After weeks without blogging, I realize I've come to an impasse - and a solution. The former is a direct result of the rapid and thrilling growth of my business, Luce's Gluten-Free Artisan Bread. Working 6 - 7 days a week, I rarely have time to sit at the computer and write. However, as part of my communication with customers, I do send out weekly e-newsletters. Thus my solution: A slightly altered version of the e-newsletter, delayed a week or two and then posted here. (Interested in first-read-rights? Sign up for my newsletter by clicking HERE and scrolling to the bottom of the home page. BTW the newsletter will have special offers that won't be repeated here.) Enjoy the post! Biscuit Love - Love Biscuits
I’ve always loved biscuits. One of the challenges of Celiac Disease is having to walk away from big trays of them whenever Leslie and I visit the Ohio restaurant chain, Bob Evans. Luckily, I’ve learned to make them from one of my flour blends - Classic Sourdough.
Biscuits can be made in an almost endless variety of ways: coarse-crumb or flaky, sweet, savory, laced with corn meal, shortened with butter or coconut or bacon fat or lard. I like them sweet for strawberry shortcake; full of mushrooms and corn flour for hors d'ouvres; sour and puffy for sandwiches.
In addition to being
very tasty, biscuits have the advantage of being quick and easy to make.
If we have drop-in guests or I forget to bake bread for a day, no
problem. Dessert can be ready in under an hour as long as the guests
like shortcake. And biscuits are as good as bread for many a meal.
There's
one more thing: They can be made in small quantities. That's great if
your household, like mine, consists of just two people with small
appetites.
The recipe below will yield about nine, 1-1/4"
diameter sweet biscuits, perfect for dessert for four (with one left
over for the cook to eat while waiting for the strawberries to thaw) and
easily doubled. Of course you can make them larger. King Arthur Flour makes a honeycomb biscuit cutter
that will help, if larger and easier is your goal. I've provided notes
for making them savory, in case dessert is not on your agenda. Before
you start, I'd suggest purchasing my Classic Sourdough bread mix in the Just Flour configuration and an order of Just Support Sheets. Also note that you will need some extra ingredients.
Enjoy!
Sweet Biscuits Yield: 9 small biscuits
Ingredients: 1/2 cup (75 grams/ 2.6 Oz.) Luce's Gluten-Free Artisan Bread Classic Sourdough flour mix 1 TBLS (12 grams/0.4 Oz.) Cornstarch 1/2 tsp sugar 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/8 tsp baking soda 2 TBLS (25 grams/0.9 Oz.) unsalted butter, very cold 1/3 cup + 1 tsp (75 grams/2.6 Oz.) buttermilk White rice flour, sorghum flour or corn meal for dusting
Other equipment: Medium
bowl. Stirring spoon. Shortening "cutter" or wire whisk. Cookie sheet
(disposable is fine). 1 1/4" cylindrical cookie cutter.
Procedure: Preheat the oven to 425 F. Place a cookie sheet on the middle rack. Dust a countertop or (better) chilled work surface with the dusting flour. In
the medium bowl, mix flour, cornstarch, sugar, baking powder and baking
soda. Stir to blend well. Chop the butter into little chunks - each
about the size of a Lima bean - and scatter these in the flour. Using
the whisk or cutter, cut the shortening into the flour until the mix is
very coarse, like fine gravel. Add buttermilk to the flour and stir until the dough just
comes together. Turn out onto dusted work surface. Sprinkle dusting
flour on dough and pat dough into a layer about 1" thick. Dip the cookie
cutter into rice flour and use it to cut cylinders of dough, arranging
these on a sheet of parchment (support sheet) with at least 1" of space
around each cylinder. Gently pat leftover dough together and cut
additional cylinders. The last piece of dough may be formed into a
simple ball. Bake for 15 minutes or until biscuits are flecked with golden brown. Cool on a rack, but serve while slightly warm.
Options: Eliminate sugar to create a savory biscuit. Eliminate soda and sugar to create a sourdough biscuit. Double sugar for sweeter biscuits. Substitute cornstarch with cornmeal for a crunchier, heartier treat. Use coconut oil, bacon drippings or lard instead of butter. Drip some truffle oil onto the butter before cutting it in. Use Vegan shortening instead of butter. Chill the flour before beginning and handle dough like puff pastry dough to produce flakier biscuits.
"Pig Ears" - sourdough biscuits with braunschweiger and mustard.
A note: I've decided to try the new blogging platform Storylane. The story that follows can also be found there. Click HERE to reach it.
My family, 1963
This is a story about beginnings, which is why it is set in the past.
