Ah..... sweet smell or rather yummy smells of success!

Well, the cookies are made and the bread is made, think I will do the scones tomorrow. Hooray. I think the cookies need less sugar, my god talk about sweet and a sugar rush! But they are tasty, I converted an old recipe from the early, early 1900's for sugar cookies that had butterscotch bits added. I also added nuts. They needed to bake a bit longer than the recipe called for by about 3 to 4 minutes longer, but they came out very very good, and were the perfect consistency. You wouldn't know they were wheat free. YUM!

The bread..... I converted a recipe for buttermilk bread for the breadmaker. I did it by hand to determine how long rising would take and how long it took to bake it at 375 degrees. Not sure I had the buttermilk warm enough, so it took an hour to rise enough, not quite double in size so that I could be sure it would finish rising during the baking process and be a light enough bread. I figured as it was a larger loaf than the French bread recipe, that it might take longer to bake, so I set the timer at 45 minutes, nope it was done in 30 minutes, and had the perfect thump sound. Can't wait for it to cool a bit and try it warm with butter. YUM, I LOOOOOVE fresh baked bread.

Anyhow with hubby's prompting, as I am converting all these old recipes and most from my grandmother, he suggested I should write a cookbook with all the substitutions in it so that we can all adapt some of our favorite recipes to meet our needs. And things that would be simpler to make instead of looking daunting, or long and drawn out. I was very much into that idea as I love to find ways to make things simpler, simply because we don't all have the time to spend hours and hours in the kitchen. Hey the french bread recipe, takes one hour total from measure to out of the oven. I was impressed! I can make a loaf while I make supper and have fresh bread in the morning. The cookies today, took maybe 15 minutes from start to finish.

The fun part of the making and baking today was having to stand in what I call a kitchen full of Pirhanas. LOL The cats think I am making them some raw food or something with dairy for them, and the dogs are just the cleanup crew. God help you if you drop something and try to retrieve it, you might lose a finger. Sheesh, if I didn't know better, I might think they were starving, the lil' piglets. So needless to say it is a challenge to make anything in my kitchen, especially if you use the mixer or the boys (the cats) determine there is raw meat somewhere to be stolen. Although Mushy is more polite, he doesn't try to jump up on the counter, he will stand up on his hind legs and try to snag something that might fortunately have been left close to the edge so he can steal it that way. It's kind of funny to be working at the counter and see this paw reach up and feel around to see what he can steal.

Ah well, so far success, as long as I remember to make bread batter and not dough, and I know I cannot move it from the mixing bowl to the pan with fingers, LOL, it is much simpler to dump it into the bread pan, use the spatula to sort of fill in the pan, let it rise there and bake.

So my word to all those learning to live without wheat or gluten, is don't be discouraged, you can bake yourself, for much cheaper and make a loaf of bread cheaper than 4 bucks a loaf from the store for a tiny loaf. Even today's loaf maybe cost me a buck or so to make and took an hour and a half of my time. And there is something sooooooo very satisfying to make your own favorite recipe that you can still enjoy without the wheat. Bon Apetit!

Breakfast.... YUM!

Ok, I am now ok with the no wheat thing I think. :) The husband set this adventure into motion. He is a very considerate person, so has been trying to slowly make all the bulk stuff we bought that has wheat disappear from the house so I am not tempted and there won't be any in the house. Yesterday it was some of the case of frozen Eggo's :o) However..... LOL he left the Mrs Butterworth's on the counter, which has since left me with a craving for waffles or pancakes. So this morning I was on a mission. I went to the website where I get my gluten free flour mix from (Bob's Red Mill) and searched the recipes for Waffles. Specifically I wanted Buttermilk batter. Found the simplest one using the mix I use, and wrote it down. While the recipe called for milk, I used 1/2 milk and buttermilk, but found I needed a bit more milk to thin the batter out a tad. I thought about making waffles, but when I went to get the old waffle maker to clean up that was hubby's grandparent's, I decided I wasn't into dismantling it and cleaning it, I didn't want to wait. So, we went with the pancakes. Woo Hoo! Success! and we both had some and they tasted very good! Craving solved. YUM! I do think though next time, I might use about 1/8 cup less of the flour mix replacing it with tapioca flour, I like the fluffier texture the tapioca flour gives things. And overall either use a bit less flour or more milk to make it a bit thinner for pancakes. But they did taste yummy.

As I bake more with gluten/wheat free flours, I find I am preferring the taste of those baked goods, like the cookies, and breads. I just need to find some non wheat, non corn type egg noodles, I found a recipe to make them simply, but...... LOL without the pasta attachments for my mixer I think the recipe would be very labor intensive, and I just don't have enough counter space.

Well today's projects are to make bread (I am almost out of bread), Buttermilk scones (our favorites), and probably cookies, Hubby wants something with butterscotch chips in them. Hmmmm will have to search my cookie recipes and adapt one. I will work today on adapting my old flour recipes for these. But I have more confidence now that I know that it isn't bread dough, it's bread batter. :o) and the others are straight across substitutions pretty much.

Wish me luck! Will try to post later when I know how they've all turned out. I know the bread I'll have to do in the mixer and let it rise, no bread machine, mine doesn't have specific enough settings, and the quick cycle is too long on the rise cycle, so I end up with a very dense loaf because it fell. So, today is baking day!