat, it takes all the enjoyment out of the act. When we think about food only as fuel, or only as comfort, we neglect to find the balance- the moderation- necessary to live healthily and happily. 

So today, armed with this new realization (and some other stress- relief techniques I learned through all my reading!)... I made a few stops on the way home from work (after a nice 5 mile run in a gorgeous state park down here- exercise is the ultimate in stress-relief!). First, I stopped at Target, where I picked up a few of my "happy foods", for whatever mood I may be in: Tazo chai tea latte mix, vanilla soymilk, Haagen-Dazs mango sorbet, blue corn tortilla chips (with flaxseed!), "Tension Tamer" tea, and 2 bars of Lindt dark chocolate. (I already have dried cherries and almonds at home). Then, I stopped at the liquor store to pick up a bottle of Italian Chianti- a 91 pointer! Woohoo! :) 

I'm leaving guilt behind, and fully embracing the idea of eating small amounts of foods that fuel my body and make my brain happy (everything in moderation!). 

Another awesome quote to end this post... which I'm aware of thanks to my sister, Sarah... 

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be encumbered by your old nonsense." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Adventures in dairy-free baking

I forgot to add a quick little note about a dairy-free experiment I did the other night. Using soymilk and organic vegetable shortening (and some Smart-Balance), I made up a batch of chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream, and chocolate-peanut butter buttercream. Fortunately, they were delicious. Unfortunately, because they were dairy-free, I could eat them. And did eat them. About 5 of them I bet (at least they were mini ones).

Here's to having friends to share with so that moderation doesn't fly out the window!

I'm thinking that really the best way to do cupcakes is the mini-size. You can have a greater variety for the same about of dessert and you don't have to worry about feeling tempted to eat the whole thing... because the "whole thing" is about a bite! I used pirate cupcake liners for the larger (regular) sized cupcakes... everybody knows pirates love cupcakes. :)

Chantilly, anyone?

10 points and the first trial shipment of treats to the first person who correctly writes what Chantilly is (used in the food sense). No cheating! You can't look it up or scroll down and see what I have to say about it later in this post! And bonus points if you know how it got its name. I'll give you a small hint... we used it for a special cake today (that I got to bring home!!).

Sadly, this was my last day of cakes... at least for now. You know you really love what you're doing when even in the midst of taking a final exam all you can think about is how you don't want it to end! For the practical, I had to assemble another "Happy Birthday" cake in an hour and 15 minutes. You can see the inside of this one, as the chef cut it to check out the layers for grading.

This cake got me my first 100% on a final as a baking & pastry student!!

My chef mentioned a really great book to read called "How Baking Works", written by a professor at J & W. If you've ever had questions about... well... how baking works... it sounds perfect! Also, she said there's an awesome documentary called "Kings of Pastry" about two French pastry chefs trying to get the ultimate distinction for pastry chefs worldwide. Apparently, there's this humongous test held only every 4 years in France... it's kind of a big deal. (The movie's on Netflix if you're interested!)

Now... about chantilly. So our chef asked if anyone hadn't ever made chantilly, and I was one of 3 people who raised my hand. I was a bit concerned when everyone looked shocked by this... until someone next to me said, "You've never made whipped cream before?" Oh.

So, after whipping up some chantilly, which always has to be kept in an bowl over an ice, we assembled a black forest cake. My new friend and group member accidentally called it "black jungle"... which I think sounds way cooler. After weeks of using buttercreams, which hold together quite well for frosting a cake, using whipped cream (ahem, chantilly) to frost a cake was quite the challenge. It's so soft and airy and slippery, but it makes for a beautifully smooth finish if you get it right. The finished cake is three layers, with a cherry filling and a splash of cherry brandy between each layer, shaved chocolate around the sides, a pile of shaved chocolate on top, and a rosette of chantilly with a cherry for each slice.

This marks the end of cakes (sad!). Next week- artisan breads!