The summer of 2002 was not unfolding well: my country was at war, its leaders beating the drums to start a second one by telling bigger and bigger lies; from my home in New Jersey, the wounds of 9/11 still felt raw - there was candle wax piled deep on a pier in Hoboken, where memorial flames had burned for months - and the skyline across the river held a gaping hole; I’d learned my father was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease; my hobby - caring for an heirloom vegetable farm -had expanded into a gigantic obligation; I’d lost the muse for my creative love of decades, photography.
Every morning, however, I reached out in what seemed a positive gesture: sitting at the laptop to write. The younger me had wanted to be a writer. When a camera had been thrust into my teenaged hands I put words aside. But now the earlier infatuation was back.
My project was a novel. I’d been writing and re-drafting it for more than two years. I had no idea how good it was - or even if it was good at all - but its first chapter had got me accepted to a Big Deal writer’s conference, and I hoped to give enough polish to the work so that my workshop leader - a Very Big Name - would thrust me onto the literary stage.
There was quite a bit to be got through before that moment, however - pages and pages of words. To say nothing of the rows and rows of tomato plants, Asian melons, Indian beans, fingerling potatoes and flowering sunchokes needing weeding, fertilizing and insecticide-ing. Or my father’s maddening obsessions. Or the deepening strain in my mother’s voice.
Sometime in June I got a call. Dad’s doctor had convinced him to get a hernia repaired (or perhaps it was the other way around). Mom had decided to compress their medical needs, and scheduled herself for pain-reduction spinal nerve blocks. Could I come to Ohio and care for them? Just one week. Her procedure was scheduled for Monday, Dad’s for Thursday. Fine I agreed, though my inner self seethed with resentment. They wouldn’t need to interrupt my life if they’d agree to bring help into the house. They surely could afford it. But Dad was too paranoid, and Mom too proud.
It was on that trip to Ohio I confessed to my wife that things had gone wonky in my guts. I’d been suffering with diarrhea since late May. Recently, every time I ate, my abdomen was wrenched with pain. Plus I was losing weight. Yes I was going to see my doctor - just as soon as this Summer Of Obligations was over.
In my parents’ home, everything that could go wrong was going wrong. Dad was hallucinating crowds of visitors in the living room and Mom’s skeletal pain was so severe she could no longer stand at the stove and prepare an entire meal. The thing they should be doing - trying to find a facility to move too - was The Great Ignored.
Mom’s procedure went smoothly, although she was incapacitated for two days afterward. My wife and I performed kitchen duties, kept Dad within sight, and helped Mom in and out of the loo. It was thunderstorm season in Ohio and the lightning was ferocious. Between storms, Dad’s nocturnal wandering, and Mom’s occasional calls for help, Leslie and I slept little. My stomach worsened.
Then it was Dad’s turn. Whoever thought that surgery on a 90-year-old man in deep dementia was a good idea? We got Dad in and out of the hospital OK - no overnight stay being required - but he couldn’t understand the post-operative pain, and was determined to get up and walk around even though potent analgesics made his gait a wobbling shamble. Worse - though we didn’t know it at the time - his surgeon had insisted he drink eight glasses of water daily. Constipation is a real concern following abdominal surgery, and all that water would help prevent it. Or at least that’s what the surgeon said.
My job was to assure that every one of Dad’s movements ended in a safe return to bed. Since he mostly slept during the day, that meant getting up in the night to shepherd him in and out of the bathroom. I also had to keep him from going down the stairs to the basement or out to the garden.
It was an exhausting occupation. I resented and objected to it, but kept a nice face because I knew Mom was not yet recovered. Besides, her procedure had not been successful. She was in pain, and an open display of anger wouldn’t do anything for her. To ameliorate my feelings I cleaned house. This served two functions: to organize possessions for the inevitable - even Mom could see they’d have to move soon - and to find objects from my childhood.
Me, 6th grade.
Chief among those mementos were photographs. There were dozens of albums, some dating to the 1920’s. I found photos of Dad as a young farmer. There was Mom, shooting archery. There was I, draped in a gigantic bib, face smeared with chocolate.
It was remarkable how many pictures of me included food. Not just me eating, but me whirling an egg beater, rolling pie dough, cutting cookies. I didn’t remember doing those things, but I did recall being a teenager and baking pizza, sometimes for the whole neighborhood.
More remarkable than the pictures was how they made me feel: damned good. Despite the fact that in present time everything I ate seemed to hurt, and life was a continual round of toilet visits and me curling into a pained ball on the bedroom floor, I loved food. Or at least I loved making food. More than anything, the little voice inside me whispered. More than photography. More than writing.
My mother - sometime in the 1930's
I set aside some of the photos for residency in my house when the time came. Meanwhile, Dad and Mom were on the path to recovery, or so it seemed. My sister and her daughter arrived to take over, and Leslie and I left for New Jersey.
