Betty Crocker: Waffles (GF, DF, EF)

or:
Butter and Syrup Delivery Vehicles

I'm a reformed syrup eater. I grew up on the fake stuff in plastic bottles: corn syrup + maple flavoring + caramel color = the only syrup I knew existed. Much like how as a young adult I had to progress to red wine from white, in my adolescence I had to move from a taste for Miracle Whip to mayo, Cool Whip to whipped cream and "pancake syrup" to maple syrup once we left Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains, apparently bringing faux foods with it.

As often happens when one's tastes sophisticate, there's no going back to the other stuff and once I went gluten-free, pancakes and waffles were among the first 5 recipes I created so I could ensure my desire for a maple syrup fix wouldn't devolve into drinking straight from the bottle. ("Babe, your lips are really sweet again, have you been hitting the syrup?")

I hadn't tried Betty's version prior to today and I was impressed with how easy these were to throw together this morning. Breakfast was made, photographed, eaten and cleaned up in an hour. Ironically, however, we were out of syrup! We made do with a trio of jams we canned last summer and on the whole, I rate this recipe a success. I'm going to try it again when we replace our waffle iron--these were made on a range-top pan and I think the interior will turn out differently when both sides are cooked simultaneously. I used a range-top griddle that cooks one side at a time, leaving the inside a bit on the...what's the more appetizing word for mushy? According to thesaurus.com: doughy. In any event, my hypothesis is that a proper iron will result in a proper waffle but only time and a new waffle iron will tell.

Waffles
2 Ener-G "eggs" (2 eggs)
1/2 C vegetable oil (or melted margarine)
1 3/4 C oat milk
2 C flour blend
1 tbl sugar
4 tsp aluminum-free baking powder
1 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 tsp salt

Heat your waffle iron. Beat the egg replacement until foamy. Beat in remaining ingredients just until smooth. Add additional milk, 1 tbl at a time, as needed if batter is too thick. Pour batter onto your waffle iron, nudging into the corners as needed. I like to use a cookie scoop to plop the batter onto the iron and the back of a spoon to spread it out.

Bake according to your waffle iron's instructions then remove and insert into mouth, after the requisite spreading of "butter" and pouring of syrup, of course. Use these to make breakfast sandwiches, as a base for ice cream or let them sit out and make a seasonally themed Wafflebread House.

The L Review:
"I ate of my wafles and I'm still hungry for waffles."

Willow's Gluten-Free Flour Blend

or:
My Ultra Top Secret Flour Mix, Divulged

When I went gluten-free, there weren't a lot of GF flour blends on the market yet. And those that were contained potato starch, which I was also eliminating. After several attempts with different blends, I settled on a simplified one inspired by a recipe in Living Without magazine.

To me, it's too fussy to have three different blends for different baked goods and I've had great success converting recipes with a 1:1 replacement of the following blend for wheat flour regardless of recipe (pizza crust vs. cookies vs. muffins). Should my baked goods fail, the blend is something I'll consider if the other fixes don't actually fix the recipe.

In a large bowl combine:
2.5 C Millet Flour
2 C Brown Rice Flour
4 C Tapioca Starch/Flour

I advise layering them in the bowl in that order, ending on the tapioca starch. Otherwise you're likely to create plumes of tapioca dust as you add the other flour. But hey, at least it's not sticky like powdered sugar! Gently whisk the flours together, more vigorously as the tapioca starch becomes incorporated.

Once it's well blended, transfer to an air-tight container and store in the fridge or freezer for prolonged life (some grains spoil more rapidly than others). I tend to move mine to the fridge in the hottest part of the summer, but we generally go through it so quickly it doesn't have time to go rancid. Don't use it if it smells off (so make sure to smell it as you make it and use it to become familiar with what it should smell like, I'd say that's a good idea for any flour).

This recipe can be halved but make sure to store any leftover bags of flour in the freezer until you mix up some more of your blend. I use Bob's Red Mill, buying one 23oz bag each of the brown rice and millet flours and two bags of the tapioca which makes this recipe twice (I think!).

