If you are an avid cook or baker, or someone who tinkers in the kitchen for fun, you probably walk the aisles of the best supermarkets and haunt specialty food shops for new and interesting ingredients to taste and experiment with. You’ve no doubt noticed the rainbow of so-called alternative flours a few steps from the regular flour in the baking aisle. Oat flour, brown rice flour, corn flour, buckwheat flour . . . Maybe you’ve tried some of them. Or maybe you still walk by, but wonder what to do with them. I stopped passing them by and started experimenting with a few of the most flavorful of these gorgeous flours several years ago for my book Pure Dessert. My strategy then was to replace a portion of the wheat flour in a recipe with a new flour to create a more interesting and flavorful cake or cookie. In essence, I treated the new flours like flavor ingredients that also happened to have some of the bulky and absorbent characteristics of the flour (wheat) that we are most familiar with. The results were variously delicate, interesting, elegant, and decadent—all things desserts should be—but they also made me smile to know that whole grains could be added to desserts because they tasted good rather than because they were healthy! “Two birds with one stone,” I thought, and also, “I’m not done here.”
Pure Dessert was just the beginning. Flavorful flours in the baking aisle continued to beckon, and there are even more of them now (thanks to the growing number of gluten-free eaters who have brought attention to them). Now everyone can find these flours in better supermarkets across the country, as well as online. Meanwhile, people who love food are more interested and open to the idea of flours that taste and feel different from the all-purpose wheat flour standard. After a terrific response to the wheat-free cookies in my book Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies, I was excited about working more with “flavor flours,” treating them as “hero” ingredients (not just substitutions), and challenged by the idea of using them exclusively—that is, without any wheat flour for support.
Flavor Flours is a collection of recipes that feature flours made of rice, oats, corn, sorghum, teff, buckwheat, coconut, and chestnuts and other nuts. I chose these flours because each has a very distinct flavor—a voice, really—even white rice, though it can also work as a neutral backdrop for other flours and other ingredients. With the arguable exception of white rice flour, flours that are essentially pure starch are not included, partly because they aren’t that delicious and don’t have much flavor, and partly because I love bringing more whole grains into baking, especially into decadent and indulgent desserts, where they are still unexpected. Conveniently for those with wheat issues, I’ve chosen only flours that are gluten free.
Rice, oats, and corn (and to a limited extent, buckwheat) are familiar to us as a side dish, a bowl of porridge or groats, or a hearty bread. But once these familiar grains are transformed into flours, they can be used in baked goods that have entirely different textures. In the 1970s chefs started serving vegetable purees, many of which were hard to identify. Why? Aside from the fact that tons of butter or cream was added to them, we no longer had a familiar texture for reference. We had to pay attention. Suddenly, we tasted flavors that we’d never noticed before. Tasting familiar grains in new forms likewise reveals unexpected flavors. Grains like brown rice and oats have a known pedigree that connects them to health food, hearty bread, and granola, so I was startled at the delicate textures and aromas I found in the simplest cakes made from their flours. I never dreamed that a plain oat flour sponge cake would taste like butterscotch, or that a brown rice sponge could have such a moist and delicate butter flavor, or that buckwheat would have notes of honey and rose.
Teff and sorghum are consumed around the world, but rarely by Americans, so I had no experience baking with them but plenty of excitement about exploring the possibilities. Rather than use them as they are used indigenously, I treat them like new ingredients in familiar rather than ethnic baking. Teff is earthy and sometimes tastes very much like whole wheat but without the bitterness of whole wheat. Sorghum has flavors reminiscent of oats and corn, yet is somehow different. Chestnuts are most familiar as a wintertime treat, roasted and sold on street corners, or used in traditional turkey stuffing. The flour produced from dried chestnuts is soft and sweet, a wonderful and inspiring baking ingredient. Rice flour has its own distinct flavor and can be used by itself, but it also works as a neutral backdrop for other ingredients.
Nuts and coconut are common in Western baking; every good baker’s notebook includes a variety of European nut torten made with ground nuts or nut meal—now often called nut flour. Used as the major ingredient in recipes without any other flour or as a partner to other flavor flours, nut flours make sensational cakes, cookies, and more. Coconut, once a polarizing ingredient (people either loved it or hated it), is now very much in vogue. The easy availability of coconut flour and dried coconut—not just the old supersweet shreds—makes coconut a more versatile and compelling ingredient than ever. I have always loved coconut and now have a reason to include it as a major ingredient rather than just a flavor accessory, and an excuse for so many coconut cookies in one book!
Flavor Flours is organized by flour; each chapter includes recipes that call for that flour alone, as well as recipes with a partner flour that supports it. In conventional gluten-free recipes, specialty flours like those used here are mixed with other flours and starches to create an all-purpose neutral blend that can be used as a substitute for wheat flour in everyday baking. I’ve taken a different, more ingredient-driven approach here, by letting each flour star in a variety of delicious and surprising recipes—as though wheat never existed! Blends of several flours are rare and are used expressly to build bold and complex flavor profiles (as is the case in three sensational savory crackers), rather than to create a neutral background. Since the goal of this book is to celebrate the flavor of the flours, each one is treated as a hero, or important feature of the recipe; I do not use an all-purpose flour blend.