We’d got halfway across Pennsylvania when my cell rang. It was my niece, Brianna: “Pop-pop’s gone crazy!” she howled. “He just turned his plate upside down and is throwing food!”
I could hear clatter in the background. My heart skipped a beat. Leslie interrupted on speaker: “You know what to do?” she prompted.
“Call 911?”
“That’s right. You’re a very smart girl. Do that, and stay out of the way.”
We clicked the call off. A long moment passed. “I can’t go back,” I finally said.
“Of course not,” Leslie said. “It’s fine. They can handle it. We have to get home.”
Indeed we did and indeed they could.
As it turned out, Dad was suffering from hyponatremia - a dangerous lowering of sodium in the blood. He’d gotten that way from over-hydration (recall those eight glasses of water per day?) 24 hours on IV electrolytes fixed him.
Madness, I discovered, is but one symptom of hyponatremia. Wobbly gait, irregular heartbeat, poor respiration, paleness and sweating are others. Untreated - or mistaken for dehydration and treated with more water - hyponatremia is fatal.
Hyponatremia is now recognized as a leading cause of fatalities in marathons. In fact, no marathon fatality has ever been caused by dehydration. Actually, most of the “dangers” assigned to dehydration are now recognized as mythic, and the “benefits” of “good hydration” - bowel regularity, mental clarity, joint smoothness - are now understood to be non-existent.
It’s too bad that Dad’s doctor hadn’t kept up on hydration research. Some of the facts were circulating in the medical community even then. It was equally too bad that fixing his hyponatremia didn’t cure his Alzheimer’s. But then, nothing does.
It was also too bad I wasn’t listening to the facts swirling around me. Leslie had been diagnosed with celiac disease when she was 12, and thought that a lot of what I was suffering sounded familiar. But I was sure it was cancer. My one prayer had become: let me publish this novel before I die.
Fast Forward to October. It’s a cold morning and I’m sitting in the produce stand beside that heirloom vegetable farm, shivering in a down jacket. I’ve lost 15 pounds since June, and despite several diagnostic procedures, have no idea what’s wrong with me, other than it is not cancer.
The summer that began poorly unfolded worse. A good friend of Leslie’s died. She and I got stuck on opposite sides of the Hudson River during the August blackout. And that Big Wheel writer’s conference was a Big Scam. The superstars spent their time sniffing other superstars and gave us underlings short shrift. My workshop was worthless. Plus I’d been so sick I’d had to skip a third of my classes.
Luckily I had something to hold onto. On a return trip to Ohio I’d collected some of those family photographs. They were scattered on my desk, and they made me smile. I’d been The Boy Who Baked, and was proud of it. I’d always loved to cook, here was proof. At least if I died soon, as I was certain I would, I had fed my wife well.
I picked up a book a colleague had loaned me. “Irritable Bowel Syndrome” was the title. I’d been trying to follow the authors’ dietary recommendations. Not that they were doing any good - quite the opposite. And then my eye fell on a chapter heading. One I’d seen a dozen times but ignored. Two words I’d heard hundreds of times but also ignored. Celiac Disease. I flipped to the page.
There were my symptoms, each and every one. Holy Crap! Maybe I wasn’t going to die after all. If a blood test confirmed it, I had C.D. No problem, not for a man who loves to cook. What, I wondered, could I cook and eat right now?
Everyone I’ve ever met who has Celiac Disease remembers their first gluten-free meal. For me, it was a thick burger grilled over charcoal, a half-dozen slices of German Green and Cherokee Red tomatoes, a dollop of cottage cheese with fresh basil. Salt and mustard and pepper and no bread. And Oh My God nothing happened. No pain. No rush to the throne. Nothing.
As I washed the dishes and tidied the kitchen I sensed that major changes lay ahead. I would close the produce stand in two weeks, I would contact my doctor and ask for the necessary blood test, I’d start a gluten-free diet. Maybe I’d recover the strength to re-draft the novel.
There was no way of knowing what really lay ahead: my parents’ removal to assisted living, a bewildering array of negative writing experiences, my learning that gluten-free breads were terrible, my sense that I could do better, the years of research, my abandonment of a teaching career, the opening of my gluten-free dry blend business. I could see, however, that a talisman guided me. Sitting on my desk, the beacon from the past. Pictures. Of me. Making food. It was a destiny I hadn’t known I had. But was ecstatic to embrace.
This week Luce’s Gluten-Free Artisan Bread passed another milestone: an initial health department inspection. We have a few minor corrections to make, but we can complete them in 3-4 days. That means production can start next week (week of September 24).
If you haven’t signed up for my e-mail letter, now is the time. Members will get dibs on the first batch out of our kitchen.
