Really the only thing sadder is how long it's been since I last wrote anything on this blog! It's been so long I was forgetting what it looked like. And it's not entirely for lack of inclination, more lack of literal food for thought. Who wants to cook when it's 80 degrees out? Well not I, and so I avoided the oven, and then even the stove top, forgoing even the boiling of water for tea, (let the bloody sun do the work!). Ahhh, but then... veggies from heaven, (ie, the overflow of squash and tomatoes from home gardens), began to appear, and I was once again inspired. With the unexpected gift of a dozen happy chicken eggs my cooking muse was awoke. I needed to create something to pay tribute to this abundance of beautiful food. Those eggs whispered to me, with their yolks so rich they were nearly orange. They said... quiche.
The problem with quiche is that it requires a crust, and I had never made a crust, of any sort, be it wheaty or GF, and had only the vaguest idea of where to start... like with some kind of flour. Yikes!
So I did what any cluless person does these days... I asked Google for the answer, lol. I ended up with nearly as many different GF pie crust recipes as there are people who might like to eat them, (perhaps a slight exaggeration), but what most of them seemed to have in common was the use of rice flour. Yuck. In the early days of commercial GF baking rice flour was a staple, safe and cheap, it produced results that were adequate when the alternative was to go without. I think rice flour definitely has its place in GF baking, in small quantities, but as the main flour I find it to yield a product that is heavy, gritty, crumbly, and often faintly ricey tasting. I eat enough rice. I don't need to bake with it. I was on the hunt for something else, something with real grains that just happen to be GF, something with good reviews, some recipe that would make my spidy sense tingle with its potential.
It took some searching but I did indeed find a crust. And more importantly I actually made it! Here's the recipe I found from Gluten Free Girl and the Chef. This will make enough dough for 2 - 9 inch pie crusts.
1 1/4 cup (5 oz) almond flour
2/3 cup (2 oz) oat flour
2/3 cup (2oz) tapioca flour
1/2 cup (2oz) teff flour
1/2 cup (3 oz) potato starch
1/4 cup (2 oz) sweet rice flour
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
5 tablespoons butter (cold)
4 tablespoons leaf lard (cold)
1 large egg
6-8 Tablespoons ice cold water
Cool Kitchen Chemistry things about this recipe...
You'll see that in addition to cups and such, there are also weight measurements listed for all the flours involved. If you don't have a kitchen scale the scoop method will do you fine, but if you do have one I suggest using it whenever a recipe gives weights, you'll get a better product. However you measure your flours, make certain they're mixed really well before you add the wet ingredients. Take a look at this recipe, compare the amounts in cups to the weights. Almond flour is light and fluffy, takes up no space while the teff and rice are heavy and dense. Neat, eh?
After my whole rant about not liking to bake with rice flour, here I am using it, but all rice flours are not created equally. The Sweet Rice Flour called for here is not the kind you normally see on the shelf in stores, it comes from sweet sticky rice and is great for thickening soups and gravies. Here it helps act as a binding agent. While you can use regular rice flour in its place if you have no other option, you'll end up with a heavier, less flexible crust.
One of the worst things, and best things about Gluten Free Baking is the very lack of gluten. I've been lead to believe that making a traditional pie crust is a bit of an art. Good ingredients, but also knowing when to stop kneading the dough so the gluten doesn't get overworked and the crust doesn't become tough. GF baking doesn't have this problem. We add stuff like xanthan gum, (and sweet rice flour), to hold it all together. This recipe originally called for guar gum as well, but since it is an ingredient I don't use ever, I wasn't about to spring for it just for pie crust. I don't see that the lack hurt my crust any.
Then there's the question of the added fat. Which is better, a crust made with butter or lard, and this recipe calls for some of both. The leaf lard it calls for is the creme de la creme of lards, but sadly was not acquirable in my neck of the woods, and I found the hormone laden alternatives unsuitable so I substituted butter. When I bake I always use pure salt free butter, in this case adding the frozen stick in with a cheese grater, (a hint suggested by Gluten Free Girl, that worked like a charm). I found the flavor and texture to be wonderfully pie crust like, slightly nutty from the almonds. But I do wonder if the lard might have improved the flake.
Because of the teff and almond flours the crust has a dark, whole grain appearance. It should be chilled for at least an hour before rolling to allow the moisture to distribute evenly, (though I would suggest overnight). It can be rolled out thick or thin between sheets of parchment paper, and held up to both a quiche and pumpkin filling. I don't do any of that pre-baking nonsense, (lazy remember). What I did do was bake whatever at 50 degrees higher for about 10 minutes and then turn the oven down to the approved baking temp for the remainder of the time. No soggy crusts here. I would recommend a pie shield or strip of tin foil to protect the edges.
I'll definitely be using this recipe again. It may seem a bit labor and ingredient intensive, but like many of Gluten Free Girl's recipes the end result is worth the effort. And this dough can be made and saved in the fridge or freezer just like its gluten filled counterpart. So make a few on a rainy day and pull one out when you need to get your crust on.
And yes, the left over dough makes those yummy cinnamon sugar pinwheels just fine!