Most of the recipes are for beloved familiar desserts and other baked goods: brownies and chocolate cakes, biscuits and quick breads, cookies and doughnuts. In each recipe, the flour is used for its own flavor and sometimes also to enhance the ensemble of flavors in the recipe. Flours with nutty flavors like teff and buckwheat add complexity and complementary flavor to a nutty fruitcake. Brownies made with rice flour taste more chocolaty than “regular” brownies because the rice flour seems to amplify the flavor of the chocolate! The same is true of chocolate soufflés and many other desserts. Brownies made with teff flour get an added nuance of cocoa flavor from the teff. The deep, earthy flavor of buckwheat is such a natural in Panforte Nero (see recipe), with its warm spices, black figs, and amber honey, it’s probably hard to imagine that Buckwheat Sour Cream Soufflés (see recipe) drizzled with honey could be so delicate and floral by contrast. A classic Swiss tart filled with honey and walnuts gets bonus flavor from a chestnut flour crust, as does a ricotta cheesecake; chestnut génoise is good enough to nibble with your coffee all by itself, and even better with crème fraîche and spiced pear or apple butter.
Rice flour alone is spectacularly delicious in a chiffon cake—you will be amazed—but in biscuits and some butter cakes, the flavor is more nuanced and complex with a little oat flour blended in.
The “new” flours do require some new rules and techniques, but surprisingly few. Most of the more fiddly, intricate techniques of classical baking—designed to outfox gluten and prevent it from producing tough cakes and cookies—are no longer necessary. Mixing is done in fewer steps with less fuss. Baking in a tube pan or a sheet pan (or two or three shallow pans) rather than a regular deep cake pan gives support to some of the most delicate cakes; a little xanthan gum and plenty of mixing provides needed structure—and a velvety texture—for other types of cakes. In a sense, the most surprising aspect of the “new” techniques may be the extent to which some of the old techniques are no longer necessary.
Exploring with these fantastically flavorful ingredients has been the continuation of a lifelong exploration of baking and joyful collaboration in the kitchen. You will discover, as I have, that these flours and flavors belong in every passionate baker’s repertoire. They are for everyone who loves new tastes and has a curious palate, including gluten-free eaters. I hope these new recipes and fresh ideas add excitement and variety to your table and elicit smiles of pleasure from your guests. I hope you build on them and create new traditions as well. I wish you many more hours of happy and rewarding baking.
I knew that a book like this one—about new ingredients and new ways of using them—would require endless experimentation, leaps of imagination, creativity, and sometimes the ability to hold two opposing ideas long enough to discover some intricate reasoning that might make both of them true. There were so many new questions—with every answer seemingly raising at least five more questions—that I knew I needed a partner.
I enlisted Maya Klein to join the project. Portland, Oregon–based cooking teacher, culinary consultant, and great friend, Maya has worked with me for decades—starting with recipe testing when I revised several of the baking chapters for the 1997 New Joy of Cooking. Maya continued to work with me on my own books, testing and creating recipes, contributing ideas, and talking through problems. I don’t know anyone else with her palate and her ability to combine intuition and creativity with analysis—or with whom hard questions are so much fun to ponder. Meanwhile, Maya is herself wheat sensitive and has been re-inventing her own baking for several years. She immediately “got” the idea of baking with flavorful flours in a new way rather than treating them as wheat flour substitutes, and her immediate reaction turned into a mantra: What would baking be like if wheat didn’t exist?
Our ongoing dialogue was invaluable, as always, but this time it proved essential: the process of baking with mostly unfamiliar flours was filled with unexpected challenges and surprising outcomes. Sometimes, for example, we were both working with the same flour but in different types of recipes and getting wildly different flavors and textures—it seemed as though we were each seeing a different part of the same elephant. But this forced us to figure out why we were getting different results and how we could use the lesson to our advantage. The story about buckwheat testing and the lessons we learned about using it (click here) just begin to capture the benefits of a great collaboration. What we learned and produced together was far greater than the sum of our individual talents and experience. If you want to understand our testing process or are wondering how the recipes in Flavor Flours differ from traditional wheat-based baking, read on; our thinking and experimenting are described and summarized in the next few sections as well as in the recipes.
Western bakers are so accustomed to wheat flour that its behavioral quirks are simply taken for granted. We hardly notice that traditional baking techniques are built around wheat, specifically designed to make gluten work for us by either inhibiting or encouraging its development, depending on whether the goal is a tender cake or a chewy bread. But what if wheat flour did not exist?
None of the “flavor flours” in this book behaves like wheat flour, nor do they necessarily behave like one another. Some but not all are grains, and even the grains differ in texture. One of the flours comes from a nut but behaves more like a starch—and the other nut flours are a completely different story. How could these distinctive flours be turned into delicious cakes, cookies, biscuits, and other baked goods? What tricks and techniques (brand-new, classic, or from the gluten-free playbook) would let them shine, rather than just “substitute” for wheat? How could some of the most egregious problems (a gritty, pasty, gummy, or crumbly texture or a raw-flour flavor) of wheat-free baking be avoided? Would it be necessary to add xanthan gum or seed meal to every recipe to bind the ingredients and provide structure? Was it even possible to use single flours in recipes rather than blends?
Our knowledge of classical baking certainly gave us an arsenal of techniques and tricks to make the “new” flours work, and we borrowed selectively from gluten-free baking, but new thinking was required, too. Considering the hundreds of hours we spent testing and experimenting, most of the final recipes are simple to execute, even for a beginning baker.