It’s been a long haul to get to this point, and I have to confess I’m feeling quite a mixture of emotions. I’m elated to have finally put this together and gotten it “legal”, excited at the prospect of sharing my bread mixes with the world, and more than a little intimidated by the amount of work ahead.
With the thought that my future might be a very busy one, my wife and I took a vacation last week, visiting one of our favorite places: Chincoteaque Island, Virginia. Those of you who loved to read as children probably know the name. It’s the site of a kiddy-lit classic: Misty of Chincoteaque. Now a good reader I was not, but I know that this story revolves around the wild horses that actually exist on the island.
Sunshine and vacation shoes
We’ve been vacationing on Chincoteaque island for about 20 years. We always go the first weekend after Labor Day and we usually stay three days, but since I’ve “retired” and since this retirement is soon to end, we elected to spend four weekdays on the island this time. It has a huge National Wildlife Refuge, glorious beaches, a beautiful long-needle-pine forest, interesting fungi and - thanks to all those wild ponies, a world-class mosquito population.
This year the days were all sunny and not terribly hot. Surf was heavy, thanks to two tropical storms out in the Atlantic, but the water was relatively warm.
Food on the island can be a bit of a challenge, given our dietary restrictions, but we like to spread our net wide and drive all over the Southern DelMarVa peninsula in search of non-toxic treats. This time we tried the harbor town of Onancock Virginia - and lucked out. The restaurant we found - and went back to twice - was The Inn and Garden Cafe, where Chef Ted went out of his way to make gluten-free crabcakes. What a treat they were!
Leslie and the North Atlantic
A week of lounging in the sun, swimming from time-to-time and eating crab was intensely refreshing, but all too soon it was time to head home. THAT however meant stopping at as many BBQ joints and produce stands as I could convince Leslie to tolerate. Think wood-smoked pig meat, late summer melons, fresh limas, okra, tomatoes, and of course local figs. These were smallish, quite dark and tough-skinned, but much more intensely flavorful than the California varieties I’ve been finding in my local groceries.
Easy to love: Virginia figs
Our journey home was on a Friday. On the way I ate more than a few figs, and was so enraptured by their musky rich flavors I neglected to pay sufficient information to my passenger my wife. Had I been less self-absorbed I might have noticed her unusual restlessness (Leslie is a world-class car sleeper). But as it turned out I didn’t suspect a thing until we were home. “I don’t feel well,” she averred. At which point I noticed she was flushed. I put a hand on her forehead. It was hot. Shit. Leslie is one lady who never gets fevers. I was pretty certain I knew where this one came from.
The first day we’d been on the island, Leslie had taken a walk we always take together: to a wild pony overlook. Rarely are ponies visible, but the view is terrific and the forest through which the trail winds, gorgeous. Unfortunately it is quite mosquito-riddled. This year it was beyond the pale. Mosquitoes usually don’t pursue me, but 20 feet into the woods they were around us in a dense swarm. “Forget this,” I told her, “say hi to the horses for me, I’m waiting in the car.”
I thought she’d come with me. Mosquitoes love her. But, no, the walk was a tradition and she loves traditions. When she got back to the car she had a nimbus of bugs; so many they were uncountable. Even jumping in and slamming the door we ended up with dozens in the car. Despite the fact I thought she’d been foolish to go out in that mob, I felt sorry for her.
Mentally I returned here to balm my fear
By Saturday morning I was feeling much sorrier. Her temp was up to 102, and she was alternatively chilled and sweltering, nauseous and head-achy. I spent the day feeding her acetaminophen. We called our doctor’s on-call service and were told her fever was “low-grade”. We tried to shrug it off.
Sunday was worse. We had a wedding to go to but I called and cancelled her seat. She insisted I go - she wanted photos of the wedding gown. I did go and had a great time. When I got home I stuck a thermometer in her mouth. 104.
Panicked, we struggled to face the situation rationally. That’s not so easy when one of the engaged brains is beginning to cook. 104 is the border for hallucinations, and Leslie allowed she was having some trouble processing time-related concepts. My pulse had begun to race, but we agreed to not head to an ER until we saw what acetaminophen did. Which was actually and thankfully quite a bit. Her fever dropped to 100 and she soon fell asleep.
It was a wild night. Her fever “broke” early Monday, bathing her in perspiration and rousing her for showers and mop-downs twice before dawn. I had to pry her out of bed for a noon doctor’s appointment. Which, as I feared and suspected, indicated (but did not prove) West Nile Virus.
I’ll skip the rest of the medical story and say that in the intervening days she’s improved steadily: no more fever, no more nausea, gradually increasing appetite. We do not yet have an official diagnosis, but whatever-it-was, was too close for comfort. Fortunately she’s unscathed. Postscript (written 9/22/12): Leslie has almost completely recovered, though she still is quite tired. Lab results say it was NOT West Nile. We're going back to the doctor next week for further investigation.)
