Knox Knoxy - The everyday art of gluten-free baking: 6 fail-proof flour bends and 125 savory & sweet recipes

Published in 2014 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang
An imprint of ABRAMS

Text copyright 2014 Karen Morgan
Photographs copyright 2014 Knoxy Knox

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014930929

ISBN: 978-1-61769-060-0

Editor: Holly Dolce
Designer: Danielle Young
Production Manager: Katie Gaffney

Stewart, Tabori & Chang books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.

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THIS BOOK IS FOR EVERYONE, GLUTEN-FREE OR NOT, WHO LONGS TO CRACK THE GLUTEN-FREE CODE AND LEARN HOW TO MASTERFULLY BAKE AND COOK AS A CHEF FOR THE MODERN AGE.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

In the summer of 2006, I got off a train in Nans-Sous-Sainte-Anne, France. Id come to do a guest stint as baker and pastry cook at a boutique hotel, A lOmbre du Chteau. Unlike the other visiting chef engaged for that season, I hadnt trained at La Varenne, or any other cooking school. Still in my twenties, I came armed only with what Id taught myself about cooking, a stack of boxes with CULINARY LIBRARY Sharpied on their exteriors, and a good supply of the American audacity Europeans love to laugh at (but quietly envy).

In the shadow of the chteau, as the hotels name translates, I served up my takes on French classics. At the close of each evening, the hotels patrons requested that I step out of the kitchen into the dining room, where I was greeted with applause. Many times, shocking at first, I got a standing ovation. This enthusiastic reception confirmed that Id pulled off what Id come to do: fool some pretty savvy customers. Id been carrying out a stealth operation just as shadowy as the hotels name. All those raved-about delicacies Id been making? They were gluten-free. The boxes Id shipped in were filled not with cookbooks and gastronomical references, but with my arsenal of wheat-free flours.

My greatest satisfaction came in hearing, again and again, that my pastries and cakes were not merely as good as those the patrons knew from other kitchens, but were in fact better. In gluten-free cooking, in those early days, this was not merely unheard ofit was believed to be impossible. Id taken the guest shot at the hotel looking for an unbiased verdict, understanding that the best way to get it was to put my recipes forward without the gluten-free label.

Since the blind test had vindicated my methods, I went ahead and confessed. The hotels owner expressed both astonishment and admiration. Word got out, and more taste-testers arrived to find out for themselves. They all posed the same question: What was my secret?

The only answer I could muster at the time probably sounded evasive: Endless trial and error. Every cake, pie, loaf, tart, roll, and brioche my fans marveled at was the endpoint of countless experiments conducted back home, as Id zeroed in on the just-right combinations of ingredients to adapt the classics. Getting to that sublime first bite, my family, friends, and I had to grimace through a bakers dozen of rubbery, crumbling, adobe-brick or hockey-puck attempts. Each recipe, once perfected, involved multiple flours, meals, and starches in place of plain old all-purpose wheat flour.

So my secret was that of many other kids who cut their teeth on the streets: dogged experimentation and a stubborn refusal to give up until I got exactly what I was after. Whenever I tried to describe how I came to a gluten-free adaptation of a time-honored favorite, I sounded, even to myself, like a mad scientist. It wasnt until I began teaching regularly that I realized how complicated my process really was and vowed to make my discoveries accessible to the home chef. So, I gave myself a new challenge: figure out the method to my madness.

Thankfully, my remaining time in France got me going on the right track. I cant remember the day, but in my memory, the breakthrough came as a cumulative realization. The hotels kitchen maintained a supply of flours I had no use for. Each time I stepped into the pantry to restock from my well-hidden boxes of gluten-free alternatives, those conventional flours stared back at me. This was not just one bin labeled FLOUR, or even two, but more than a dozeneach containing a different flour prized for its individual characteristics. Eventually, I got it. And it hit me like a tuning fork struck right on my head. Of course! There is no such thing as all-purpose flour, unless your purposes begin with making Play-Doh and end with hanging wallpaper.

Even when working with flours made from wheat alone, French cooks and bakers rely on a range, each having a density, texture, flavor, and aroma that make it best for distinctive uses. One flour suits baguettes, while another works for choux paste; a self-respecting boulangerie makes its croissants with a particular flour, grown and milled to pretty exact specifications. Specific and important, a phrase Id heard repeatedly among the native chefs, started to make sense.

My own experience had, in fact, shown me the same thing. Gluten-free cooking, at its best, relies on specific flours for specific purposes. Precision in these choices has to be extra high, as tolerances, once we leave gluten behind, are low. A tablespoon more or a tablespoon less of the single-grain flour going into a yeast-raised wheat bread wont make a huge difference. But a tablespoons variation in sorghum flour used in a gluten-free combination with rice flour and tapioca starch has a huge impact on what comes out of the oven. Minor changes swing the balance between delicate crumb and Mmm ... chewy ... like damp cardboard.

).

But back to the cool limestone cave beneath A lOmbre du Chteau: I did have a method, I saw, and a very simple one at that, but it would take me seven years to boil it down to something I could teach and put in a book.

I spent much of that time up to my elbows in more experimentation. Thankfully, my mad-scientist days are behind meat least for nowand Im happy to say that as a result, you can skip the endless approximations and tragic mistakes and get right to the good stuff. I worked out my six blendsBiscuit, Donut & Fritter, Pie & Pasta, Cookie Jar, Cake & Muffin, and Bread & Pizza. Theyre combinations of flours ideally suited to each of the major sections of baking and cooking. Each blend is tailored to a given range of American classics, but they also work extremely well for all manner of international baked goods and main dishes, too. So no matter what level of culinary genius you may happen to be at, these blends will come to life in your hands. Theyre the starting point for this book and anchor all its recipes.