At the outset of this project, I wondered if the flours that I had chosen for their flavors could be made into a cake of any kind without adding a gluten substitute such as xanthan gum or seed meal. It seemed that the easiest way to jump in and get acquainted with the flour flavors, textures, and general “behavior” would be to bake the same recipe with each of the flours individually, and just see what happened. I chose a simple recipe for génoise, so easy I could practically do it in my sleep. Génoise is the classic sponge or foam cake and has only four ingredients plus salt. I chose it because it gets its leavening and structure from whipped whole eggs, the proportion of which (I thought/hoped) might provide enough structure to make a reasonable cake.
Now, the classic génoise is a light but fairly dry cake, one often used in multilayered desserts where the layers are first moistened and flavored with some syrup before being filled and frosted. Although I have always prided myself on making a very tasty one, génoise is not normally considered moist enough or flavorful enough to stand alone.
As it turned out, every one of those first génoise samples made with flavor flours was at least promising: some were incredibly delicious just nibbled with a cup of coffee; others needed a little more or less butter or flour, the addition of egg yolks, a switch to oil, or a different pan or mixing detail. Each tasted of the flour that was used to make it in the nicest possible way and each sparked ideas for new flavor combinations. There was a bonus: I ended up with a stack of sponge cakes in an array of gorgeous natural colors—creamy white, buff, tan, goldenrod, and gray brown. I was already imagining the photos for the book.
The génoise exercise confirmed that it was possible to work with the flours individually, without the need to always blend them or to add a gum such as xanthan or guar for structure. It was an important reminder of how eggs provide structure to a cake, especially when they are whipped into a foam. Génoise was an encouraging start, but it was not an accurate predictor of success, because other types of recipes turned out to be trickier. The génoise was just the beginning of this journey.
You will find a génoise (or sponge cake) in every chapter. Some are moist and interesting enough to be eaten plain or with a little topping or fruit accompaniment; others need a moist filling or a splash of flavorful syrup plus frosting. The most neutral of all (and arguably the least interesting) are made with white rice or sorghum; but either could substitute perfectly for a classic plain génoise in the French baking repertoire. Pastry chefs can start with these recipes, whether or not they are baking for a gluten-free audience. You will also find a chocolate génoise made with teff flour (see recipe) that is an improvement on the classic. Meanwhile, sponge cakes made with rice, oat, corn, buckwheat, chestnut, sorghum, and nut flours—found at the beginning of each chapter—will dramatically expand the repertoire of any passionate home baker or pastry chef.
Chiffon cake testing turned out to be another happy surprise. Look for a gluten-free chiffon cake recipe online and you will find ones that call for a blend of three or four flours and starches plus xanthan gum—the whole nine yards of gluten-free baking. I was excited to discover that an astonishingly delicious chiffon cake can be made with pure white rice flour, a combination of brown and white rice flours, or a combination of corn flour and white rice flour, without any xanthan gum at all. There is one big problem with chiffon cakes, though: they are too delicate to cool upside down in the traditional manner. Several cakes had to fall out of their pans before the lightbulb went on: stop turning those cakes upside down in the first place!
While I was finding that sponge cakes could be made without xanthan gum, Maya was reinventing carrot cake. Génoise and carrot cake would not seem to have anything in common, but if the eggs, oil, and sugar in the latter are whipped to a thick, stable foam (a bit like for the génoise), rather than just mixed together as they normally are, the carrot cake gets additional structure. Carrot cake batter also needs baking powder because it is heavier than génoise batter, but it doesn’t need xanthan gum.
Gingerbread, biscuits, doughnuts, and crackers were even trickier to master. It was necessary to get the right balance of wet and dry ingredients and to make sure that the flour was hydrated (had absorbed enough moisture). Hydration is often cited as a critical factor in successful non-wheat-based baking, and it is more complicated than it sounds because each flour is different, and each type of recipe works differently. There were plenty of ifs, ands, and buts and no one solution to fit them all.
Tart and cookie doughs and cookie batters presented another obstacle. To improve flavor and prevent gritty or powdery textures, we found that these usually needed a little more liquid than usual, as well as resting time to let the doughs fully hydrate. Cream cheese helped to bind butter cookies and tart crust ingredients and provided a little structure. True confession: although we did not add xanthan gum to these recipes, I suspect that the gum in commercial cream cheese provides some of the same function here!
You might assume that crackers would work similarly to cookies, but they added an extra complication. These doughs did need extra liquid and hydration to prevent grittiness and the flavor of uncooked grains—but overnight resting made the nuts and seeds rubbery, resulting in crackers that were not fully crisp and crunchy. The solution was a wetter-than-usual dough (with no rest), rolled thin and baked at a temperature high enough to simultaneously cook the flour fully and drive out all of the moisture. Voilà, super-crunchy crackers.
Butter cake batters with plenty of liquid and lots of mixing raised another challenge. It seems intuitive that too much liquid might produce a gummy cake and too little a dry, crumbly cake. But even the “perfect” amount of liquid makes rubbery or gummy cakes if the ingredients are not mixed in the right order. If you bake, you might recall that some classic (wheat flour) butter cake methods call for mixing the flour with the butter before the wet ingredients are added. This is done to waterproof the flour particles and prevent excess gluten development (which would result in a tough cake) when the liquid is beaten in. Sans gluten, we assumed that waterproofing the flour was not necessary. But protecting the flour with fat did turn out to be necessary sometimes, not for outsmarting gluten (there is none), but for preventing the starches in the flour from overhydrating too early and thereby causing a gummy texture. Go figure.