As for me, I almost suffered the unspeakable calamity of losing those Virginia figs. By the time I remembered them on Monday afternoon they were at the outer orbit of ripe. Leslie was too sick to eat, and I couldn’t do that job myself (Anybody know what happens when you eat an entire quart of ripe figs? Bet you can guess...) so I elected to try a combination that’s been knocking around in my head since figs “came in” this autumn: cooking them with chanterelles.
Chanterelle vodka
Problem: I had no fresh chanterelles. Idea: I had a fifth of chanterelle vodka.
Do not go down to your liquor store and try to order this. You must make it: shred two or three very fresh, large chanterelles into a bottle of vodka and stash this in the refrigerator until the mushroom fragments sink to the bottom and the booze turns faint orange. Then freeze it or just keep it cold.
Chanterelle vodka is not something I’d consume directly since I do not drink, but I made a bottle in August for slight-of-hand flavor tricks. It was time to try one. If I did this right, the diner would find unique flavors in the caramelized figs but not realize they were mushrooms. Unless of course I’d told them the ingredients in advance.
The figs were so pungent they overwhelmed any but a heavy dose of mushroom booze, but after fiddling with the ratio I ended up with a fun and rich dish. I’m not sure where it should be on a menu, but my instinct says appetizer. Whenever I ate some - which was often, since Leslie wouldn’t touch it - I paired it with chive-and-onion-laced Cotswald cheese, or Basque Issara cheese, or Vermont Clothbound Cheddar, and it was terrific. And, yes you can store leftovers in the fridge, though for some reason that kills the chanterelle flavor.
One of the best things about this dish - besides the illogical yet wonderful flavors - is how quickly and easily it can be realized. Just one thing: if you’re going to forage your own chanterelles and/or figs, wear plenty of mosquito repellant.
Caramelized figs with onions and chanterelle vodka
Ingredients:
10 small figs, or 5 larger ones, halved and stems removed
1 TBLS unsalted butter
1 TBLS extra-virgin olive oil
3 TBLS Vidalia onions, chopped fine
1/8 tsp salt
Pinch paprika
7 TBLS chanterelle Vodka, divided (see text, above)
Continue to braise the figs for 10 minutes. Add one tablespoon of the vodka. It will boil off vigorously. Turn heat off.
When pan has cooled to below the vodka boiling point, add the remainder of the vodka and swirl pan so that liquid picks up the paprika and salt. Return pan to low heat. Simmer another 5 minutes or so until the alcohol is boiled away (or not, if you want a dish with kick). Stir just once and place into a serving dish. Serve warm with very sharp cheeses.
Last week was sweat equity time here in NJ as Luce’s Gluten-Free Artisan Bread moved a step closer to production. Plumbing and Electrical work had left the factory floor covered in concrete dust, which can only be removed with effort: broom-sweeping, shop-vac, finally wet mop. The Eastern US sat in a plume of tropical air, with temperature and humidity both in the mid-80’s. Ergo, every day my clothes ended up wetter than a toddler on diuretics.
I’m not complaining. Physical work makes me happy. This month it has also helped move me from a place of emptiness and loss towards optimism and fulfillment. Besides, getting drenched in the afternoon reminds me of that adventuresome climb in Vermont this past July, and of the fruit story I left unfinished - at least in this my blog.
Recall the thunderstorm and the mushroom hunt, the hypothermia, the bad-judgement buying frenzy, the quarts of dead-ripe raspberries in a hotel room.... So .... picking up where I left off .....
It’s hard to imagine a more complex delight than cultivated red raspberries. Picked at the peak of ripeness, they’re a perfect balance of tender and seedy and sweet and sour, with a dusky dry exterior and pops-in-your-mouth moist interior. They are immensely fragile, which means they’re often harvested firm but unripe - a situation that makes for delightful jams and tart fillings - but they are far tastier perfectly ripe. However: woe to the picker who harvests dead-ripe raspberries carelessly. Or the consumer who buys roughly-handled fruits.
Bruised raspberries are the most mold-susceptible fruit I know, especially if they’ve been refrigerated or otherwise chilled. A moldy raspberry in my cereal leaves a lingering evil flavor, hence I carefully root out and discard every one I find, in every purchase I make.
Several berries in my Vermont harvest were white-tinged by the time I stepped from the hotel shower. I was certain that mold spores had dispersed through the lot, so there was little I could do to save them. I tried to recall why I’d bought so many, but all I could mentally reconstruct was a vague desire to have a huge bowl of crunchy granola heaped with them. But who wants granola for dinner in a foodie town like Brattleboro Vermont? OK - I could cook them. But how, in a motel room? Maybe .... Microwave???
