Jam for Jews

There are some people who enjoy baking. For me, even before cutting out wheat and sugar, I was never very good at it. Most of my baking happened during grad school when I was stressed out and sick of reading about abused children or schizophrenia. My roommates would wonder, "If we stress her out, she'll make us cookies. Should we....?"

Now, it's a huge challenge to bake anything. I found some delicious gluten-free Glutino bagels and that has pretty much satisfied my "bread" cravings. I wouldn't mind some pizza dough or a good BLT, but other than that I don't miss bread too much.

So far my efforts have been disasterous. I decided to cook for Anneke's baby shower and almost had a meltdown over the sad hot cross buns that never made it past "glue in the bottom of the bowl" form. A few weeks ago I made some anise cookies that tasted like soap. But in the spirit of cooking from scratch, I can't just run over to the Flying Apron (excellent gluten-free and sugar-free bakery ten blocks from Mike's house) every time I want a cookie!

I'm beginning to appreciate just how versatile wheat flour truly is: it has a mild flavor that can work with anything from chocolate to chipotle, it stays moist but not crumbly even when baked, and it is so easy to work with (rolling, balling, slicing, thickening, etc.)

The same goes for sugar--its chemical properties are so easy to manipulate. It sweetens without overpowering like honey or agave, it's dry so you don't have to adjust the wet ingredients, you can make CARAMEL!!! (I love caramel. I can't give it up.) And have you ever tried to make icing with honey? It's tragic.

Since we are replacing two of the most versatile ingredients with something I can tolerate, it's naturally grounds for disaster. I've noticed a few tips that can help:


-Always make the batter wetter than you think necessary because wheat-free flour tends to crumble. This might mean giving up on cookie cutters.
-Sweetening with juice is a great idea--carrot and orange work especially well.
-Oat flour is the closest to wheat flour. Rye makes everything the consistency of concrete. (By the way, oats and rye are not gluten-free. Don't feed them to your celiac friends.)
-Thickeners like xantham gum or guar gum are great and don't add a funny taste.

For Hanukkah, I gamely tried to make cookies again. I used some honey-sweetened blackberry jam that my sister Julia made when she was here. I also made the dough a LOT wetter than required. They came out of the oven looking cute but tasting very bland, so I spooned some agave syrup over the top and stuck them back in the oven.

My brother's verdict? "It's sort of like eating tasty sawdust. It's tasty, but very sawdusty."

Oh well, I'll try again later. Or I might leave the baking to Mike, who really has a gift for it. By the way, here are pictures from Hanukkah:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/katehallman/sets/72157611907200982/