I came home with some gluten free all purpose flour, which I stored away nicely and promptly forgot… and also some gluten free brownie mix which I did make up and was thrilled that it tasted so much like my beloved pink-box No Pudge brownie mix.
Then, in January, pretty much gave up grains and never did get back to that gluten free all purpose flour UNTIL last Tuesday…
The Captain’s lovely sister and her husband were going to be in town for a couple of days as he had a work conference here…and we had them to dinner on Friday evening. We were so excited to see them – I wrote about visiting them in North Vancouver last year, and we just don’t get together often enough. I wanted everything to be just perfect for their visit.
I worked on a very simple menu so that I could visit with them instead of spending the evening cooking. She eats gluten free and has a few food allergies… I am on another Paleo Challenge right now (although will be enjoying some wine) and the 2 men pretty much eat everything, as far as I know. A bit of a challenge, but not insurmountable by any stretch of the imagination and I was really happy to give it a shot!
When I shopped on Tuesday morning I thought I would pick up some gluten free chocolate chip cookies from the bakery department of my local market… but they didn’t have any, and I didn’t want to take the chance on oatmeal (even gf) and I am not sure if my SIL eats macadamia nuts and white chocolate so I came home without any.
Then I remembered the gluten free all purpose flour tucked away…so when I got home I took it out and read the label to refresh my memory about adding xanthan gum or guar gum to take the place of the gluten in the flour mixture.
Then I turned to the internet to find a recipe… many of the ones I found called for mixing your own flours, but finally I found one that actually called for the flour I had on hand. The picture of the cookies looked pretty good… so I decided to give them a try.
The recipe calls for vegetable shortening, but I opted to use butter instead.
I got out my ancient hand mixer and creamed 1/2 cup of butter in a large bowl. Then I added 6 Tbs of white sugar and 6 Tbs of dark brown sugar to the bowl and turned on the mixer again. I beat and beat and beat and beat… but my butter-sugar mixture never got any lighter and creamier.
I finally gave up and turned the mixer off and was about to crack the egg into the bowl and carry on… but for some reason, I stuck my finger into the batter, and tasted it instead… I don’t know why. I never do that! But it’s a darn good thing I did, cause the little bit I put into my mouth tasted just awful… it was SALTY! I must have used white salt instead of white sugar… no wonder it wouldn’t fluff up when I beat it. Argh!
So, that all went into the garbage and then I washed my hands and the mixer blades, got out a clean bowl, clean measuring spoon, clean spatula, and started over. Good thing I hadn’t wasted my small supply of g-f flour in that mess.
After that, it was smooth sailing. The Captain agreed to be my cookie tester and although chocolate chip cookies are not his favorite, he was very willing to have a few more after the initial tasting… I had to hide the rest in the back of the freezer so there would still be some come Friday, but he is certainly not above eating frozen cookies if he should find them… so I ended up baking him some oatmeal raisin for himself.
And I also made up some new Almond Meal Raisin and Pumpkin Seed cookies… another post to come…
If you would like to make some Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies for yourself or someone you love, and you have gluten free all purpose flour available, check out the recipe and the instructions on this page. I actually got 34 cookies out of my batch.
And yes, it did turn out to be a lovely evening... and it flew by much too quickly!
Have you ever made a big mistake in your kitchen like I did? It would make me feel so much better if you would share it with me….
Aha! So that's why you were looking for kitchen disaster stories. I'm always good for a few. :-)
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