Oh My Goodness! I had no idea baking could be... difficult.
I'm a pretty good cook. Recipes are a guide, not a precise rulebook to follow. I'm also a pretty good baker. My kolach impresses my mother-in-law (and she tells me so, too). I was working on "the perfect loaf of bread" awhile ago and looking forward to baking more again. (I find it hard to bake when I have babies/early toddlers.) I have never found cooking or baking to be the least bit intimidating or hard. Rarely have I turned out something inedible or totally "off" from what I intended to create. When people have exclaimed how hard baking is or waxed on about how precise one must be, I've scratched my head in wonder.
Until now.
This past weekend I decided to go gluten free in an effort to deal with health issues. I'd been putting it off because it's so drastic, so all-encompassing. But I'd had enough and was desperate to try.
Who knew baking was so... chemical... complex... and precise? Never, I mean NEVER, have I had to carefully pack, level or weigh anything when baking with wheat flour. But gf flours are... how did my friend put it... weird. That's it. They're WEIRD. Gritty, scratchy, powdery, stiff... unnatural. The resulting concoctions I've turned out this week are even weirder - tortillas that look like tortillas but taste like I don't even know what; pizza that tasted like an eggy savory German pancake (don't even ask... I don't understand... it was edible as long as I didn't pretend it was pizza); and now chocolate chip cookies that taste more like pecan sandies (which I like, thank goodness, but Toll House they ain't).
This is going to be interesting.
2 comments:
Hi, I had to laugh at your recent posts about gluten-free... we're embarking on that journey too (we're trying to manage our daughter's Autism symptoms). I TOTALLY AGREE that it's... unnatural is probably the best word... LOL... (I tend to not measure either).
Best wishes on the gf journey, Carolyn. It really is an adventure.
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