Stir crazy and....

Woody girl

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Pastry making tip Toddy. Put your mixing bowl in fridge for 20 mins before starting to mix, then run your hands under cold water untill they are cool just before you start to rub in the fat. Hope that helps.
 
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Toddy

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It sounds very practical, but between gluten free flour and warm hands, pastry's okay, it's not brilliant, it's just okay.

I do find that rolling it out between two sheets of polybag works very well though....just like doing tortillas, use the lid of a pyrex casserole to press and sort of swirl around until you have an even disc. Keeps life simple with dough that doesn't have any gluten in it.
Works very well for oatcakes too or crackers made from crumbly mixes.

M
 

Robson Valley

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I use a pastry cutter and all-purpose flour for pie crust dough.
I don't need to touch it until the very end when I gather it all together.
I know enough now not to accidentally turn it into a paste from a dough.

For breads and pizza dough, I have got to warm up the flour or the yeasty-beasties go to sleep.
I hope this winter to experiment with other flours, pea and maize in particular. Quinoa is fabulous but costly.

Get into the Tabasco Sauce company website. They have a really good on line cook book using corn (maize).
 

Janne

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Gluten free?
Try flour from the classic grains Amaranth, Millet, Sorghum.
I am excellent eating gluten, but prefer the taste of these grains.

If you can not find flour of these grains, get a mill and never look back!

You will never get a good rise and subseqvent fluffiness of the bread, but loads and loads of flavour!

Corn/maize? Sweet. Ok for cakes imo.
I have bern told by a friend that the corn based cultures are using corn that is much less sweet that what is used by the Canadians and USAians.
He is Mexican. He uses a south american corn flour and his stuff is delicious.
 
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Toddy

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Here I buy Mexican masa harina. It's very good, smells wonderful as it cooks too.
Yeast rising is pretty easy I find, if you're struggling to find a nice warm draught free place to rise it, use the microwave. Give the dough occasional 8 to 10 second bursts and it'll thrive. The microwave keeps it warm and moist quite tidily out of the way. We used to use the old warming oven, but cookers rarely have those nowadays.

I do manage the fluffiness of bread using gluten free flour but it misses the chewy bite, and it goes gritty rather than crisp and stale. Most gluten free flour mixes are based on rice and potato flours. Millet's fine for somethings, but I'm not fond of it for bread.....my husband commented that we used to use it to feed the budgie :) and having grown amaranth and gone through the hassle of winnowing it, I reckon those South American's were starving to have to grow that stuff as a crop.

For cooking bannock though, the commercial gluten free flour mixes are fine. Pastry is easy outdoors in the cold, but in a warm kitchen, I rather wish I still had a cold scullery.

Bannocks are brilliant food :) add whatever you have, or choose to have, and it'll be good food, from sweet to savoury.

M
 

Janne

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Yes, that real mex stuff is what he uses ( and gave me). Makes white tortillas. He makes Tortillas, I make savoury crepes.
Buckwheat flour makes fantastic crepes too. Far more flavour than wheat. If you like fish eggs, like we do, it is super duper easy to make rear Russki blini.


Amaranth is a local crop here. The seeds are eaten ( not sure in what form or how though, need to ask a local) plus the leaves too.
They call it Callaloo, and is more nutritious and tastier than Spinach.
We eat a lot of it.

I am from a low Wheat, high Rye and Barley culture. Mom used to bake bread fom those flours, and to get the bread nice and sift ( still more compact than Wheat) she used to pour boiling water on the flourmix and let it sit. Then cool, add the rest and fo the bread.
 

Woody girl

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I've just made cornbread. It's more like a cake but certainly palatable in comparison to shop bought g f bread. I must try this in thecast iron thingumy on the camp fire. Sorry brain gone walkies you know what I mean... gosh I seriously can't think what it's called. I'll remember 10 seconds after I hit the post reply button:emoji_face_palm:
 

Robson Valley

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Check the Tabasco cook book for Dutch Oven corn breads. Another common name is "Johnny Cake."
They have forgotten more about corn than the rest of us will ever learn.
Put canned sweet corn in it and a few big shots of Jalapeno Tabasco sauce.
I need molasses for corn bread.
 

Woody girl

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I put cheese and sweetcorn in this one. Very tasty tho as I said very cake like. Very scrummy. Will be making this often. In fact I have a bring and share dinner party on Friday evening. This will be on the menu.along with a homity pie.... if the pastry works. Have been too busy today to try as yet.
 

Robson Valley

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It's bound to be cake-like for 2 reasons:
1. The "shortening", the fatty part, kills off stringy proteins. That's why there's less fat, if any, in wheat breads.
2. Corn meal and flours have no gluten in the usual wheat sense to create a "fabric" in the baked product.

This is the Tabasco company recipe ( I'm so old, I have a paper cook book on the shelf!)
10" cast iron skillet with bacon fat, preheat oven to 375F.

DRY
1C all-purpose flour
2.5 tsp baking powder (not baking soda)
1C yellow corn meal
1/2 tsp salt

WET
1/2C corn oil (aka Mazola)
1C milk
2 eggs
1 12 oz can whole kernel sweet corn
Tabasco sauce of your choice and quantity. I'd use less than 2 tsp Jalapeno.

Mix the dry, mix the wet, add the dry to the wet and mix.
Load the skillet. Bake maybe 40 minutes on a middle rack.
 

Janne

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Sundowner, your ‘first try’ looks delicious!
Remember, we have changed the way we cook since the first attempt of cooking.
Speaking paleo times, bread was unleaved, and looked more like a thick crepe. Tough. Virtually tasteless. Full of demi ground kernels.

Your version is lightyears better, even if to fluffy!

There is a Swedish version of the Bannock, eaten by the folks in the remote areas, and last by the railway builders.
Gently fry fatty smoked bacon cut into small bits an a cast iron pan ( frying pan or D. Oven)
Do not remove the liquid fat!
Mix wheat and rye flour (50/50, but more rye is tastier) salt and water to a thick mix.

Pour over the fryed meat and fat. Cook on medium heat.

The more rye flour the more taste. The poorer people, the more rye. Wheat was expensive in Scandinavia in the old days

I like my corn to be popped. I make cornflour crepes maybe twice a year.

My son’s Beef Fajita is legendary.
 
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Janne

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To be frank, I have never done it outside my house, as I go light when in nature. Bacon is to heavy and messy.

But done the ‘kolbulle’ as it is called in Swedish many times in the kitchen or outside on the grill ( a bit tastier).

When I did the real nature stuff back in my young (-er) days, I used to do a version of a pan bread, similar to pizza dough bread.

Make a dough of flour, salt and water.
Cold pan
Drip some oil on the trangia pan, push down the dough into the pan, around one cm thick. Low heat, fry.
Turn. Fry a bit more.

I used to save some dough to use as bait on fishing hooks.

To be truthful this “bread” started as fish bait dough for me. I used to mix about 1/2 kilo of it for a week long fishing trip alone in the forests, but once the weather was so horribly awful I stayed in the tent for a couple of days and had nothing else to eat.
So I fried it. Then I did this ‘bread’ every time I went out.

I used to go out with only a bar of chokolate as emergency, a small bottle of cooking oil, salt, ground coffee and a can of worms and the dough, both for fishing and eating
No fish - at least something in the stomach.
 

Woody girl

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Used to do a similar thing years ago myself when homeless in the 70s. Fry it in a pan with some tomato sauce and cheese on top. Instant pizza!
 

Woody girl

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Just made choc cherry and walnut brownies with the dove farm flour. Ooh they are delicious . My baking has been revived. I'd given up untill now. I'm gonna be busy from now on!!!
 

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