Solutions to structural problems were sometimes hidden in plain sight: some cakes are too delicate, just not strong enough, to bake in a deep pan without sinking a little in the center. The answer was hard-won but so simple: change the pan rather than the recipe. Tube pans are used to support some cakes; others are baked in a wider, shallower pan to make a thin cake sheet, which can be rolled up to make a roulade or cut into layers and stacked with filling.
While it was useful to borrow the simple techniques for coating flour with fat or whipping eggs and sugar (and fat) to a stable foam, the most finicky techniques of classic baking can be entirely ignored with these flours: ingredients usually do not have to be at room temperature, flour need not ever be added to batters in three parts alternating with two parts of liquid, and overmixing is rarely the problem because absent gluten, mixing cannot make a cake or biscuit tough.
The ideal biscuit is shapely, golden, and slightly craggy, with a soft and tender crumb, a lovely crusty exterior, and plenty of buttery flavor—and you’ll find all of that in the recipe here. But the early results ran the gamut of flaws: flat and firm (too much flour); flat and soft (too much liquid and not enough xanthan gum); coarse, uneven crumb (butter instead of cream); soft crumb but collapsed out of the oven (underbaking at the wrong temperature and/or undermixing); or one-dimensional flavor (just cream, no yogurt for tanginess).
The doughnut experience flies in the face of the common view that frying makes anything taste good. It doesn’t. Fried things can be soggy, greasy, and uninteresting. But once the recipe works, rice flour doughnuts have an extraordinary and delicious advantage: the flavors of the butter and eggs come forward because of the delicacy of the rice flour. Moreover, the glutinous rice flour keeps the doughnuts soft and chewy so they can be made in advance and reheated to their original glory, then dusted with sugar or drizzled with chocolate as though freshly fried. This is a huge advance for any cook who hates to fry in the presence of company or kids, or when wearing party duds.
As you might expect, recipes with very little flour are a natural for flavor flours. You will find great variety among them, from dense fruit- and nut-laden cakes and confections, such as Date-Nut Cake with Apricots and Teff (see recipe) and Panforte Nero (see recipe), to the lightest, airiest soufflés and rich chocolate tortes. The flour in these recipes is only a minor source of texture (and structure), but it’s an important flavor partner for the other ingredients, or, in the case of some of the soufflés, the featured flavor.
To make the recipes in this book successfully, you do not need to know any of the details of the testing or problem solving (described above) that went into creating them, or even that the recipes that were the trickiest to develop are probably the easiest to make. But here is an overview of techniques and what to expect as you work through this book.
The various flours work differently in different types of recipes: you will find several mixing techniques and many riffs and variations.
Most recipe techniques will seem familiar from regular (wheat-based) baking, but they may be less involved or finicky: traditional methods, sometimes streamlined or adapted, were used where they worked and discarded where they didn’t.
Most of the recipes—including butter cakes, biscuits and scones, and muffins—are mixed in one or two simple steps with an electric mixer. They are easy to make and practically foolproof. Don’t skimp on mixing time when times are given if you want to get the best possible results.
Don’t expect butter cake layers and cupcakes to dome on top: flours without gluten are not strong enough to cause doming. This is an advantage for layer cakes: it’s easy to make professional-looking frosted cakes because there is no need to trim the domes to make them level or fill them with flat sides together when you stack and frost them. If you miss shapely domed cupcakes, you’ll just have to get over it, or compensate with frosting. If you are a frosting minimalist, heap it atop the cupcake in the center rather than at the edges to create a graceful (or perky) contour. If you do love frosting, just double the amount and mound or pipe it all over, sky-high!
Sponge cakes and those that involve whipped egg whites are slightly more challenging than other cakes; most require hand folding because batters are light and delicate. But the flours are easier to fold in than wheat flour, so sponge batters are less apt to deflate when mixed. Sponge cakes may sink slightly as they cool; recipes may call for you to trim the edges to level the cake before cutting it into layers for filling, stacking, and frosting.
Most of the flours need some amount of hydration to prevent the finished product from feeling or tasting gummy, powdery, gritty, or even (from experience) like sandpaper, but too much hydration too early can be a problem. The recipes forestall this concern: batters are mixed in such a way, or rested, to ensure that the flour has time to absorb the right amount of moisture at the right time. You don’t have to think about this.
Xanthan gum, which is widely used in gluten-free baking to bind ingredients and to create structure (so that cakes have a nice crumb or cookies have a little chewiness), is only necessary in some recipes and usually in smaller amounts than called for in gluten-free recipes elsewhere.
Ground flaxseed or other seed meals (often used as a binder in non-wheat-based batters) are never used as a binder here, unless their very distinctive flavors are important to the flavor profile of the finished product. Seed Crackers (see recipe), Walnut and Buckwheat Crackers (see recipe), and Tangy Aromatic Crackers (see recipe) are stunning examples.
It would be fantastic if there were rules for taking any recipe that calls for ordinary all-purpose wheat flour and converting it for corn flour, for example, or oat flour. But it’s not that straightforward.