Sugar is necessary when cooking berries
Microwave ovens and red raspberries are two thoughts I have difficulty connecting, if only because my first moments with these fruits predate even 1960’s “radar ranges”.
My father planted raspberry vines in our rural Ohio back yard in the early 1950’s, shortly after he built our house. He must have felt about them much the way I feel about them, since they’re a crop that requires lots of labor - far more than he had to spare after coming home from a long day’s work in the steel mills. I suspect he imagined my brother and I would be eager helpers - little farmers-in-training. We weren’t. I loved eating them, but had no fondness for harvesting under the hot summer sun, or cutting back year-old stems, or training prickly new canes for the next season, or picking off the hundreds of Japanese beetles that raspberry foliage attracts.
It was my mother who waved profit-motive at me, suggesting I go around the neighborhood peddling whatever I could pick. This became my first financial enterprise. I got 30 cents a quart.
(Perspective: gasoline was 25 cents a gallon, a new house in our neighborhood ran about $8,000 and my father made $7,000 per year.)
I ended up not having to do much market development. After knocking on many doors and being rejected by all comers, I came to the winner - a woman who would buy everything I had, every time I visited. I don’t recall how many seasons this went on - at least two or three - before I decided to pursue a “real” job and leave berry-picking behind.
This was our 17th anniversary dessert
Often I’ve wondered what that woman did with all those berries. My mother did very little with the quart or two a week I saved for home use. Her raspberry cooking can be summarized with a single word: raw. Once in a while she made jam, but the treats I’ve come to love as an adult - pies and cobblers and cake-fillings and custards - were most definitely not part of Mom’s repertoire.
Some form of cooking was required to salvage my Vermont bounty, and I had but a single instrument - a microwave. Crossing my fingers, I poured all the berries into a paper bowl, shoved it into the ‘nuke, and, guessing, zapped for two minutes. What came out was a steaming, blood-colored, seed-studded syrup. I thought, “This doesn’t look so bad,” and added several packets of sugar (thanks for the coffee bar, Hampton Inn), stirred, and headed out with Leslie to our fave Brattleboro dining spot, the Top of the Hill Grill.
It was amazing how much like raspberry jam that paste tasted, as I discovered when we returned. Packed in a zip-lock and transported all the way home to New Jersey it still tasted good - and it lasted several days in my refrigerator while I played around with uses. A spontaneous slathering on 10% milkfat yoghurt was hands-down the easiest and richest, but it worked in muffins and on a tart as well.
The one treat I most looked forward to eluded me - but that was because I ran out of berry sauce before I got there. That treat - crepes - occupies my thoughts now as the Northeast’s fall raspberry season approaches.
Crepe ingredients. Top: Potato starch, buckwheat groats, almonds
Middle: Xanthan gum
Bottom: Medium egg, milk and cream
Missing: sugar and salt
Red Raspberries are interesting fruits. Some varieties produce twice a year - July and September/October. In fact they can be the last soft fruit of the season, peaking in the days just before frost.
With this in mind I’ve worked up on a crepe recipe, using buckwheat flour. Few grains have an assertive-enough taste to match up with a fruit like the raspberry, but buckwheat (not a grain, really, but an herb) does. It also makes flour that holds together with only a dab of xanthan gum.
I like to lighten my Gluten-Free crepe flours with starch (potato starch or modified tapioca starch, or a blend of the two, is best), then make the flavor more complex with nut flour. Almond complements buckwheat nicely. Also I grind my own buckwheat flour, using groats from Bob’s Red Mill and a burr grinder from King Arthur Flour. Generally I make a blend that’s 1/2 fine and 1/2 extra-coarse, so there’s interesting chew in the finished product. For the crepe recipe that follows, the amount of groats I used was so small and the number of almonds was only 4, so I decided to use my spice grinder (actually a cheap coffee grinder) instead.
Crepes are whipped up from ratioed ingredients: 1 part eggs, 1 part liquid, 1/2 part flour. Ratios are weight-based, but I’ve done a bit of conversion to help out those among you who’ve not yet sprung the 10 bucks for a kitchen scale. (I like to keep my desserts small, so I always use medium eggs.) A medium egg weighs 45 grams without the shell (about 1 and 1/2 Oz.). My crepe ratio therefore is: 1 medium egg : 45 grams (1 - 1/2 oz) milk : 22 grams (3/4 oz) flour.
Finished crepes with ingredients
(PS: Crepes taste best if you use heavy cream blended with whole milk.)
Set aside 8 - 10 of the raspberries. Taste one. Smile.
