Cup4Cup

Developed by Chef Lena Kwak, with the support of Chef Thomas Keller of The French Laundry, Cup4Cup is designed to replace regular wheat flour "cup for cup" in gluten free baking.  With such prestigious people behind it, developed exclusively for Williams-Sonoma, and with the claim of doing everything wheat flour can do in most gluten free recipes, Cup4Cup has been getting a lot of attention recently.

Cup4Cup made it onto my Christmas wishlist but I couldn't wait until Christmas morning to open this gift. Cup4Cup is comprised of cornstarch, white rice flour, brown rice flour, milk powder, tapioca flour, potato starch, and xanthan gum.  A three pound bag will run you almost $20.  This is an awfully steep price to pay, but for all the hype I wanted to try it anyway.

With my three pounds of Cup4Cup I was able to make:

This banana bread.

These snickerdoodles.

And this corn bread.

All three turned out pretty well.  The banana bread and cornbread were a bit gummier than I'm used to my baked goods turning out.  I'm not sure if this was a result of the xanthan gum in the mixture, but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing.  My only other critique is the breads dried out within a day or two.  With a little butter in the toaster oven they were still good, though.  The snickerdoodles were perfect.  Overall I was pretty happy with Cup4Cup.  At $20 a bag I'm not sure I'll be using it in my everyday baking, but it is a good mix to have around and for those not as comfortable mixing flours in the kitchen.

Have you tried this?  Is it worth the money?  How'd your treats come out?

Legal Sea Foods - Philadelphia Airport

Flying from Philly to Pittsburgh last week for work I found myself with a few hours to kill in the Philadelphia airport.  I decided to treat myself to lunch at Legal Sea Foods because I knew they had a gluten free menu.  It's pretty rare to find gluten free food in an airport, so this was a nice treat.

What wasn't a nice treat was seeing the calories listed for each item.  I know they legally have to do this, but wow is it a downer.  I was only going to get a salad because I didn't want to pay $30 for lunch in an airport, but having to decide between the calories of my meal and the price of my meal was rather unfortunate.  I ended up getting a cesar salad with grilled shrimp.  It was very good and even had gluten free croutons on it.  It also added an extra 1,000+ calories to my day.  (Salads, by definition, should not be a thousand calories!) Like when I ate at Legal Sea Foods in Boston, I was served warm gluten free roles and the manager brought over my meal and informed me that they took my food allergy very seriously.  A nice touch I think.

Then I was off to Pittsburgh.  I made sure to utilize the hotel gym when I got there so I could eat dinner without exploding.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Granola

Sunday morning I woke up to a recipe for pumpkin granola posted on my facebook page from an old college roommate.  Sunday afternoon I made this granola by Lisa at With Style and Grace.  Right after the granola I made the pumpkin spice muffins.  It was a day of pumpkin.

I love granola.  An endless supply of "low fat" cafeteria granola greatly aided in making me fat in college.  Due to the fact that it is actually not as good for you as you'd like to think, and that gluten free granola is absurdly expensive, I tend to steer clear of it except every once in a while.  But I couldn't pass up the chance to make it on my own.  I could control the amount of fat that went into it and it would be much cheaper than buying it.  Win win.

And without further ado, here's the how:

Ingredients:
4 cups gluten free oats (if you aren't gluten free make this recipe using regular oats)
1 cup chopped almonds
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/3 cup applesauce
2 tablespoons maple syrup (as a Vermonter, I beg you to use the real stuff)
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup dried cranberries

Directions:
1) Pre-heat oven to 325.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

2) In a large bowl combine the oats, almonds, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, and salt.  In another bowl combine the brown sugar, pumpkin, applesauce, maple syrup, and vanilla.  Add this mixture to the oat mixture until everything is coated.

3) Spread the granola mixture onto the baking sheets.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, then stir to ensure it bakes evenly.  Bake for another 20 minutes.

4) Remove from the oven and let cool before mixing in the cranberries.  Store in an airtight container.

I was pretty amazed at how easy this was to make.  Lisa bakes hers in two batches and suggests you either do the same or use two sheets.  I must admit I only own one baking sheet and was too lazy pressed for time to do two batches.  It was probably a mistake because the granola didn't turn out quite as crunchy as I like, but it was still good, don't worry.  Not only was it good, but now I have a ton of it!

Speaking of having a ton of it, you might notice there is no oil in this recipe.  That's good for not making you fat.  It has a pumpkin taste, but not overbearingly pumpkin.  Who knew making granola could be so easy?  Thanks Margaret!

