I am still baking on. Trying out recipes. Let's say it's nearly December 5th and since I intend to give recipes to my child -and we changed our food habits- I need to try out what I write down first. Some say you cannot simply change wheat flour into gluten-free flour but if you ask me you can. I read a lot of recipes. With and without gluten and they are basically all the same. If you truly believe your recipe failed because of a few grams difference you are wrong. I used scales, cups, tablespoons, and more and it's all the same. A recipe only fails if you use the wrong ingredients or your oven spoils it. With me in most cases, it's the oven. It only has heat underneath and there's no thermostat. This means the temperature will in most cases only get higher and higher till it's easily over 300°C. How do I know? I use an oven thermometer and many of them are already broken because of the heath. A high temperature the oven can not even tolerate, it's not built for. It makes one wonder why Philips got away with such a cheap, life dangerous product.
Instead of the scales, I used this beer. I bought it once second hand and have a lot of benefit from it. This time again. Cornflour is mentioned inside.
I intend to make ginger cookies instead of our spicey biscuits (speculaas). The biscuits we eat during November and December. My child and I discussed the difference. For speculaas, you need 7-8 different spices and for ginger cookies only ginger. We already tried speculaas with cornflour and this time I make a mixed dough out of cornflour and spelled flour. Just to try out and figure out if there's any difference.
It's the first time I bought this and it looks like flour, the kind we would use for bread. Since it's expensive, way more expensive than cornflour, I will only use 100 grams of it (I used the measure beker you see in the photo so it's possible it was more or less).
Ingredients:
125 grams of real butter
80 grams of sugar
150 grams of cornflour
100 grams of spelled flour
1 egg
0.5 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons ginger (dry, powder)
2 teaspoons baking powder
How to
Because it's extremely cold inside I decided to melt the butter I need first. I cut it into pieces and put it on a low fire. This way I can save time stirring.
The partly melted butter I put in a bowl because the pan is warm if not hot. Nex,t I added the sugar, the cornflour, the ginger, salt and baking powder, and the egg. I added the egg later because of the warm butter. The spelled flour was what I added last and with that, it was time to knead the dough.
I let the dough rest for one day. I intended to save it longer but there are apples -older ones- waiting to be prepared and I intend to use them for a small, gluten-free apple pie. I need dough for it.
One day later...
That dough was hard but as soon as you hold it in your hands it is fine. Somehow it reminded me of marzipan. To keep it simple I made a roll out of it and used a knife to slice it.
A cookie is a cookie and its shape won't make it taste better.
Off in the oven for 12-25 minutes. 160-175°C
This is the result. They tasted fine and because I used baking powder this time they became bigger than my corn cookies without baking powder. I am not sure if it is a plus.
Conclusion:
If you ask me our speculaas tastes better, way better. Next time I may add an extra tablespoon of ginger.
These cookies taste like shortcut pastry and that's exactly what I need for an apple pie which will be the next one I make.
So far I did not change any of the old-fashioned recipes because I had to use gluten-free flour instead of wheat flour. If the dough is too sticky I add a bit more if it's too dry I add some water. For sure homemade is cheaper than buying plus there are no chemicals added. Know what you eat!
Good to know if the dough can be prepared in advance, saved in a fridge but be frozen as well.
About gluten and gluten-free recipes
Pancakes made of cornflour and oatmeal
Does it come out sweet or is it the kind of spicy taste ginger has?