Cicadas & Gluten Free Baking

  Happy Sunday, It's been a hot one here with high humidity-feels like a July day here instead of a May day.

  I finished up my shopping early this morning-left the house at 6 am and it was already very humid. Larry sleeps later these days so I set him up with his coffee in a thermos mug, and his greek yogurt-fruit-granola in a small wide mouth thermos so he would be all set up for the morning. I got back home around 8:30 and he had just started his breakfast so that worked out perfect.

  Here at the lake home we have been listening to the sounds of the cicadas. I think they hang out in the trees. Today they are very loud. When I went into  town I didn't hear them at all. I do see a few dead ones around our driveway. Back 15 years ago I think it was when we were living at the woods house-this cicada event was quite something. We could see the swarms of them and the noise was much louder than here at the lake.  

  Do you have the cicadas where you are living? I am thinking this event is mostly in rural areas, as they come out of the ground.

  I am changing my gluten free baking flour. 

     I had figured out on my own, probably back in the 80's that I had celiac disease. Back then the doctors had no clue what was wrong with me, one even insisted I had mono-ahh nope don't think so. When the test came back negative he didn't know how to help me.

    I figured it out  on my own with food elimination to see what was making me sick  If you don't know you have a gluten intolerance the gluten foods will destroy your digestive system and you continue to lose weight. When they hadn't figured out what this was in the past it was called wasting disease as you get thinner and thinner. That was happening to me until I figured.it out 

 So back in my younger days, there were no labels on store bought foods for gluten ingredients, so it was quite the process and research to figure out what to eat-and wheat is in soooo many store bought foods Don't remember what year the govt decided gluten in foods needed to be labeled. 

   I had started out mixing up my own flour blends for baking learning as I went a long back then. I did totally give up on trying to make yeast breads. I tried so many recipes and nothing gave me good results. Now I have found a really good  gluten free bread that most grocery stores carry now. 

    Over time Bob's red mill came out with their 1-1 gluten free flour blend and I have mostly been baking with that now, however doesn't work for yeasted breads. Most things like cookies, brownies, biscuits, quick breads and my pizza crust come out pretty good with that flour-and it is easy.

That flour blend has a lot of carbs in it though both white and brown rice plus other starches and xanth, gum.  I am not all the crazy about the xanth. gum but seems to be needed in gluten free baking--or not

Scrolling on Instagram last week,  I ran into a gluten free site and she has changed my mind to go back to mixing up my own gluten free flour blend again. She has figured out if you use a sweet brown or white rice or mochi we don't need xanth. gum . She says this will bake well for cakes, cookies etc but not breads. I haven't gotten into her site all the way to discover how she is baking breads.

  This site I found is From the Larder  she also has a Facebook group. She shares a lot of information and also recipes. If I had a chemistry type aptitude it would be easier to understand how she has combined flours to work for different things.  She shares  downloadable pages explaining all the different flours make from grains, nuts, etc.

  I don't know if I have any followers that need gluten free but I wanted to share her site as it is very informative. She is based in England and insists better accuracy to weigh by grams and not cups. I cans see why when I was mixing up the flour blend as some were more heavier than others.  

  I did set up my flour grinder on my kitchenaid mixer to grind the rice-I used to grind most of my flour and this set up does a good job and it's fun too  smiles

That's it for me, hope I didn't bore my readers too much.

  Happy new week ahead