tapioca-free baking, an unexpected challenge

An unexpected challenge today. My step-daughter suddenly told me that she always gets stomach ache every time she visits.  What was in my bread and cakes?  Well, the bread she ate this morning had my usual flour, so that was urid, tapioca and corn, and also had sweet potato and yeast and baking powder.  All of these are things she eats routinely except the tapioca.  I include tapioca in baked goods as it contributes to a smooth slightly chewy texture, and also, when pre-gelatinised, give excellent pre-baking elasticity, allowing doughs to be rolled super thin, and makes things more flexible after cooking too, as shown in the write up up the wraps.

I was rather startled by this, as she normally tucks into all my baked goods with gusto, sleeps well, and goes away declaring she feels refreshed from her visit.  I wasn't to worry about it, she said, she could just eat the other stuff.  I looked up on the internet and immediately found a stream of information from people who said the same thing, stomach ache not long after eating tapioca.  This was in addition to the information on how poisonous tapioca is if not prepared correctly.

Immediately I set about testing tapioca free recipes. I had to work with whatever I had in the house on an early Sunday morning.  Here are the first two, a cracker, with three variations, and a chocolate chip cookie.

Tapioca free flour mix
100g urid
50g buckwheat
50 cornmeal


Recipes
Crackers
50g flour
1/2 tsp olive oil
20 ml water  (add a little more if dough too dry)

Mix and knead together until smooth.
Roll out on floured board.

Add anything you like for flavouring.  The large crackers are the plain mix, the small scalloped ones have pepper in, and the other small ones are the pepper mix plus sunflower seeds.

Roll thin, place on baking sheet and cook at 180C until just tinged with brown.  Place on baking rack to cool.

These are crisp and very good.

Chocolate chip cookies
100g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
30g butter (I used a spreadable butter mix as hadn't any proper butter)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
40 g sugar
35g chocolate chips

Whisk flour and baking powder together.  Rub in butter to flour, add sugar and egg and vanilla, stir or squidge with hands to get an even quite stiff mix, then add chocolate chips.  Cook at 180C for about ten minutes until tinged with brown.  If you want them crisper turn the oven down and bake for longer.

I used dark chocolate chips, and that makes a cookie that is not very sweet. If you want a sweeter cookie increase the sugar and add milder chocolate chips.

These are crisp, not chewy as they would have been with the tapioca, but really very pleasant.

I was concerned that the buckwheat might give too much flavour, as I am not generally a fan of buckwheat except where I do specifically want the dark, dominant taste.  I included it because it does give a soft flexible crepe, as used in Brittany.  In this mix it doesn't dominate the flavour.

olive crackers

olive crackers

I posted a recipe and method for rosemary and olive oil crackers a little while ago.   Today's version is using up a jar of olive tapenade  This is quite a salty cracker but excellent served with some lactose free cream cheese and a dollop of the charred red pepper sauce.

Ingredients
150g gluten free flour ( 40% urid lentil, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
3/4 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp olive tapenade
1/4 tsp salt (I would leave this out next time)
1 tbsp olive oil
water to form stiff dough


Method
Mix all ingredients except for water until evenly dispersed.  I just whizzed it in the food mixer.

raw ingredients mixed except water

Add water slowly until the dough just begins to go into claggy lumps.

water added while stirring

If you pick it up in your hands it will compress into a firm dough.

cracker dough

Wrap in cling film until ready to use.


I use my pasta roller for crackers as it saves a lot of hard work.  Make a flat patty of dough and put it through the pasta roller several times at the widest setting.  To begin with it will fracture and fall in little bits.  Just collect them together and keep putting through until the dough forms a smooth sheet.  When it is making a sheet start making the roller narrower until you have dough the thickness you want.  I tend to put the dough through a few times in the in-between settings, folding the dough and putting it, fold first, through the roller.

Otherwise knead until flexible and roll as thin as you want and have energy for.

Cut to size, put on a un-greased non-stick baking sheet and cook at 170C (fan) for 7-8 minutes.

uncooked crackers

The crackers should just be tinged with brown.  Put on a rack to cool.  Store in an air tight container.  These crackers are very crisp and keep well.

I put cream cheese and red pepper sauce on a couple of these and left them out.  An hour later they still held their shape but were just beginning to get a bit soft.  This would make them suitable for pre-loading at a party.

loaded cracker

gluten free vegan Rosemary and Olive Oil Cracker recipe - thin and crisp

Rosemary and Olive Oil gluten free crackers

Two things combined to create these crackers.  A sudden yearning for crackers led to this recipe :
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/12/gluten-free-tuesday-easy-homemade-crackers.html . The second thing is my new pasta roller attachment for the food mixer.  


Anyone who has made anything with polymer clay will know that it tends to fracture and is hard to work with until it is kneaded, and a standard way to do this is to put it several times through a pasta roller. As my manual roller is now dedicated to polymer clay I have an electric one, which is such fun and so useful for these stiffer gluten free doughs.  Run a dough for crackers or pasta through a few times and you get a smooth transparent sheet without any real effort.  When you start the dough will tend to shatter and be irritatingly hard to control.  Just gather it up, reform a slab and pass through again, and after five or six passes it will be smooth and stay together and you can get a sheet of dough a meter long it you can hold it one piece.


Of course I didn't follow the recipe, but it did lead to a rosemary and olive oil cracker that is very thin and crunchy and crisp.  I don't yet know how well they will age - I'll add to this post later when I find out.




Ingredients:
100 g flour ( 40%urid, 40%tapioca, 20%cornmeal)
1/2 tsp baking powder (check gluten free)
1/4 tsp chopped rosemary
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp lemon juice
water to mix to firm dough

cracker ingredients

Method:
Stir all ingredients except water together until evenly mixed.  Add water until you get a dough you can just squeeze together.  It will be a bit tough and hard to shape at this stage.  If you don't have any helpful machinery kneed it until it gets pliable.  I use the pasta roller attachment on my Kenwood mixer.

On the next pass this sheet of dough became three times as long and still all in one piece.  Make thin sheets and either cut to shape in squares and re-roll the trimmings, or just slice the dough into shards with the ragged edges - they taste just as good and look interesting. 


Bake at about 170C far, 180C, for about six minutes until they are just tinged with gold.  Place on rack to cool then store in an air tight jar.  I don't yet know if they will lose their crispness when stored, but a quick reheat will fix that if necessary.  I'll add to the blog when I know.


The crackers have little air bubbles and speckles from the rosemary.  You can of course vary the flavourings any way you like.