The various flours work differently in different types of recipes and are different from one another. Some flours are soft and prone to mushiness in one type of recipe and perfect in another. Flours that are gritty in one context are divinely crisp and crunchy in another. Certain techniques bring out the best in these flours, but the techniques are not the same for every flour. It took hundreds of hours of experimentation to make the recipes in this book. My best advice is to make the recipes first as written, and if you like the results, then experiment further. If you want a light cake, riff off one of the génoise or sponge cakes. If you want a cake with the texture of a butter cake or pound cake, but with different flavors or ingredients than those given here, use the Ultimate Butter Cake (see recipe) as a starting point. For a new cracker, don’t start with a wheat flour cracker recipe and try to convert it; start with one of these cracker recipes (click here, here, and here) and switch out the elements until you have something that approaches your vision.
The preceding caveats about trying new flours don’t hold true for most pancakes, waffles, and crepes. Because they are thin—baked right on a griddle or waffle iron rather than in deep cake pans—they don’t require any more structure than the usual number of eggs can provide, and they already contain plenty of liquid to hydrate the flour. All of this means that pancakes, waffles, and crepes are perfect for experimentation and for introducing flavor flours into your normal repertoire. You can substitute most of the flours—white and brown rice, oat, corn, buckwheat, chestnut, teff, and sorghum—for all-purpose flour by either volume or weight and adjust the consistency of the batter by adding more liquid or flour, as one does anyway with this type of recipe. You can do the same with dried shredded coconut or any nut flour (other than chestnut) if you also add half again as much rice flour: results will be pleasingly dense, slightly chewy, super flavorful, and completely irresistible. (Coconut flour is more complicated and not addressed here.) You can also blend flours to get different flavor effects, and of course you can add all of the chopped nuts, seeds, chocolate chips, or berries that you might already mix into your pancakes and waffles. I’ve included basic recipes here, but if you have favorite family recipes, chances are they too will work perfectly and deliciously with your new flours.
Once you have flavor flours in your pancakes and waffles, you can serve them with maple syrup as usual, or branch out and coordinate syrups and toppings to go with the individual flours. See “Beyond Maple Syrup,” for more syrup and topping ideas.
Here are some flavorful toppings and accompaniments to complement pancakes and waffles made with flavorful flours.
Makes about fifteen 4-inch pancakes
1½ cups any flour: white or brown rice flour, oat, corn, buckwheat, chestnut, teff, sorghum, dried shredded coconut, or nut flour/meal (click here for equivalent weights for each flour)
¾ cup (120 grams) white rice flour (add only if using shredded coconut or a nut flour other than chestnut)
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
Slightly rounded ½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
4 tablespoons (½ stick/55 grams) unsalted butter, melted and warm, plus more for the skillet
1 cup milk, warm
Whisk the flour(s), or coconut and flour, with the sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Add the eggs, butter, and milk and whisk until smooth and well blended. Add a little more milk or flour at any time if the batter seems too thick or too thin.
Heat a large skillet or griddle over medium heat until hot and brush it with butter. Pour 4-inch pancakes (a generous tablespoon) and cook for 1 to 2 minutes until a few bubbles form at the edges or on the surface. Flip the cakes and cook until lightly colored on the bottom and cooked through in the center, about 30 seconds. Repeat with the remaining batter, adding butter to the skillet as needed. Serve immediately or keep hot in a 200°F oven, loosely covered with foil, for up to 20 minutes. Leftover batter keeps in the refrigerator, covered, for at least 1 day.
Makes about Five 7-inch waffles
1¼ cups any flour: white or brown rice flour, oat, corn, buckwheat, chestnut, teff, sorghum, dried shredded coconut, or nut flour/meal (click here for equivalent weights for each flour)
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (95 grams) white rice flour (add only if using dried shredded coconut or a nut flour other than chestnut)
2 teaspoons baking powder
Slightly rounded ½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, melted and warm, plus more for the waffle iron
1 cup milk, warm
⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar
1 tablespoon sugar
Whisk the flour(s), or coconut and flour, with the baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Add the egg yolks, butter (use the greater amount for richer and crispier waffles), and milk and whisk until smooth and well blended.
In a clean, dry bowl, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form when the beaters are lifted. Sprinkle in the sugar and beat until stiff but not dry. Fold the egg whites into the batter.
Heat a waffle iron and brush it with butter. Cook the waffles according to the manufacturer’s directions. Serve immediately or keep hot in a 200°F oven, loosely covered with foil, for up to 20 minutes. Or let cool completely and reheat in a toaster or toaster oven. Leftover waffles keep better than leftover batter; store them in an airtight container in the freezer. Reheat in a toaster or toaster oven.
Makes 18 or more 6-inch crepes
1¼ cups: white or brown rice flour, oat flour, corn flour, buckwheat flour, chestnut flour, teff flour, sorghum flour (click here for equivalent weights for each flour)
1¼ cups flour (see Appendix, for equivalent weights in grams depending on your flour)
2 tablespoons (30 grams) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the pan
3 large eggs
Scant ¼ teaspoon salt
1½ cups whole milk, plus more as needed
¼ cup water
Whisk the flour with the butter, eggs, and salt in a medium bowl until blended and very smooth. Whisk in about one-quarter of the milk, then whisk in the remaining milk and the water. Cover and refrigerate the batter for at least an hour (to let the flour hydrate) or up to 2 days. Stir the batter well before and frequently as you use it.
