Too Much Too Fast: Muffins

Somewhere around January Shauna James, blogger over at Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef and author of several cookbooks with her husband, Danny, wrote about giving up both xanthan and guar gum because it was giving her "digestive issues." (That's code, people. As she puts it, "Nothing says love like explosive diarrhea.")

She relaized that, despite being GF, she wasn't feeling very well. Through trial and error, she discovered her body didn't deal well with gums. Although all her cookbooks and previous blog recipes include xanthan and guar gum, she said, "You know what? These recipes don't need gums. Use them if you want to, but me, I'm leaving them out."


She listened to her body and changed her mind.

I am not a celiac. Twice I've had the genetic testing, and both  genes test negative. Still, I feel better without gluten. And yet... I don't feel as physically well as I think I ought. I have some recent bloodwork that says, "Well, no wonder," but nothing conclusive.

Long story short: I've decided to try the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, which means eating no disaccarides -- no grains, no processed sugar, and a few other interesting caveats you can read more about if you like. And I have felt a lot better for doing it. I have had to change my mind about things... and now I'm not sure what I think.

It makes it kinda hard to do a GF baking blog, you know?

I never set out to be a nutritionist, but I've had to become one. Still, there is so much I do not know. I don't know why the incidence of food allergies and intolerances are on the rise. I don't know why people who are not celiacs still can't handle gluten. I don't know what the appropriate strains or balance of gut flora is, nor what genetic markers gut bacteria can trigger. But I do know this: it doesn't matter what diet you're trying to follow -- you need a good muffin recipe.

I developed this recipe when I was on an extremely strict yeast-free diet. I later tweaked it to work as a GF muffin, and I've recently tweaked it to be SCD compliant. This recipe can be made egg, dairy, sugar, gluten, and wheat free, plus vegan. I confess, I haven't tried all of these at once, but I suppose you could. I can think of at least five flavor variations, but three -- vanilla, fruit, and spice -- will give you the blueprint for anything else you can think of.

The flexibility and deliciousness of this recipe delivers the message best: listen to your body, do what you need for health, and don't be afraid to change your mind.

3 cups of (choose 1):	almond flour (SCD) GF flour blend	To make these SCD compliant, use almond flour alone or a combination of other SCD legal nut flours. For GF, use your favorite flour blend. For flavor I like a blend of half nut half GF flours, but I'm being SCD, so it's all nut for me.
1/4 to 1/2 tsp	salt	Or leave it out
2 tsp of (choose 1)	baking soda (SCD) baking powder	With SCD, soda is the only choice. Almond flour is not inclined to rise high anyway. If you're using a GF or wheat flour and yogurt/buttermilk, a combination of baking soda and baking powder is appropriate; otherwise, just baking powder is fine.
3/4 tsp	xanthan gum	not SCD compliant; by all means, leave if out if you like.
a total of 1 to 1 1/2 tsp (choose as many as you like)	cinnamon nutmeg starch-free baking spice blend	Or leave them out.
1 tsp	vanilla	Or leave it out.
1/4 cup (choose 1)	sugar honey (SCD) maple syrup 3-4 packets sugar substitute	SCD is honey. There's also nothing wrong with leaving out sweeteneer entirely and doubling down on the flavoring components. Honey can scorch, so the temperature and timing can vary in your oven.
1/4 cup (choose 1)	coconut oil butter vegetable oil	Whatever you prefer, but do melt the coconut oil and butter first.
choose 1	1 whole egg 2egg whites soaked flax/chia seeds for egg equivalent	The flax or chia seeds are vegan, but not SCD compliant.
a total of 1 cup (choose as many as you like)	mashed fruit SCD yogurt appleseauce fruit juice coconut milk milk water	SCD yogurt plus a banana or mango is very tasty. Coconut milk alone can also replace the fat, but check to see if it contains gums. Fruit juice and applesauce can replace sugar. Check to be sure your liquids are SCD compliant.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake papers.

Combine dry ingredients and stir; combine wet ingredients and stir. Add wet to dry. You're looking for a consistency that glops off a spatula; if it sticks, add a bit more liquid.

Divide among the muffin cups and place in preheated oven for 14-18 minutes. Time varies on your oven and ingredients. Many ingredients will affect the finished color, so be sure to press the tops of the muffins, which should spring back. A toothpick should come out clean.

Let cool completely before freezing.

Maximizing Failure.

I just made some truly awful pancakes.

Don’t take my word for it. Look at them. The pictures are crummy because the pancakes are crummy. One side is like pale, crispy elephant skin, the other a wet blueberry, blubbery mass.