Better Batter Brownie Mix

I've been meaning to try a Better Batter mix for awhile now.  I bought the fudge brownie mix last weekend at G-Free NYC and whipped them up last night.  They were indeed fudgy and delicious.

The reason I've been wanting to try this particular brand is because I came across their site a few months ago and saw something I really liked about them: they offer financial aid for families with autistic children or families that meet the federal guidelines for food aid.  For those of you that don't know, a gluten free diet has shown to significantly help children with autism.  With the price of gluten free food generally so high, I think this is a really great program.  I don't qualify for either, but the fact that Better Batter has this program is enough to make me want to support them.

They have an all purpose flour mix, a seasoned flour mix (think fried chicken), a pancake & biscuit mix, a yellow cake mix, a chocolate cake mix, and the fudge brownie mix I tried.  The brownie mix was around $6.50, which is comparable or cheaper than other brands.  Go ahead, try their mixes and feel good about your purchase when you do.

G-Free NYC - A Gluten Free Store!

A fully gluten free store just opened in Manhattan.  This is very exciting for several reasons, the main one being that I don't have to worry about checking any labels to see if something is gluten free.  It is also exciting because they carry a lot of my favorite products, as well as a lot of products I've been wanting to try.  They have a large selection of frozen foods as well as shelf stable.  They also get baked goods delivered from Tu-Lu's every morning.

I've been twice in the last week and I got a bunch of goodies.  Most of them are pictured below.  I had never tried any of them before.  I also got a box of soy sauce packets so I can throw a few in my purse instead of lugging a bottle around with me when I want to go for sushi.  I have already used these and have deemed them a great purchase.  I tried the granola as well and it is really good.  I got another box of it with cranberries and cashews.  Mmm.

This is the soy sauce.  Best purchase yet.

You can't see the prices in the picture very well, but the bread is $5.95, the granola $6.20 for 4 packets, the crackers $4.95, the dumplings $7.50 for 8 dumplings, and the mac and cheese $3.  I'm too lazy to get up and see how much the granola bar is.  Even though the prices seem - and are - high, they are about the same, and in some instances lower, than I've seen at other stores.  (This is pretty depressing.  You pretty much have to be rich to be gluten free.  I'm not.)  Kudos to these folks for not bumping their prices up even higher though, because it is an especially specialty, specialty store.

So, go to this store.  Support them in their gluten free mission.  I know I will.

G-Free NYC

g-freenyc.com
77A West 85^th Street
(between Columbus & CPW)
New York, NY 10024

Telephone: 646.781.9770
Email: info@g-freenyc.com

  

Hours

Monday: Closed
Tuesday – Friday: 11am-7pm
Saturday – Sunday: 10am-6pm

The High Price of Gluten Free Living

Besides generally sucking, being gluten free is really expensive.  This just seems rude to me because I don't even want to do it.  Here is an example to demonstrate the high price of gluten free living: flour.

Flour is a basic staple in everyday life.  It is the base for bread, pasta, pizza, and most desserts.  A 5 pound bag of regular all purpose flour in the grocery store runs for around 3-5 dollars depending on the brand.  This seems reasonable.

I recently purchased Namaste Gluten Free Perfect Flour Blend.  It is a mixture of sweet brown rice flour, tapioca flour, arrowroot flour, sorghum flour, and xanthan gum.  A 3 pound bag cost me $14.99.  I couldn't bare to buy this myself and put it on my mom's credit card (thanks mom!).

I also bought Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour.  It is a mixture of garbanzo bean flour, potato starch, tapioca flour, white sorghum flour, and fava bean flour.  A 1 pound 6 ounce bag cost me $6.99.  This also went on the credit card.  $22 for less than 5 pounds of flour is just absurd.

Pure foods, the house blend gluten free flour from Risotteria is a mixture of corn starch, brown rice flour, tapioca starch and potato starch.  A 2 pound bag cost me $9.  I don't have a picture of this, sorry.

The very first gluten free flour I bought was Arrowhead Mills Organic White Rice Flour.  This is just white rice flour and a 2 pound bag costs around $6.  This is the most reasonable of the bunch, but do not use this flour on its own.  It is very gritty and needs to be mixed with other flours if you are baking.

Because flour is the base of so many foods, and gluten free flour is so much more expensive, most gluten free products are therefore much more expensive than their gluten-filled counterparts.  Also, because it's such a niche market, the creators of these products can get away with their absurd prices because sometimes a girl just needs some bread.  (I love Tu-Lu's, but their loaves of bread are $10 - who can afford that!?)