Heat a 6-inch crepe pan or skillet over medium-high heat. Brush the pan lightly with butter. When a drop of water sizzles on the pan, lift the pan off the burner and pour in 2 tablespoons of the batter. Immediately tilt and rotate the pan, shaking as necessary to coat the bottom of the pan entirely. Fill in any holes with extra drops of batter. Set the pan back on the burner and cook until the surface of the crepe no longer looks wet and the underside is golden brown, 30 to 60 seconds. If the crepes will be filled and sautéed before serving (as for blintzes), cook on one side only, then loosen the edges of the crepe with a spatula and invert it onto a piece of wax paper or a paper towel. Otherwise, turn the crepe and cook the other side for 10 to 20 seconds longer, then slide or flip it onto the paper. Repeat with the remaining batter, buttering the pan only as necessary. If the crepes seem too thick, adjust the batter with a little extra milk.
Crepes can be stacked as they come out of the pan—they won’t stick to each other so there is no need to put wax paper between them, unless you are freezing them and plan to defrost only a portion at a time; then you should put a double sheet of wax paper between portions. When the stack is cool, it can be wrapped airtight and stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, or up to 3 months in the freezer. Defrost crepes in the refrigerator or in a covered dish in a 300°F oven for about 10 minutes. For serving suggestions, see box.
You can make filled or folded and garnished crepes or crepe cakes from the basic recipe. Coordinate the filling and garnishes to complement or contrast with the flavor of the crepes.
Here’s how to figure out how much batter to use to make a crepe, depending on the size of your pan and how many crepes you might be able to make per batch once you get the hang of it.
Find your pan’s true size by measuring across the flat surface (the bottom) of the pan. The crepe recipes in this book make about 2¾ cups (44 tablespoons) of batter; the more you perfect your technique, the more crepes you will get from each batch.
It’s easier to make crepes in a small pan than a large one. Start small if you are a newbie. Some people find a nonstick pan easier. Either way, the pan should be perfectly smooth and clean.
Flavor flours often have a shorter shelf life than wheat-based flours, so buy them from stores that have high turnover or from respectable online sources, and always look at “sell by” and “best by” dates on packages.
All of the flours should be stored in airtight containers away from light and heat. The whole grain flours (oat, sorghum, corn, brown rice, teff, and buckwheat and nut flours—all of the flours other than white rice and coconut flour) will eventually go rancid at room temperature. Unopened packages can be kept in a cool, dark pantry at least until their “sell by” dates. Once opened, flours should be stored in airtight containers with tight lids or in heavy resealable zipper-lock bags. If you buy flours from Authentic Foods (see Resources), you can keep the flour in the tough, square-bottomed bags they come in: like canisters, these are easy to scoop from and they don’t topple over on the shelf. (Their new zipper closures make the opening perfect for pouring but too small to scoop from; I cut them off, fold down the top edges of the bag, and secure them with a large binder clip or wide tape to keep the contents airtight.) If you buy flours in cellophane bags, consider transferring the bags or just the contents to airtight plastic containers or large Mason jars; these are easier to scoop from and neater on the shelf. Flours should keep this way for at least 2 to 3 months in a cool, dry place and at least 6 months or more in the refrigerator or freezer; the less air in the container the better. (Measure or weigh the amount of flour needed for a recipe while the flour is still frozen: to avoid repeated defrosting and condensation in the container, cover and return it to the freezer immediately.) Make it a habit to buy conservative amounts of flour and label them with your purchase date and/or the “sell by” date when you transfer them to new containers. Be sure to rotate flour in canisters when you replenish your supply: dump any flour remaining in the bottom onto waxed paper, pour in the new supply, and pour the old flour on top. Wash and dry the container from time to time as well. Always smell the flour before using it; it should smell sweet and fresh, never sour or rancid.
The same type of flour from different sources may differ in particle size: some rice flours are fine, some “superfine,” and some are finer still. The fineness of the flour affects the texture of your results and complicates measuring. I compared rice flour from Bob’s Red Mill, from Authentic Foods (which is labeled “superfine”), and a Thai brand of regular rice flour (not sweet rice flour) from an Asian grocery store (which is even finer). The finer flours from Thailand and Authentic Foods produced the very best results overall, but all of the flours produced good results in most of the recipes. Puddings and pastry cream proved the exception. For Silky Butterscotch Pudding (see recipe), Silky Saffron Rice Pudding (see recipe), Silky Chocolate Pudding (see recipe), and The New Vanilla Pastry Cream (see recipe), you will not get “silky” results unless you use fine flours. Of course, each recipe specifies which flour to use where it is critical.
Meanwhile, the only way to get good results with flours that vary in fineness is to measure by weight rather than volume. Authentic Foods superfine white rice flour and Bob’s Red Mill white rice flour, which is less fine, weigh between 140 grams and 160 grams per cup. But Thai rice flour is extremely fine and weighs only about 100 grams per cup. There are differences among glutinous rice flours, too. Two volume measurements are given for rice flour: one for Authentic or Bob’s Red Mill and another for Thai flour. If you use another flour and do not know how it compares to any of these, you would be wise to measure by weight, using a scale (see “Why Weigh?”).
