Wheat & egg free baking?

[KatyMac]

I just made wheat & egg free pastry & it was a bit tough; has anyone a better recipe?

I saw the pancake recipe further down & I'm going to look at that too!!

[Charmingbaker]

The best recipe I've tried so far is

225g doves farm GF plain flour
1/2 tsp xanthum gum
60g butter
60g vegetable shortening
2 tbsp caster sugar ( for sweet version)

Rub flour, gum, butter and shortening together until mix resembles breadcrumbs. Mix in sugar for sweet pastry. Add 3-5 tbsp of water until mixture just forms a dough. Wrap on clingfilm Nd put in fridge for 20 mins.
Take out of fridge and place between 2 sheets of clingfilm, then roll to a thickness of 3mm. Take off top sheet of clingfilm, then invert the pastry into the tin. (don't worry if it tears, just patch up any gaps.
Fill the pastry with the filling of your choice and bake.

This pastry isn't baked blind first.
I've haven't tried it with runny fillings like a quiche yet. I've made sweet potato pie, pecan pie, apple/ pear tarts and it's cooked well and made a nice crisp pastry.
I've cooked it at around 180c for 35-45 mins depending on recipe.

[frazzledbutcalm]

We're currently on a milk, soya, egg and wheat free diet. It's a nightmare! You probably won't find a better recipe for pastry. I've tried to make bread/buns, pastry, scones, yorkshire puddings .. they were all either disastrous or just ok. I spoke to the baker at local supermarket, he said once you take the wheat out of foods, the food loses its elasticity, so I think we're basically onto a no win situation
I made pancakes and they were fine, same as regular ones! I just used wheat free plain flour, tablespoon of sugar and oat milk. Tasted great, although they were a bit firmer/crispier than regular pancakes.

[frazzledbutcalm]

what is xantham gum, what does it do?
what is vegetable shortening? is it suet (atora)?

[frazzledbutcalm]

just re-read post, assume vegetable shortening is lard.., usual pastry recipe .. prob will be tough then based on my experience with other cooking ..

[SanityClause]

Charming's recipe is in this book

Vegetable shortening is Trex or the like. You can buy Xanthan gum from the supermarket, or a health food shop.

[SanityClause]

Frazzled, we are also on an egg, dairy, soya, gluten free diet. We also can't have coconut, pork or sesame, amongst other things.

It's not a nightmare, once you get some good recipes. And xanthan gum does add a gluten-like consistency to wheat less flours.

[MoreBeta]

frazzled - xanthan gum is effectively a glue like substance that replaces the gluten in wheat flour. Gluten free flour has no gluten in (obviously) so xanthan gum is used in recipes to 'glue' the pastry or bread or cake together to stop it crumbling.

I personally avoid xanthan gum as it makes pastry very tough and slightly bitter and I read it is not particularly good for you. In my gluten free recipes I use extra dried egg white if necessary or just not put it in at all for things like sponge cakes which always come out beautifully light with gluten free flour.

Sadly I have to use it in xanthan gum in gluten free bread but tend not to eat gluten free bread very much.

[MoreBeta]

katymac - sorry my last post was not very useful for you. I suspect your tough pastry is due to including xanthan gum?

Try using half amount the amount specified of xanthan gum and see how it goes.

I make a lovely pate sable sweet pastry for tarts without xanthan gum but I use egg so that is no good for you.

[frazzledbutcalm]

sanity I've only had to follow this diet for 2 weeks now, so it's still a bit of a nightmare learning curve for me I'm finding quite a few things difficult. Yorkshire puddings just don't work. Bread doesn't work. Scones taste good but don't rise (I use wf sr flour), the foods are either tough to roll out etc or go hard very quick and don't keep. I tried adding baking powder to the yorkshires but it made very little difference.
more I've not tried cakes yet, must do tomorrow! I'm just going to make them using conventional recipe substituting normal flour for wf flour and just leaving out the eggs, I'm not expecting great results ...
I need gluten free bread for ds packed lunch. He can't have any varities I've found so far as they contain either egg milk or soya ..

[MoreBeta]

Have you tried egg replacer?

I have never used it but it says it works well in gluten free recipes.

[frazzledbutcalm]

Oh that seems good... the egg replacer I previously looked at still contained egg white, which seemed a bit daft to me. But this one you've linked says egg free so I'm assuming it doesn't contain even egg white. Will def get some of this! It could be my saviour! Thanks!

[SanityClause]

I use Orgran egg replacer. It's very good in baking, and is vegan, so contains no egg!

I usually use rice milk in baking. Almond milk is a nice alternative for eating with cereal.

Do try the book I linked to. There are some really nice recipes in it. I do find that replacing milk, egg and flour in an ordinary recipe is not necessarily successful.

I have found that we have had to abandon some family recipes altogether, like toad in the hole.

Once a recipe is successful, add it to your list, and have it every couple of weeks. As your repertoire grows, you will be able to repeat recipes less often, and have more variety.

