More baking

Since the arrival of my Thermomix just over a week ago, I have been testing it out on a few recipes. I made a really yummy gluten free pizza base for Friday night's dinner. I was stoked with this one because I have spent countless hours in the past trying to make gluten free pizza bases - some from packet mixes, some from scratch, and never really had a great deal of success. I don't think I ever put enough effort into the kneading of the dough. Pleased to report that the Thermomix took most of that effort out for me, so in 2 minutes I had a well kneaded dough that made two large pizza bases - one we used on Friday and the other half of the dough is in the freezer for when we decide to next have pizza for dinner. On the back of the success with pizza dough, I thought I would try my hand at some gluten free, fructose free hot cross buns. I don't think I had the perfect recipe, because I was adapting someone else's recipe which was also dairy free. There was just not enough liquid in it to mix the dough properly and by the time i worked that out I was well into the kneading stage already. So there will be a re-run of that particular effort later this week. It all turned out quite well in the end - I simply added a bit of milk until it looked about right, and 16 lovely little soft hot cross buns were produced! The boys and Scott loved them (there are currently only 3 left and I made them yesterday). They were not 100% fructose free because I did put sultanas in them. I am going to try some fruitless ones, or at the very least, significantly less sultanas in the next batch. Being gluten free, they dry out pretty quickly, and my personal belief has always been that hot cross buns should be eaten fresh anyway! Wanting a hat-trick of successful dough making, I decided to give a go to a gluten free loaf of bread. We are on a winner here! It wasn't much to look at - have yet to work on my presentation skills, but that will come - but it was soft and moist and so very nice. Scott immediately got out his gf vege spread and had himself a lovely "vegemite" sandwich on warm bread.

I have not yet tried to make ANZAC bikkies in my thermomix but I have been promising for some time to put up my recipe as they are well and truly tried and tested and are a winner in our house. In fact, you cannot imagine the disappointment when the boys asked for an ANZAC bikkie this morning only to discover we have run out! Thank goodness for the hot cross bun which served as a perfectly good substitute (this time).

So, here goes:

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cup of plain flour (i use gf flour)
1 1/3 cup rolled oats (if making gf, i use rolled rice flakes instead - bikkies have crunchy texture)
3/4 cup of coconut
1 1/4 cups dextrose
150 g butter
3 tbs boiling water
3 or 4 tbs rice malt syrup (Pure Harvest - health food section of Coles - I have never seen it at Woolies)
1 tsp baking powder

Method:
Sift flour. Add all the dry ingredients to the flour (coconut, rolled oats, dextrose).
Melt butter in saucepan. Add rice malt syrup and water. Let it boil briefly then remove from heat. Add baking powder and let it foam. Pour immediately onto dry ingredients and mix well.
Form little balls on baking tray and press down slightly. Bake for 25-30 min. Allow to cool - will harden as they cool.

As with all ANZAC bikkies people have their personal preferences for crunchy vs chewy. Changing how much syrup you use will change the end result in this sense. The first time i used this recipe it actually said just 1 cup of flour and rolled oats. I found this mixture to be too wet for my liking so added 1/3 cup more of each of these. You won't get the really golden colour that you get from using golden syrup, but you also won't have any fructose in your food! I have tried this with glucose syrup too, definitely no golden colour there. I like the taste of rice malt syrup better and it gives more colour to the final product than glucose syrup does.

In general terms, I am finding that you can do pretty much straight replacements with dextrose instead of sugar (cup for cup or gram for gram). So far I have not had any dramas with changing it out in a recipe. I have made a couple of batches of custard this week and they are lovely - not too sweet as far as we are concerned.

One really exciting thing about the thermomix is that I was able to make my own rice flour! Just put in 250g of brown rice and milled it for about a minute and out comes 250g of rice flour! Sensational!

Well, I hope someone finds a use for the recipe posted here. I did have a friend mention they were looking for recipes that are not too fatty and not high in sugar to use as treats, so I hope she in particular has a go at these at some stage. I am positive they will be a hit in her house as they are in mine.

Til next time!