That blueberry there in the middle? It’s looking at you.

Okay, so what happened? I’ve made pancakes before, and I’ve made pancakes from this recipe before, and I’ve never had them turn out like this. What’s the deal?

Because I only changed one variable, I can only surmise that almond milk has heretofore undreamed of properties. Thinking about it (while crunching on my crappy pancakes), it makes sense---almond milk is essentially fine particulates of ground nut suspended in water, whereas cow’s milk is an emulsion of fat and water. I suppose that the almond milk contains fats as well, and nuts are high in vitamin E, but I don’t think they’re emulsified in almond milk. The point being is that the almond milk behaved like a nut---it toasted up real crisp.

When you attempt to convert recipes over to gluten free components, you will fail. The muffins will fall, the bread will be wet and shrink into a star shape, the cookies will crumble like sand. You will want to throw things and cry. You will fail spectacularly, because when you aim big, you can fall far.

Once upon a time I failed quite nicely making a pound cake recipe from Martha Stewart. I failed three times---and the ingredients for pound cake (copious amounts of butter, sugar, and eggs) are not cheap. After the third failure (a wet, sad cake that would not bake on the inside) I exploded with a lengthy invective that included only two words that weren’t curses: “mother” and “Yankee.” In retrospect, I’d like to apologize to my Northern friends; I was rude. But in addition to hair-curling epithets, this is what I learned: mixing techniques create the final texture of baked goods, pan size matters, baking powder was invented for a reason, and some recipes just plain suck.

The point is not to avoid failure. If you want to avoid failure, stay home. The point is to maximize your failures so that each successive attempt yields predictable and better results so that you are finally able to achieve your goal. I would like to provide you with a few key ways to maximize your failures at gluten free baking:

Timing is everything. If you have never tried to convert Aunt Edna’s German Chocolate Cake recipe, do not attempt it for Grandma’s 80th birthday celebration. You may get lucky and it turns out beautifully. You may end up with a sodden mess. Important celebrations with lots of witnesses are not a good time to experiment.

Research and compare. You want to convert a chocolate cake recipe. Is there a GF version already out there? What changes were made to the GF versions versus the one you have? Should you use xanthan gum or guar gum, how much, and what’s the difference? You may decide to forge ahead with your own recipe, but taking the time to see what other bakers have already done can give you some ideas for how to change your cherished recipes.

Write out what you intend to do before you do it. Pull out the original recipe and study it. Put sticky notes next to it. Then copy the recipe over on the sticky notes. Write out how much of which flours and how much xanthan and/or guar gum you intend to use. Experimenting by halving your recipe? Do not attempt fractional division on the fly! No one will care that you know the difference between the numerator and the denominator if the bread has the texture of a sofa cushion.

Take notes. Because there’s nothing like doing it perfectly and then forgetting what the hell you did.

Change only one variable at a time. If the first time you try to change a recipe you use GF flours, reduce the amount of sugar, use half butter half vegetable oil, and forget to add the xanthan gum, good luck in trying to figure out why the chocolate chip cookies could double as paving stones. Changing too many variables at once leads to unpredictable results, and you can’t be sure what lead to failure.

Vanilla ice cream covers a multitude of sins. If you ignore the first bit of advice and decide to treat your dinner guests to a brand-new rustic plum tart recipe because you want to impress them and the whole thing leaks, burning a sticky sugar mess on the edges of the crust, serve it with ice cream. Always keep vanilla ice cream on hand for dinner parties. Ice cream blanks out the brain receptors responsible for criticism. I have found that even lactose intolerant people are happy as a clam to eat ice cream so long as they can take Lactaid first. But it has to be good ice cream, not whipped air, skim-milk stuff. Save the guar gum for the piecrust.

Anyone who says that we should be happy about failure should be slapped—hard. Failure stinks. But failure can teach us a lot once we get over the stabbity feelings that accompany it. I can giggle about my pancakes because I know what I did wrong, and I know I can do better next time. But that pound cake thing? Grrr…

I’ve Been Poisoned! Wheat in Chicken Stock?!?

I screwed up. That’s how I found out I screwed up big-time.

I whip through the grocery store like a whirlwind. I plan my menus weekly and arrange shopping lists by grocery aisle. There are times when I grab something off the shelf and don’t even stop the cart. And I’m a real hoot to go to the store with on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (I like to watch people in the baking aisle stare at flour and sugar like deer in headlights). I am an Experienced Shopper.