[frazzledbutcalm]

Thanks sanity .. At the moment I'm just substituting milk flour etc in normal recipes,. as you say it's not always successful.
Can you buy Orgran egg replacer in supermarket?
I'm determined to find a good yorkshire pudding recipe, then just replace toads with chunks of chicken

[KatyMac]

No I just used GF flour & soya marg stuff (yuk) & cold water

The texture was really weird and it was tough to cut but the children loved it - it was more like a shortbread paste than a pastry imo

I'm really against 'mucked about with' foods so I'm struggling to adapt my normal menu.......plus it has to 'look' like all the other children's meals (I'm a childminder & my USP is natural, homecooked food.....so this is really hard for me)

[frazzledbutcalm]

katy my pastry, scones, (rocks!) buns/bread all stay ghostly white VERY VERY pale ..
Not sure if you are having to cook everything wheat free .. but if you are, oxo stock cubes have wheat in :-( I'm using knorr which are NOT the same, pretty horrible imo :-( I found wheat in foods I never even thought it'd be in!
As for margerine, I use vitalite (which is soya and milk free) and it tastes nice, just same as normal marg to me.

[MoreBeta]

frazzled - GF pastry is pale so I put custard powder and almond in mine to give it colour.

Stock cubes are a big danger (voice of bitter experience) so I use Kalo stock cubes or make my own stock now and have far fewer 'glutenised' health events. Also watch out for things like forzen oven chisp (often sprayed in wheat flour to make them crispy) and much to my surprise cornflakes sprayed in barley malt. Corn/maize is OK for gluten intolerant people but so often wheat is thrown in with maize or is a contaminant. I also use certified gluten free oats a lot as a cereal base for home made porridge and granola.

[MoreBeta]

'frozen oven chips'

[MoreBeta]

I use Pure margarine guaranteed dairy free. There are soya, sunflower and olive oil versions.

Works well in cooking and tastes reasonably good as a spread in place of traditional marg or butter.

[frazzledbutcalm]

more .... I'm now completely confused!! Do porridge oats contain wheat?? And barley malt?? My leaflet from the hospital says oats and barley are ok for wheat allergy??...??
And thanks for the tip on colouring pastry!

[MoreBeta]

frazzled - the situation is confusing.

Some people say oats are OK for coeliacs and gluten intolerant people.

However oats are often contaminated with wheat and barley during the harvesting, storage and processing phase before they reach your cupboard. I buy certified gluten free oats from Sainsburys. They do not make me ill. If I eat ordinary oats they do.

Barley malt is another confusing issue. I think some people are less sensitive to gluten than others and can tolerate barley malt but I remeber in my early days eating cornflakes and wondering why I felt ill. Then I read the packet and saw barley malt on the label. I stopped eating them.

Same with stock cubes. I was astonished to see wheat and barley (usually malt) in stock cubes. Wheat and barley are so cheap they appear in so many foods. Things like sausages have rusk in made from wheat but I buy mine form M&S as they have pea starch in instead of rusk.

I obsessively read labels now as you can probably tell.

[frazzledbutcalm]

I read all labels now for ds and I've certainly had my eyes opened! But because my leaflet said barley and oats were ok then I've been using these! I guess it seems now we may never get to the bottom of ds problems

[MoreBeta]

Incidentally I posted both by my recipes for sweet tart pastry (near the top of the thread), granola (in the middle of the thread) and savoury quiche pastry (lower down the thread) in here.

They pastry recipes contain egg but work very well. You might want to adjust for taste and your specific ingredients though. No one can tell they are GF. Guest and my whole family happily eat them.

Dont blind bake GF pastry for too long as they will go hard. It will not brown to the colour of a wheat pastry even with custard powder and almond in.

[MoreBeta]

If you have been giving DS oats and barley that may be your issue.

I got a lot better after cutting out obvious gluten containing foods but not totally well until I got completely rigorous in excluding every tiny bit of gluten and that means barley and oats and everything with 'hidden' gluten. I also went totally lactose free by drinking only lactofree milk. My gut is so badly damaged that lactose goes straight through me. Lactofree milk tastes just like normal milk though as it is just milk with lactose taken out with an enzyme (lactase) so my DCs and me find it quite palatable.

[freefrommum]

My DS is allergic to wheat but is fine with oats and barley. However, my DD is coeliac so can't have anything containing gluten including barley and oats. It is very confusing but if your child is only allergic to wheat then oats and barley should be fine unless they state 'may contain wheat'.

[frazzledbutcalm]

Ds has had constant tummy pain 24/7 since april last year! Constant pain but has flare ups. Paed has tried various things and originally said it was post viral IBS. I wasn't convinced. No meds have worked. He had allergies as a baby but outgrew at 10months. We've trialled milk free diet but made no difference. We're now trialling milk, soya, egg and wheat free. Then if pain gets better we have to re-introduce one at a time. I'm being really careful but i'm finding it quite difficult! I've been giving him oat milk ...
If this doesn't work they're going to put him on medication for IBS and send him to a psychologist for his anxiety issues.
I don't think his anxiety is the problem, I think it may be food, but I'm not convinced of that either
Any recipe ideas are a great help in the meantime.