Actually, it is a big problem. It is hard and makes you want to cry sometimes. And it makes for a very hungry girl whose cravings can be obscene. Moments like these can turn a bright woman into a ravaging monster who needs to be fed carbs NOW!!!
I want to share recipes that have turned out well as I have been on this journey for a couple years now. My four year old daughter has sensitivities to wheat and dairy. For about a year I thought i did too, which is when I was that desperate monster.
My recipes will be adaptations of ones I comes across online, in magazines and in cookbooks. They may include oat flour, which can effect those with the gluten sensitivity. I believe oats aren't so much the problem (they don't contain gluten as far as I know, but make sure to research this yourself) but they are usually processed on the same equipment, so gluten gets in there. So where I use oat, you can change it.
Today I altered a recipe for Coffee Cake Muffins and it turned out gooood! So here's our first recipe, and just in case I get caught for almost-plagiarizing, the original recipe is in a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, but I've changed it quite a bit.
INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups flour mixture (use at least 3 different flours; I used 1/3c. each millet, tapioca, and garbanzo, and 1/2c. oat flour)
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk (I used 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar plus enough rice milk to make 1 cup)
1/8 cup applesauce
1/8 cup canola oil
1 egg
So basically mix all the dry ingredients in one big bowl, whisk all the wet ingredients in another bowl, then mix the wet into the dry with a whisk. Pour into greased muffin cups--mini muffins are tasty because then you put the topping on and there's less muffin to more topping and it makes a nice crunch.
Crumb Topping:
1 Tablespoon each: millet flour, tapioca flour, oat or garbanzo flour
3 generous packed Tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3 Tablespoons butter or margarine, for dairy free desires
3 Tablespoons chopped hazelnuts
Mix together good. First I used a pastry cutter to mix, but then I realized it needed to be mixed better in order to get the butter into all of the flour so I used my fingers. Otherwise there's dry portions of flour in your crumb topping and it doesn't bake well. Once I forgot the sugar in this mixture, so it was like salty flour on top of my coffee cake and it wasn't so good.
Now put a bit of this topping on each muffin, then bake till your muffins are done--dark golden is good. It probably took 15-20 minutes, but I wasn't paying attention. I forgot about them so they came out dark golden but they were yummy this way.
My muffins did not turn out dry. Now, with wheat free baking sometimes your baked goods never bake. You can bake them forever, but the batter stays wet and mushy and doesn't turn solid. Wheat free baking is truly a science, one I don't have alot of patience for. I like this recipe because it baked nicely and I didn't need any additions of xanthan gum or guar gum, or any other stabilizers. The experience is much simpler. I mean, you already have to have a million different flours to replace your wheat with, who wants to also have to buy other weird things? Plus it gets costly. I have found if you can still use eggs (baking without them is a bitch) and you use several different flours, sometimes the alternative baked good is fantastic. And if you have to replace dairy, rice milk (milder in taste than soy, also easier on your digestion) and margarine are the same as butter and milk. They don't change the baking at all, as long as you are using high fat margarine. Shortening is another good replacement for butter. Then reason I bring this up is gluten and wheat intolerances often go hand-in-hand with dairy issues.
Good luck on your journey!
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