quinoa flour

I decided to make some flatbread for this months Go Ahead Honey its Gluten Free event hosted by Naomi at Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried. The theme is breakfast food this month and since I eat this bread almost every morning I decided to make a post about it.

Eating flatbread is actually more familiar to me than eating some regular bread; all of my mothers family is from Lapland and there people traditionally eat flatbread made from different kind of flours. Some of my most vivid and earliest memories are from Saturday mornings back at my grandparent’s house in Lapland. My grandmother started warming a large stone oven very early in the morning and then she baked bread there for hours; in Lapland they used to bake once a week and the bread made on that one day would last for a week. I woke up to the smell of fresh flatbread on those mornings and got to eat it all warm and straight from the oven with fresh butter. I never have forgotten the taste of that bread and it is still what I think of when someone mentions the word bread.

I still associate warm flatbread with my grandmother, happiness, Lapland and of course great food; so it’s no wonder that I like to eat my gluten-free flatbread as often as possible. When living and spending time in Lapland I got to eat the best food; it was fresh and mostly consisted of reindeer meat, fresh fish, cloudberries, vegetables which were home grown and self-made cheeses. I never appreciated it back then, it was a norm to have the access to real food, but now days living in a big city I understand what a privilege it all was.

The flatbread I make these days is far from the one my grandmother made; mine is made with quinoa flour, not with barley and wheat flour and not baked in a stone oven. I make this bread almost every morning because I think it’s fast to make, it doesn’t contain anything unhealthy and it’s made with quinoa flour so it’s not starchy.

You can adjust this recipe in many ways, if you want a more protein rich bread add some nut meal to it, I use the almond meal which is left over from making nut milk quite often in this. Rice flour works here too and some buckwheat flour adds a darker taste to this. I don’t like using xanthan gum since I think it’s disgusting, but it would hold this bread together just as well as the psyllium husk I use, eggs work a as a binder too, grated cheese is also an option for a binder (and it tastes good when added to bread).

Psyllium husk is also great for people who are starting out a gluten-free diet since it promotes the healing of the stomach. I eat it mixed with water and also some glutamine if I accidentally happen to eat some gluten and it helps with the pain at least for me.

Gluten free flatbread

- 1 cup (2,4 dl) quinoa flour

-1/2 -1 tsp salt

-1 tbls psyllium husk

-3/4 cup (2 dl) water

Preheat oven to 200 Celsius (400 F).

Mix the salt, psyllium husk and flour together, add the water gradually so that it resembles a thick porridge, wait for a couple of minutes and then spread the batter on to a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Bake for approximately 20 minutes, the time depends on the flour you used and also on how thick you have spread it. The thinner it gets, the faster it bakes. When I’m in a hurry I usually spread the batter very thinly and it bakes in 10 minutes.

Measure the flour in to a bowl.

Add the salt and psyllium husk.

Add the water gradually if you want to be on the sure side. It should look somewhat like porridge.

Let it sit for a couple of minutes and then spread it on to a baking tray lined with baking paper. I like to make mine small and round.

Sprinkle some seeds, herbs, salt or olive oil on top if you want to. I sprinkled some poppy seeds this morning.

Bake for about 20 minutes.

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My boyfriend had his birthday recently and he wished for a regular sponge cake filled with strawberry jam, bananas and cream mixed with quark (this tastes much better than whipped cream by itself). I’ve wanted to try a sponge cake with potato flour and quinoa flour for some time and so I decided to bake him a birthday cake using those two flours. I also left out the baking powder completely and it turned out better than when using baking powder. From now on I won’t be using it in cakes.

I know that some people use all-purpose flour mixed with potato flour when baking sponge cakes, maybe because it really does add some softness to the cake, so the idea of using potato flour and something else, or just potato flour, in baking wasn’t new. Maybe rice flour and potato flour would also be a good combination in this, but I am partial to quinoa, so I used it this time.

The taste of this cake was just perfect, it just melted in your mouth, and it was incredibly moist and soft. I was surprised at how perfect this turned out; I really recommend trying this kind of a cake, if you miss wheat based baked goods.

There is no milk in the batter, so this would go well for people who can’t tolerate milk and gluten; you can get milk-free whipped cream from most stores.

I baked this cake for almost two hours at 150 Celsius, I do this even with regular wheat cakes; I make sure it’s done without burning this way. For the first hour I make sure not to open the oven so that it does not go flat.

If you don’t like the way the filling is spilling out a bit (like in the above picture), you can use something like agar-agar to make it firm. You just mix the agar-agar (or gelatine) into the fillings (filling) and line the same springform pan you used for baking with cling-film and assemble the cake in it. Leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Gluten-free sponge cake

Use 4 eggs for a small cake, 8 for a big cake and 10 for a really big cake

- the same amount of eggs, sugar and flour (I used 1 part quinoa flour and 1 part potato flour, half and half)

-whipped cream (quark or creme fraiche added to it, I use 2 parts whipped cream and 1 part quark) add some sugar and vanilla according to taste

-fruit, jam or whatever you can think of for the filling

-something liquid to moisten it with

Preheat the oven to 150 Celsius or 300 Fahrenheit.

Measure the eggs and the sugar. Beat them until they are light and fluffy.

Measure the same amount of flour, I used 1/2 part quinoa flour and 1/2 part potato flour, make sure the potato flour is gluten-free. Grease a springform pan and add some flour to it so that the cake does not stick, or just put some baking paper on the bottom of the pan.

Bake at 150 Celsius (300 Fahrenheit) until a toothpick comes out clean. I used 5 small eggs and it took almost 2 hours for the cake to bake.

Slice the cake in half after it has cooled down, moisten it and start adding the fillings.

The recipe with pictures

Measure an equal amount of eggs and sugar.

Beat them until they are light and fluffy.

Measure the same amount of flour, I used 1/2 part quinoa flour and 1/2 part potato flour, make sure the potato flour is gluten-free.

Sift it into the sugar and egg mix.

Fold it in very gently, otherwise the cake will be flat.

Grease a springform pan and add some flour to it so that the cake does not stick, or just put some baking paper on the bottom of the pan.

Bake at 150 Celsius (300 Fahrenheit) until a toothpick comes out clean. I used 5 small eggs and it took almost 2 hours for the cake to bake.

Let the cake cool after baking before you transfer it.

Slice in half very carefully.

Moisten the cake, I like to use Sprite to do this, but almost anything liquid and sweet works here.

Start adding the fillings, or filling if using just one. I used some strawberry jam.

And some mashed bananas, whipped cream mixed with quark (I use 2 parts whipped cream and 1 part quark, creme fraiche would also be a good addition, sweeten this with some sugar and vanilla according to taste) and some mashed peaches.

Moisten the upper part of the cake base and be really careful when putting it on top of the cake, it breaks easily after it has been moistened. If you want to be sure it doesn’t break, you can just leave out the moistening, the fillings will add some moistness anyway.

Add some of the whipped cream and quark on top of the cake, it will be easier to decorate this way.

Decorate the cake.

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