Butter Crackers

With Samantha and Dona's diets being limited in the types of grains and other things that they can have sometimes they begin to miss some of the foods that many people take for granted. I was casting around for some different kinds of recipes and came across a recipe for homemade crackers. I'm sure many folks would say, "Why would you make your own crackers? The store has boxes and boxes of them!" Well, you're right, but there aren't really many gluten-free options when it comes to crackers like these. Try finding crackers without any flours from grains, and you've either created a huge headache for yourself, or you've found some expensive crackers!

Butter Crackers

• 1/2 cup (65 grams) tapioca starch (the original recipe does much of this by weight. I'm using volume measures in case you don't have a scale.)
• 1/2 cup (80 grams)brown rice flour
• 1/4 cup garbanzo bean flour
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt or other coarse salt
• 1/4 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 Tablespoon Agave Nectar
• 1/4 cup, plus 1 tablespoon mimiccreme
• 1 egg yolk beaten with one tablespoon mimicreme

Line a baking sheet/cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Mix the flours and salt together. Add the butter and cut it in using a fork. The mixture should look like coarse flour or corn meal. Add the agave to the mimicreme and stir.

You might need some help for this next step. Start stirring and slowly pour in the cream mixture, pausing to stir and allow the flour to absorb the liquid. Keep stirring and add all of the cream, SLOWLY. The mixture should just come together. It should hold together if you squeeze it into a ball in your hand. Think pie crust. At least that's what it seemed like to me.

Now you can get out your rolling pin and some wax paper or parchment paper. The wax/parchment needs to be about 1 foot square. Take about 1/3 or 1/2 of the dough and flatten it out on one piece of the wax paper. Place another piece of wax/parchment paper on top of the dough and start rolling it out. Roll it to 1/8 inch thickness. If the wax paper wrinkles a bit, you can peel it off and put it back down. Then, flip it over and unwrinkle the other side. 

Once you are done, carefully peel back the top layer of wax paper. Using a glass or cookie cutter, cut out rounds and place them on a cookie sheet. Regather your dough, roll it out, and keep cutting until you've used all your dough.

Place the cookie sheet in the freezer for 15 minutes. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. After 15 minutes, take the cookies out, brush with the egg mixture, and sprinkle each cracker with some salt. Bake 20-25 minutes. If you have more than one baking sheet, make sure you switch the baking sheets and rotate them. Even if you have one baking sheet, you probably should rotate it to avoid any hot spots your oven might have.

Allow your crackers to cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Pizza! Crust

When you have food intolerances, allergies, or other limitations, there are not a lot of things you can buy in the store pre-made. Much of American food is processed and, depending on your food limitations, probably contains some ingredient you can't have or don't want. One of the things that is difficult to find in stores or restaurants is pizza. About 4:00pm today I made the mistake of asking Dona and Samantha (my wife and daughter, respectively) what we should have to eat for supper/dinner. I was thinking spaghetti, because there's a jar of store-bought sauce in the cupboard and a bunch of noodles ready for the cooking. It would be a fairly quick and easy meal. "Pizza!" was the answer I received. Actually, Samantha voted first for her normal request (pancakes) and Dona vetoed spaghetti.

"We just had spaghetti." 

"Not for several months!" I said. 

Dona doesn't like spaghetti. I don't really know why, but even if we have it twice a year, it's too often for her. I would like it about once a month. Spaghetti must have made her think Italian or something because her next thought was, "Pizza!" "Yeah! Pizza!" says Samantha. I know when I'm out-voted.

The pizza I make is highly regarded in the family. I always thought it was decent, but not great. However, I receive a lot of accolades every time I make it. Mostly I thought that Dona and Samantha were being nice. However, I decided my pizza might be good when even my 22-year-old stepdaughter, when we had pizza a couple of weeks ago, liked it. I took that as high praise, because she has more refined tastes than I do. I used to make a rice-flour crust for myself and a wheat crust for them, but since Dona and Samantha have had limits placed on their food intake I had to find another crust for them. I found one that we all could eat. I also like it because it's fast. I can whip one out in ten minutes.

• 2/3 cup garbanzo bean flour
• 1/2 cup tapioca flour
• 2 tablespoons dry milk powder ( I had to use soy milk powder, which I happened to have, because I was out of nonfat dry milk. 
• 1 tsp Xanthan gum
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup warm water
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 tsp vinegar

Mix all the dry ingredients together, I try to remember to use a whisk because the tapioca flour, like corn starch and baking soda, sticks together in lumps, so you have to work it pretty well to get the lumps out. If you don't it looks like this.

The white spots are un-mixed tapioca flour

Stir in the liquid and beat until mixed thoroughly. It's going to be a little sticky. I even tried using less water, but it still was sticky. Get out a piece of plastic wrap that is at least as long as it is wide, and spray it with cooking spray. Even if you are cheap, like I am, don't skimp on the plastic wrap. It probably will take you 4 sheets, because this will roll out fairly thin. Anyway, put two sheets of overlapping plastic wrap on the table and spray them. Scrape the dough onto the plastic wrap and spray two more sheets. Lay them, overlapping, on top of the dough and press out so it's about an inch thick and 6-8 inches in diameter. Roll with a rolling pin until the dough is 1/8-1/4 inch thick. The plastic wrap might bunch up or get caught in the dough, so you might have to peel it off once and lay it back on the dough. You can flip it over, too. Once it's rolled out, peel off the top plastic wraps and then slide your hand under the dough. Then, like a pie crust, lay it out on the pizza pan. Don't forget to peel the plastic off what is now the top side. Bake the crust at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes, take it out and put sauce and toppings on it and bake it again until the cheese melts. My sauce recipe will be forthcoming.

**A couple of things to keep in mind about this pizza crust. You are using bean flour. If you get gas or have other reactions to beans, go easy on the pizza. The result of a surprise high fiber invasion of your intestines could be "explosive." You also could play with the flour mixture. Use less bean flour and substitute rice or quinoa. I also have a really good rice flour-tapioca flour pizza crust I used to make but that's another blog.