Xantham Gum

Xantham gum n. A natural gum of high molecular weight produced by culture fermentation of glucose and used as a stabilizer in commercial food preparation. (from answers.com)

It's expensive, can be hard to source and indispensable in gluten free baking. It adds much needed cohesion to gluten free baked goods, especially bread.

A couple of months ago, I switched from El Peto Xantham gum to a commercially available product from Grain Processors. There is a couple of substantial differences between the two. Commercial xantham gum is a finer powder and much more potent. I use about half as much of the commercial as I would have with the El Peto product. So, in recipes that I post please take that into account.

Filo Dough

Last week, I found a recipe for filo dough in a Turkish cook book. I haven't tried it yet, but hope to this week. Filo dough, like so many other wheat pastries, is very straight forward and most of the difficulty in converting it to gluten free will probably be in getting it to handle well. Xantham gum should take care of that.

Bette Hagman

It is will great sadness I pass on the following news: last friday, Bette Hagman, beloved gluten free cookbook author, died. She was an inspiration and saviour with her six cook books that covered all aspects of gluten free cookery and baking. She saved people from the despair of not being able to eat the foods they grew up with and has inspired so many of us to push the limits of gluten free baking. It was her recipes that first challenged me to try gluten free baking and gave me the confidence to serve the results to friends and family. Without her cook books I wouldn't be the baker I am today. I owe her a unimaginable debt, one that can never be repaid or measured.

A Brief History of Gluten Free Baking

Ever since Celiacs were first correctly diagnosed in the 1940's and given the correct diet; from which our diet now does not differ much from other than the addition of 'exotic' grains; has there been the quest to replace the forbidden items. I don't know how these Celiacs fared; but one can guess, that the baked goods were none too appetizing. (This can be illustrated by the fact that, while 'The Joy of Cooking' has had gluten free recipes in it since at least 1975, they're mostly rice flour based.) The earliest gluten free cookbook I have at present is 'Good Food, Gluten Free', published in 1976. I bought it out of curiosity, at Chapters. It details a gluten free diet with no refined gluten free starches, or white rice flour and focuses on a whole food approach, and there is not much in the way of pastries, but a goodly number of cakes, puddings and bread products. There is more variety in 'Gluten Free Cooking' (1983) by Rita Greer, but she heavily relies on Trufree flours, and does not give sources or formulas for them. Without having made any of the recipes it's impossible to judge it they were edible or not. Since the book is British, there is a possibility they were. 'Clubhouse' always printed recipes on the inside of boxes of rice flour, potato and tapioca starch. The pie pastry was awful! 'Food in the Gut Reaction' was the first experience I ever had with gluten free baking -it was based on no grains (paleolithic diet, 'The Grain Free Gourmet', that sort of thing) and relied solely on nuts as 'flour'. Yummy, but expensive.

It wasn't until Bette Hagman wrote 'The Gluten Free Gourmet', that gluten free baking started getting a lot better. It was published in 1990, but I didn't come across it until 2002, while in Alberta. That cookbook seems to be the turning point in gluten free baking. Since then, there has been a ever growing number of gluten free cookbooks, including five more from Bette Hagman, that have been building on the successes of the previous ones. Gluten Free baking has only gotten this yummy because of the endless experimenting of hungry Celiacs who just weren't satisfied with the few options available. May the never ending quest for yummy baked goods continue : ) !!!