In all baking, a scale is the simplest and easiest way to be sure that you are using the same amount of the ingredient as the person who created the recipes. Flour is one of the trickiest of all ingredients to measure. For one thing, measuring styles vary. A cup of any single flour can vary in weight by as much as 50 percent depending on how the cook used the cup: Did she dip the measuring cup into a compacted bag of flour and press it against the side of the bag to level it (please, please never measure this way!), or dip it into a canister of loosened flour, or spoon the flour lightly into the cup and then sweep it level? Each method affects how much flour ends up in the cup. In addition, flour that is compacted in a bag will weigh more per cup than flour that has been stirred of fluffed or even just handled before measuring. But if we all use a scale, your 100 grams of flour is the same quantity as my 100 grams of flour.
To make matters even more interesting, weight and volume are not the same for all flours. A cup of corn flour does not weigh the same as a cup of rice flour or a cup of chestnut flour. Even more startling, there is no standard fineness for the same flour from different mills (see “The Fineness of Flour: Size Matters,” ): so even the same type of flour may not weigh the same per cup from one brand to another. The only way to deal with this chaos is to measure by weight.
Fortunately, once you get the hang of it, a scale is the simplest and cleanest way to measure. Fewer utensils are required, so there is less cleanup. There are other advantages, too.
Say a recipe calls for 100 grams of chopped nuts or ground nuts; all you have to do is weigh the nuts first (no matter what size they are to start with), then chop or grind them, instead of chopping or grinding a little at a time until your measuring cup is filled, and then usually having some extra left over. With a scale you can often weigh ingredients one by one, directly into the mixing bowl; just press the tare to reset the scale to zero after each ingredient is added before weighing the next. Blissfully easy!
All this being said, I have provided cup measurements as well as weights for all of the recipes, and in the case of rice flour, I’ve given different cup measurements for the different types. But I still hope you will get and use a scale.
A battery-powered digital scale is most efficient; choose one that will switch between ounces (imperial) and grams (metric), ideally with increments of 5 (or fewer) grams or one-tenth of an ounce (see Resources).
The best way to measure flour, or any dry ingredient, for recipes is to use a scale (see previous). That being said, here is how to use measuring cups to get as close as possible to the listed flour (or cocoa powder) weights in each recipe.
Use dry measures (click here). Set the appropriate size measuring cup on a piece of wax paper on the counter. If the flour in the canister or the bag is very compacted, loosen it gently with a spoon (don’t overdo it, though, or your measure will be too light). Pour or spoon the flour lightly into the cup until it is heaped above the rim. Without tapping or shaking the cup or compacting the flour, sweep the flour level with the rim using a straight edge.
Oven rack position affects performance, including baking time, degree of browning on top or bottom, and sometimes even whether or not a cake will rise properly. Most recipes call for positioning a rack in the lower third of the oven; this means the rack should be placed a third of the way up from the bottom of the oven or just below the center, so that the actual cake pan is almost in the center of the oven rather than in the upper half, which might cause a cake to brown too much or too fast before the interior is done. A single sheet of cookies or a very thin cake such as a sponge sheet may be placed on a rack in the center of the oven, but two sheets should go in the upper and lower thirds and should be rotated from upper to lower (and front to back) halfway through the baking time. Items that need a good hit of heat on the bottom of the pan—think upside-down cakes with gooey sweet fruit on the bottom—may be placed on the bottom rack. I like to position biscuits and scones in the upper third so they brown nicely. All this is to say that the different oven positions are given for each recipe, and each has a rationale.
Recipes frequently call for lining pans, either with parchment paper or foil depending on the recipe. Pan liners not only make removal of the cake or cookies from the pan simpler, they can also eliminate cleanup, and even improve results by protecting the cakes or cookies from overbrowning if pans are too dark or too thin. It also has to be said that loaf cakes baked in pans lined fully—bottom and all four sides—with parchment paper always seem to look both handcrafted and professional.
It’s easy to line a baking sheet—just plop the liner on the pan and be done with it. Slip parchment circles or squares into the bottom of cake pans; there is no need to grease the parchment or the pan under it. For brownies, you can also use the time-honored method of lining pans across the bottom and up two opposite ends with a little excess to use as a handle. But it takes no more time and effort to line the bottom and all four sides of brownie pans and loaf pans if you know the trick: Use a piece of parchment or foil (foil is easier but not as attractive for loaf cakes) about 4 inches longer and wider than the bottom of the brownie pan or 5 inches longer and wider than the loaf pan. Turn the pan upside down on the counter and center the liner on it with the excess extending 2 to 2½ inches on all sides. Fold the sides and ends of the liner down against the pan sides and crease the folds. Fold the corner “wings” over the ends of the pan and crease the folds. Slip the creased liner off the pan and fit it inside the pan, adjusting the folds and creases as necessary.
Except for the flours themselves and perhaps xanthan gum, this list will look familiar to anyone who bakes, even occasionally. In other words, there is no need to create an entirely new pantry to bake with flavor flours. The information on different types of chocolate and cocoa should be useful to anyone who needs to brush up on the newer chocolates, percentage labeling, or different types of cocoa.
Non-aluminum baking powder was used for testing all the recipes in this book. Baking powder loses potency with time; watch the expiration date and keep the container covered with its snap-on lid. If you bake infrequently or suspect dead powder, add about 1 teaspoon of it to a cup of hot water. If it bubbles vigorously, use it. If not, toss it.
Don’t use the “deodorizing” soda you keep in the fridge in your baking—that soda will have absorbed odors and moisture that may affect its performance. Keep a box of baking soda in the cupboard dedicated to baking. Baking soda appears to last indefinitely, even when the container is not sealed, but if in doubt, spoon a little into a cup and add vinegar. It should bubble vigorously.