Place the remaining raspberries in a microwave-proof bowl. Sprinkle with the 1 TBLS granulated sugar. Microwave on high for 1 minute 15 seconds, or until berries are reduced and beginning to foam. Stir, and set aside to cool.
Chop almonds coarsely. Put almonds and groats in a spice grinder and run until blend is smooth, stopping occasionally to scrape any flour that sticks to sides. Add potato starch, sugar, xanthan gum and salt, and pulse to blend. Pour into medium bowl.
Add milk, cream and egg to flour. Whisk until very smooth.
Heat a crepe pan or griddle to medium high. Melt a thin layer of butter in pan, then ladle 1/2 the batter into pan. Immediately swirl the pan to spread the batter thin and wide. Allow to cook until crepe has just turned dry all over, then flip and cook other side. Set aside on tin foil or a plate. Cook second crepe.
Today's puzzle - what the $#@!! is going on here??? (see below)
At the present moment, writing about my business is rather like reporting the function of a healthy immune system. Things are humming along, with all the organs in the background doing their jobs. A comforting picture, but boring.
The town of Berkeley Heights New Jersey has my building permit application. My plumber is waiting in the wings, as are my equipment and raw materials suppliers. My packaging designer is on her third draft, my business partner is reviewing the packaging copy, and I’m waiting for several vendors to call me with estimates. I have finished one thing: a short promotional video, embedded here:
So, clever music and a pretty actress (that’s my wife, Leslie) aside, there’s not much of interest going on with my business, gentle readers. So I’m going to write about pie.
Pic crust tools and ingredients chilling in the 'fridge
For the past year or so I’ve been chiding Gary Lincoff, author of The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms, whenever he posts a pie photograph on his Facebook page. “You need to make a gluten-free version!” I nag. At which I can just about hear a big chunk of his followers saying, “Yuk!”
It’s easy to wince at the concept of gluten-free pie crusts if you’ve never tasted a good one. However, since half the effort of making a wheat flour crust consists of preventing gluten from over-developing, removing gluten from the formula doesn't create much loss.
A scant eighth teaspoon of Xanthan gum - crucial ingredient for GF crust
I’ve been rolling pie crusts since I was 4 or 5. Which is not to say I’m any kind of baking expert; I’m not. I do love pie, however, and am quick to judge crust quality. (Point of historical fact: my mother’s relatives, the Mallery family, used to have reunions every August. There was silent but intense competition among the women as to who made the best pie. Which was emphatically not about the filling, but the crust.) So when I say I’ve got a good gluten-free crust formula, please take me seriously.
Half a stick of butter (4 tablespoons)
Although I’ve blogged about pies before, it’s time to write a very specific recipe if for no other reason that Mr. Lincoff has come out with a new book, The Joy of Foraging. He’s so good at finding wild edibles there’s sure to be Facebook posts all summer regarding pies made with found fruits. I’m thinking that people like me (ie - celiac sufferers) deserve to enjoy what nature offers in final, sugar-drenched, baked form too. So here goes.
Flour
A great deal of what happens in the ideal pie crust has to do with how the ingredients are handled. Therefore, the type of flour is not totally critical. That said, I believe two things are important about flour: it needs to be Easy, and it needs to taste Good.
Unfortunately there is no single gluten-free grain flour that will make great piecrust. All GF flours are blends - grain flour + starch flour + dough enhancers/gluten substitutes. You can buy pre-mixed flours, and that’s great, but in my house there’s so many flours I can make special blends for different types of pies (more on that, below). The one thing all my blends have in common? They’re based on a simple formula: Bette Hagman’s Featherlite blend.
The late Ms. Hagman came up with this mixture decades ago. In my opinion it can’t be beat for sweets, although I sometimes modify it. The recipe: 1 cup white rice flour, 1 cup corn starch, 1 cup tapioca starch, 1 tablespoon potato flour.
There’s an easy way to blend these dry ingredients: put them into a big ziplock bag, leave a good amount of air, zip the bag closed and shake it like mad. Depending on the size of your bag (and your willingness to clean up should the seal fail) you can make rather large quantities this way.
Once you’ve got the flour you can focus on handling, the first step to which is, chill everything.
Thin slices of cold butter
A pie crust should be nicely flaky. To accomplish that, unsalted butter is the best shortening. Butter contains water, which, under the right circumstances, changes quickly to steam and lifts surrounding dough. As this is going on the butter melts, coating the flour grains. In combination with the naturally occurring sugars in the grains, the fat-soaked flour turns crispy.
That’s a lot to happen all at once - or at least in fast sequence - so to make all the pieces play together it’s critical to prep them. Which is where temperature comes in. You’ll want the butter to be flat sheets, thin enough to melt fast but thick enough to perform lift. And, you’ll want the butter to be solid until the instant the crust hits the oven. That’s what keeps the most water in the butter and makes the tastiest flakes. Therefore, you want the butter to be cold throughout the crust-making process.
