Cannelle et maudits raisins

There has been a small bag of raisins tucked away in my cupboard for a while. It was even moved over from the cupboard in the last flat. They go untouched as I resent the little frakkers with their ridged, dry exterior and unbearably chewy and unrefreshing flesh, often turning up uninvited or, worse yet, unannounced in salads or braised red cabbage or carrot cake (as if the latter is not sweet and moist enough!). But I had to use them. And I hold firm that the only marginally tolerable manifestation of the suckers is in cinnamon raisin bread, where the strength of the spice somewhat masks the monstrosities.

Out came the Bob's Red Mill sorghum flour (my new favourite gluten free weapon) to top up the standard gluten free white bread flour and within minutes, I had a sweet dough rising. I even squeezed in a 5 mile run (and vacuumed the flat) for good measure during the first prove. Dough rising, a process equal parts beautiful and mundane.

The patience paid off.

Gluten-free cinnamon and dastardly raisin rolls

Allergy & Free From Show 2014 (Kensington Olympia)

Bob Moore of Bob's Red Mill Flours

• Met up with a lovely and insightful gluten-free blogger based in Berlin and spoke with some wonderfully innovative promoters and suppliers. The folks at CELIA Lager, promoting their Czech beer, very patiently explained their process of de-glutenising barley malt. Quite carbonated but it certainly makes for a good gluten-free summer beer.
• Met the man behind (and face on) Bob's Red Mill Flours - a company long known for its range of flours but also commendable for its practice of processing and packaging their flours in a quality controlled gluten-free environment. Purchased some sorghum flour and trusty tapioca flour. 

  

  Scott Farms Sweet Potato Chips

• Scott Farms Sweet Potato Chips were hands down my favourite acquisition of the day. Wonderfully simple in concept but masterfully executed.
• Greens Gluten Free Beers were another great exhibitor with an abundance of flavours to sample but unfortunately not purchase on the spot. The IPA and Dry Hopped Lager were pretty good and have now inspired me to discuss further with some home-brewer friends about brewing a batch of gluten-free beer. Enter sorghum!

Next year: bring more hands.

Meze

I'm now making my own hummus; my local Tesco will certainly notice a drop in sales of their own variety. Al'fez Tahini is listed as 'free from' too, which is a bonus in a day and age when even certain teas are listed as possibly containing wheat (I'm looking at you, Tetley). So far, experimentation has yielded just a particularly edgy hummus with a kick of chili and paprika and another with more garlic than any standard recipe might call for. Next up, caramelised onion.

Loafing Around

Fresh bread in the house is a beautiful thing. I received a Panasonic SD-2501 bread maker for Christmas and while it is quite an elephant of a machine on our kitchen counter, it works wonderfully, is both safe and quiet, and makes a rather amazing gluten-free loaf of bread in a self-contained system with little mess, unless you're a complete a monster and manage to wreak havoc in the kitchen in the 5 minutes of prep time.

Panasonic SD-2501 in gluten-free mode

Following the included tips on which order to put in the ingredients is key though it might seem counterintuitive to those who have baked bread before; water, salt, sugar, and fats (including eggs) are added before your flour blend and yeast is added last to ensure it doesn't kill the yeast prematurely. The gluten-free setting handles everything from kneading to letting it rise and the baking all within just under 2 hours. Sneaking a peak at the kneading process reveals a much runnier dough than you might expect for bread, almost alarmingly so but such is the nature of the beast. I don't think it ever really takes shape into a typical ball of dough, which is why I'm thankful for not having to clean up the mess that would ensue were I to make it by hand on as regular a basis. About a half hour before it's done baking, that glorious smell thwacks your olfactory senses. And so continues our lives dictated by the beeping of electronic devices. Take it out, resist the urge to hug and devour it, and let it cool.

10-12 slices of gluten-free happiness

A kitchen thermometer is a good means of testing that the bread is cooked through (100 C in the middle). Said thermometer also proved as a good indication that our bedroom was either very poorly insulated or haunted given that it was about 12 degrees cooler than in the lounge.

A good serated bread knife is also a prime investment. A dull blade will only assault what is already a weak crumb structure.

I tend to use the standard recipe included in the Panasonic user guide, though will modify it slightly depending on the size of my eggs and my desire to go out on a whim and experiment. If I'm running low on the bread flour (or if Tesco decide that they'll give me gluten-free apple pies rather than substituting it with something sensible, like other flours, when out of stock) I'll use a combination of other gluten-free flours I tend to have on hand; plain, self-raising, rice and/or tapioca and add a bit of xanthan gum to make up for any potential lack thereof.

330mL water
2-3 tablespoons of vegetable oil (I only put a full 3 if my eggs are on the smaller side)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar (Aspall do a gluten-free line)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
450g Doves Farm Gluten Free Bread Flour
2 teaspoons yeast