I’m gonna blame it on the old guy that was standing there minding his business. He stood in the stocks and soup section, about two feet in front of the shelves. I suspect he was just trying to read the labels. I feel for him, because as far as I’m concerned, they all look the same, and I can’t read the tiny print with my glasses, either. I said, “excuse me,” and snuck my hand in front of him for a quart of chicken stock. Except I screwed up and grabbed vegetable stock. Which I did not discover until I got home.

It was no big deal, really. I knew I could use it for something else, it’s just that I don’t usually buy vegetable stock; when I want it I make my own. Well, maybe I wouldn’t have to, if Swanson’s brand was any good. Except that buried in a huge list of ingredients as part of a sub-list under “yeast-extract” was wheat. Only it wasn’t called out under the list of ingredients as required by the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004. (Like under the ingredients label on peanut butter you see “Allergen Information: Contains Peanuts” and everybody thinks, “Um, duh?”) Vegetable stock? Wheat? I can’t eat that. I took it back to the grocery store for a refund and went to get me some chicken stock.

But a Funny Feeling came over me.

I poured over ingredient lists. All the boxed Swanson’s chicken broths I saw contained wheat. I’ve been eating that chicken broth at least once a week for, dear God, years. I mean, I eat soup for breakfast...

Well then. This explains a few things (like PMS and fatigue and “digestive upset,” to name the tactful symptoms).

I went online and found out that Swanson’s is owned by Campbell Soup. If I had known that, then I would have known better than to buy Swanson’s; to the best of my knowledge there is no Campbell Soup that is wheat free. I used their customer feedback option to leave what I fully confess was a rather ranty little email, basically wailing that I’d been poisoning myself and WHY didn’t they use the allergen labeling system according to law and WHY was there wheat in chicken stock in the first place?

They sent back this very level-headed reply:

Ms. Marianne Richardson, we received your message and appreciate your taking the time to contact Campbell Soup Company.

The Campbell Soup Company follows all government regulations regarding the labeling of our products. In the case of the top 8 allergens (peanuts, tree nuts, dairy, eggs, fish, wheat, soy and shellfish) we list those ingredients in the product ingredient statement, no matter how small the amount might be. We do not include any of those items under the broader listings of "spices" or "natural flavors". We recommend that consumers always check the ingredient statement and evaluate the product based on the statement.

In regards to possible cross contact between products, we use an extensive and effective sanitation procedure in between different processing operations, and efforts are made to prevent any possible cross contact to the greatest practical extent.

Thank you for visiting the Campbell Soup Company website.

Campbell Soup Company Web Team

Which is basically true. My understanding of the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act was faulty and I had no one but myself to blame. (But they still didn’t answer why there’s wheat in chicken stock, which is a dumb thing to have in there. So says me. ::Flounce::)

I guess I’m not the only once wondering what’s up with wheat in chicken stock. Ms. Alison St. Sure, blogging over at Sure Foods Living (Practical advice for living with celiac disease, gluten intolerance and food allergies) has a wonderful post titled, Does chicken broth contain gluten, milk, soy? Yes. If only I’d seen her site! She did all the legwork and has listed some major brands of chicken stocks and what allergens they contain. It’s a nice site; by all means, poke around it a while.

According to Ms. St. Sure's research, there are Swanson’s brands that are gluten-free, but they weren’t available at the grocery store I was at. And by then, it didn’t matter. Let’s just say I was feeling “off” about pre-packaged food. I dumped some tainted frozen lentil soup and kung pao chicken leftovers and asked MP to make some homemade chicken stock, which he did.

Unfortunately, stock is about as photogenic as clam chowder.

The moral of the story is: Don’t assume. Wheat gets put in everything, from herbal tea to ice cream. Manufacturing processes change. Even people who have been on a gluten-free diet for a long time can get nailed by hidden wheat.

Wheat sucks. I’ve got the T-shirt to prove it.

New England Clam Chowder

I am totally excited about spring. However, March doesn't fool me one bit. It's brisk out there. It's best to be prepared. There will be days that require something warming for both the body and soul.

New England clam chowder should do the job nicely.

As a soup, it flows into the cold nooks and crannies of your body and warms it. As a chowder, it provides something substantial. I'm big on soup for breakfast; it's porrigey and warming, and it contains a lot of nutrition in a small amount of food. You can't beat throwing a pre-portioned block of soup into the microwave for speed and ease. Clam chowder is what I want on those blustery mornings where I'm not really sure I wanted to get out of bed in the first place.

The recipe I use is from Cooks Illustrated and can be found here... sort of. You need to have a subscription to access the recipe, but the discussion of their chowder vision is interesting. I'm not about to mess with the Cooks Illustrated business model or break copyright rules, so I can't exactly print it out for your perusal, but you can also find it in The Best Recipe. Really, with what I'm about to tell you, you can take any clam chowder recipe and make it your own.