I keep butter, flour, dough enhancers, a wooden work surface, a bench knife and a thick ceramic mixing bowl in the refrigerator, waiting for fresh fruit. Once a harvest comes in I figure out how much pie Leslie and I can eat, and get working. (BTW - that photo at the top of the page? When I make crust on a hot day I chill the rolling board further with whatever is in the top of my freezer.)
Preparation
Ready to be chopped and ground
Making pie crust is yet another example of the superiority of weighing, rather than dry measuring, ingredients. Keep in mind that digital kitchen scales are now quite cheap. I see them in pharmacies for $10.
The basic weight ratio of pie crust ingredients is: 3 parts flour, 2 parts shortening, 1 part ice water. Experience tells me I can make a quarter-sheet of mini-pies - enough to last about a week in my household - with a crust recipe founded on 1/2 stick of butter. If I reach into the ’fridge and find 1/3 stick or 2/3 or 5/8 stick, it hardly matters. I just weigh the butter; all else follows. If you’re bad at math like me, divide the butter weight in half. That gives you the ice water weight. Multiply the ice water weight by three. That gives you the flour weight.
You can make a decent pie crust using the ingredients above, if you use good technique. However I do some modifications that work wonders. For a half butter stick quantity, I add two teaspoons of rice vinegar to the water (weighing both together), and substitute 1/4 the flour with almond meal, which I make by coarse chopping almonds, then running them through my spice grinder until they threaten to become almond butter. (Admittedly it is easier to buy almond flour, which is available at many grocery stores.) The flour should also get a scant 1/8 tsp xanthan gum, a pinch of salt, and two teaspoons of sugar.
Butter shavings in cold flour
If I’m making a pumpkin, squash, sweet potato, pecan or “Derby” pie, I use teff flour in my featherlite blend instead of rice flour. Dark teff is earthier and rye-like; ivory teff is spicier and can have notes of fish (try it for a seafood quiche).
Technique
This is the crucial part, and the only kitchen task I try to accomplish at speed. Keeping the ingredients cold is important, and a bit challenging, especially in the summer.
Put the chilled rolling board on your work counter. Drape a couple of layers of plastic wrap - big, generous pieces at least 18” long - over the board. Set the cold bowl and a bench knife on the board. Stick the water + vinegar in the freezer. Unwrap the butter. Measure flour, sugar, xanthan gum and salt into the bowl, and stir to mix.
The well awaits
Using the cold bench knife, slice the butter across its end into pieces @ 1/16” thick, tossing into the flour as you cut. From time to time stir the flour with your fingertips so that the butter chunks get coated and stay cold. When you have all the butter cut, toss the flour/butter lightly to distribute chunks evenly.
Using just your fingertips, press each piece of butter through the flour and against the side of the bowl to squeeze it into a big flat flake. Toss from time to time. When all or most of the butter is pressed, overturn the bowl onto the plastic sheets. Gather the blend into a mound and form a well in the center. Retrieve the ice water, punch through the thin skin of ice on top, and pour it into the well.
First fold. Note flakes of butter and oozing water
Toss the flour that forms the “hillsides” down onto the well until the wet dough/water is covered. Pick up one end of the plastic wrap, then fold it onto the other end, enclosing the dough. Press and pound until the mix is 1/2” to 3/4” thick. Unwrap the top layer of plastic, scraping any dough that sticks back onto the dough mass, and use the bench knife to fold the dough into thirds, like a business letter.
At this moment you are probably wondering what kind of madman I am, calling what’s on your work surface “dough”. It’s a dry-on-the-outside, sticky-in-the-middle, water-oozing, semi-rectangular mass. But bear with me.
Third fold. Slowly, the mess becomes dough.
Close up the plastic again and press/pound the dough flat, trying to work the “package” so that when you fold it the next time the folds will be at 90 degrees to the last set.
Repeat these cover-pound-uncover-fold-re-cover actions 4 to 6 times, until the dough begins to look like dough. Then wrap it up in the plastic and stick it back in the ‘fridge, where it needs to rest 6 or more hours before being rolled.
And that’s really all there is to it - with but one additional thought: When you roll the dough you’ll get better results if your rolling board is chilled and coated with a rubbed-in tablespoon or two of superfine brown rice flour.
Ready for refrigeration. Several hours of rest will allow all the water
to be absorbed and the dough will be ready to roll.
I’m not going to suggest pie fillings. That’s best left to folks like Gary, who seem to have more ideas for wild edibles than I ever will. But I will tell you my absolute favorite: wild huckleberries. I wish I had some right now!