As a general rule, I add half a teaspoon xanthan gum per cup of flour to the dry ingredients for non-yeast baked goods and 1 teaspoon per cup of flour for yeasted goods. At times, this addition may require you to add more liquid which is typically indicated by a batter so thick you can barely stir it. Gradually add more of your liquid until you get a consistency that looks more familiar to you (and couldn't be used to spackle a house).

How to Read the Recipes

or:
Idea for an Entry I Just Had After Rambling on in My Spaghetti and Meatballs Entry

Not every recipe in the cookbooks will need altering and my primary focus is on converting those that contain gluten. In those, I will also be replacing the dairy and eggs. Sometimes the conversion will be really easy, as easy as replacing bread crumbs with GF bread crumbs or finding an alternative way to thicken a sauce. Other times the conversion may be impossible (GF phyllo dough? from scratch??) which I intend to find out. Failure is always an option. At least initially...

In addition to finding replacements for the problem ingredients, I will at times alter the recipe based on my own whims, which I'll let you in on. The recipe as written is how I've prepared it and measurements/notes from the original recipe will be included parenthetically after my measurement.

Abbreviations:
tsp - teaspoon
tbl - tablespoon
C - cup
# - pound(s)
oz - ounce(s)
sm - small
med - medium
lg - large
GF - gluten-free
DF - dairy-free
EF - egg-free

And now onto the recipes!

Betty Crocker: Gluten- and Dairy-Free

When I first moved to Washington, I was 18, newly registered at UW and ready to take my place in the adult world.

On my first day of college, I called my mom halfway through to tell her I was withdrawing (because "dropping out" sounds, so, well, not me).

My first serious boyfriend (with whom I moved to WA) was, for lack of a better description, 19. After 6 months of living on our own, he decided he needed to move back home. And that's how it happened that for the first time, I was living on my own.

After that, for a few years, just about everything was a first (and thankfully some of them were first-and-onlies, knock wood). While most were mundane and have since been forgotten or tucked away to be randomly recalled when the right fragrance catches a breeze, there are some that will forever be with me.

Betty Crocker's Cookbook (40th Anniversary Edition) is one of those firsts.

When I was that neophyte, I had the great fortune of living near a quaint Main Street complete with its own inviting local cafe that had a Help Wanted sign posted and an amazing owner and community builder in Leigh Henderson. That restaurant, Alexa's Cafe, was such a central fixture of my life in my 20s that if I ever become Of Great Importance, it may have to get some kind of fancy plaque, you know, a historical marker of sorts. But this isn't about how one cafe changed my life...yet. For now, it's about Betty Crocker.

When I worked in the kitchen at Alexa's, cooking for catering events and baking for the lunch rush, if I wanted a recipe I knew would turn out, I turned to Betty. I didn't stumble upon her cookbook on my own, it was handed to me by Leigh (complete with writing in the margins), and while there were several other books I used when I worked there, there's only one I made sure to buy a copy of when I eventually left.

Betty was one of my most influential firsts, however humble, so it seems fitting that it be the book I begin with. Some of the recipes I've already had to convert--there was no life post-diagnosis until there was cake once again--but there remains a bounty of recipes I never even tried when I was eating gluten.

This is going to be fun!

Welcome to the Cookbook Converter

or:
Entry the First

I love cookbooks. More than that, I love writing in the margins of cookbooks. I guess ultimately I love a cookbook that feels lived-in and you can tell flipping through its pages it's been used to provide countless meals and lasting memories to the people it's fed.

Not surprisingly, I also love food and the two of us had a rapturous affair until I found out that I can't digest gluten or dairy. I hit a low enough low to literally have a tantrum over the unfairness of it all but I am happy to report I have emerged from the depths with a newfound dedication to renew my love of food and cookbooks and writing in cookbooks.

I'm here to learn freedom through discipline (that's another story) and also how to successfully convert the recipes in a chosen cookbook into gluten- and dairy-free (GF and DF) meals. If you're here, I assume it's to expand your GF/DF cooking options or maybe to look at the pictures (in which case, do come back as this particular post doesn't offer you much). Whatever the reason, welcome. May we all learn from my failures and successes.

Up next, picking the cookbook!