Fat
Typically that means salt pork or bacon. I'm fond of bacon—salt pork can be difficult to find. Bacon can be purchased then frozen in 3-4 ounce bricks and thawed when you want it. (Do be sure the bacon is gluten-free, if that's a concern.) If you want to avoid meat/pork products, use half olive oil half butter. You'll be missing out on some flavor, but I understand how these things go.

Vegetables
This depends on where you hail from. I suspect the purist wants only onions. I myself like a few stalks of celery. I suppose if you were to go that far, you may as well add a carrot and have a mirepoix, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I've had clam chowders that did, and they were lovely—I've even added half a red pepper into mine—but it's just not part of my chowder vision. Any time you sauté vegetables for a soup like this, you want to do it long and slow. Onions need time to get golden and develop their sugars. If stuff starts to brown on the bottom of the pan, good! You’ll scrape that up later when you add your liquid (but if it bothers you too much, cut back on the heat and add a few tablespoons of liquid to the onions. But let them brown!)

Thickener
I like using brown rice flour to make a roux, but be careful—brown rice flour browns much faster than wheat flour. Two tablespoons ought to do it, but it depends on how thick you chowder vision is. I’ve seen recipes call for a half a cup of flour or more. This leads me to two subsets of the thickener, potatoes and dairy.

Potatoes
The traditional potato would be a red potato with the skin left on, but I have been experimenting with baking potatoes and gotten some stellar results. I like to use and immersion blender and puree the mixture halfway, before I add any clams. This allows the starch in the potatoes to break down and make the chowder quite a bit thicker. The CI recipe is specifically looking for a potato that doesn’t do this, but... It all depends on what you want. Using a starchy potato and blending part of the soup is a great way to thicken the soup and give it mouth feel without using heavy cream or a lot of flour.

Dairy
The CI recipe uses heavy cream. I take issue with that. While I have no problem with heavy cream, too much fat in the mouth tends to deaden the flavors, and in this instance, I really feel you'd be better off with heal-and-half or whole milk. Clearly if you're trying to make a lower-fat version, you’ll be better off skipping the cram and thickening with starchy potatoes, blending, and perhaps using a bit more flour in the roux or less liquid for the stock. Still, entire regional variations are based on what version of dairy is used—don’t be afraid to experiment!

Clams
This is the part that freaks people out. "I don't know anything about clams!" "I can't get fresh clams!" Nope, won't wash. You can make lovely chowder with canned clams. But there are a few things you do want to look for:

The fewer ingredients on the can, the better. Try to avoid canned clams with a lot of phosphates as preservatives. I've found canned clams with citric acid as the preservative work wonderously well. Same with clam juice—the fewer ingredients, the better.

Clams are mollusks. They have all their bits thrown together under the shell, and when they're processed, all those bits end up in the can. You might not want to think too hard, is what I'm saying. Although do keep an eye out for shell fragments.

I actually do have access to fresh clams. When I asked how much, in round about figures, seven pounds of littleneck clams might cost, my fishmonger told me he didn't sell clams by the pound, but by the dozen—and it worked out to $50. If you have access to fresh clams cheaper than this, marvelous! If you're not quite ready to blow $50 on a soup, then canned clams will set you back about six bucks.

Spicing
Canned clams and clam juice both contain salt, so consider that before you follow any recipe's recommendations for salting. That said, I feel like if you don't salt the potatoes while they're boiling, the soup won't ever taste right. A little during and then, when the soup is finished, do the final adjustment. There's nothing wrong with keeping the salt content on the low side and letting others salt as they will.

Pepper, however, is a must. If you've never ground your own peppercorns, now is the time. I think chowder should be peppery, but this means different things to different people. Again, pepper to the not-quite-there and then pass the grinder.

Chowder is a lot more exciting to eat than to photograph. It's um... white and lumpy. Don't be fooled. Beneath this bland exterior is a rich and satisfying flavor experience. Crackers are an absolute must. Glutino has a decent cracker for soups, but just to eat it out of hand it has a strange aftertaste, plus they're a bit pricey. I like the Ener-G brand myself. Or heck, make your own crackers! This chowder certainly deserves it.

The link below goes to a page of several different regional recipes that vary in complexity from crock pot to fresh clams. If you are of a more analytical bent, Cooking for Engineers has a great walk-through for clam chowder as well. The important thing is to try one. March can be cruel with those blustery winds, so fortify yourself. You’ll be happy as a clam.

Take me to New England clam chowder nirvana!