Recipes in this book were tested with regular unsalted butter—not European or European-style butter. If you use salted butter, subtract at least ¼ teaspoon salt from the salt in the recipe for each 8 tablespoons (113 grams) of butter used. If you must use margarine or a nondairy spread, choose one labeled suitable for baking (with about 11 grams of fat per tablespoon), as some vegetable spreads and butter substitutes contain too much water (and not enough fat) to substitute directly for butter. Do not substitute liquid fats or oils for butter.
See Dulce de Leche, here.
Purchased chocolate chips (and some chocolate chunks) are specially formulated with less cocoa butter than bar chocolate so that they hold their shape when baked into cookies. They may also help keep cookies from flattening out during baking. Since chocolate chips (and similarly formulated chunks) stay thick when melted and are usually fairly sweet, I don’t recommend them for melting and blending into batters unless specifically called for. By contrast, you can chop your favorite chocolate bars instead of using purchased chocolate chips or chunks, as long as you don’t mind cookies that are a little flatter and chunks that flow a little rather than hold their original shape.
Unsweetened cocoa powder is made by removing 75 to 85 percent of the fat (cocoa butter) from chocolate liquor, then pulverizing the partially defatted substance that remains. The result is pure, natural (nonalkalized) cocoa powder. Dutch-process (alkalized) cocoa is processed with an alkali to reduce acidity and harshness. Alkalizing also darkens the color of the cocoa and imparts a flavor best described as “Oreo cookie.” Chefs and consumers have different preferences when it comes to natural or Dutch-process cocoa. Regardless of which you prefer, the two types are not always interchangeable in recipes. Always use the type of cocoa called for, unless a choice is given.
Milk chocolate is sweetened chocolate that must contain at least 10 percent cocoa beans (cacao) and 12 percent milk solids, plus milk fat. Most milk chocolates today exceed the minimum requirements for cocoa beans considerably, resulting in chocolate with more chocolate flavor and less sweetness. The recipes in this book were tested with milk chocolate with at least 33 percent cocoa beans (cacao).
Cacao nibs (aka cocoa nibs) are pieces of hulled cocoa beans—the essential ingredient in all chocolate. Nibs are crunchy and somewhat bitter. Crushed, ground, or left whole, they add unique chocolate flavor to all kinds of desserts. Raw nibs are available, but I prefer the flavor of roasted nibs.
These are sweetened dark chocolates: pure ground cocoa beans, optional extra cocoa butter, sugar, optional lecithin and/or vanilla, and sometimes a small amount of milk have been added. The standard brands in the baking aisle contain 50 to 60 percent cacao and 40 to 50 percent sugar. But there are dozens of semisweet and bittersweet chocolates (some simply labeled “dark”) with much higher cacao percentages. And while it is reasonable to presume that bittersweet is less sweet than semisweet, there is no official distinction between them; so one brand of bittersweet may be sweeter than another brand of semisweet. Cacao percentage is a better predictor of sweetness, chocolate intensity, and behavior in recipes than any of the terms. Recipes in this book call for dark chocolate by percentage, or give a range of percentages, to ensure that you have the best possible results.
Technically called chocolate liquor (though it contains no alcohol), unsweetened chocolate is pure ground cacao nibs, often with a fraction of a percent of lecithin as an emulsifier and sometimes a bit of vanilla. Unsweetened chocolate may be labeled 99 percent cacao (to account for that tiny amount of lecithin and/or vanilla) or 100 percent cacao. Though very strong and bitter, the highest quality unsweetened chocolate is smooth enough and palatable enough to nibble.
White chocolate is made from only the fat (cocoa butter) of the cocoa bean, rather than the whole cocoa bean, and is combined with sugar, dry milk solids, milk fat, lecithin, and vanilla. White chocolate is now recognized and defined by the FDA as a form of real chocolate to distinguish it from “white confectionery coating,” which is made from tropical fats other than cocoa butter, and thus contains not a single ingredient derived from cocoa beans.
Most cookbooks advise melting chocolate in a double boiler or in a bowl suspended over a pot of simmering water. But I think an open water bath is more flexible, easier to control, and safer.
Either way, the object is to control the heat enough to prevent overheating the chocolate. The water in a double boiler is hidden from view in a closed chamber, where it is extremely likely to come to a full boil without your noticing, especially if you are lulled to inattention by the implied safety of a double boiler. Steam in a closed chamber is far hotter than boiling water, and your bowl of chocolate is sitting in that steam. Moreover, the common technique of creating a makeshift double boiler by setting a bowl over a pot of water carries additional risk when the bowl is much wider than the pot: the sides and rim of the bowl (and any chocolate in the bowl) above the rim of the pot are exposed to scorching heat coming up the sides of the pot from the burner beneath it.
An open water bath has the advantage of complete visibility; it is hard not to notice when the water begins to simmer or boil (the bowl often rattles as well), and then you can turn the heat down or even off. Although the bowl of chocolate sits on the bottom of the skillet, there is actually a tiny film of water between the bowl and the pan; this layer buffers some of the heat. And the chocolate around the sides of the bowl doesn’t get scorched, because the bowl doesn’t extend beyond the sides of the bath.
Into the bargain, the bath allows you to melt the chocolate in an appropriately sized bowl: a small bowl for a few ounces or a large bowl if the recipe calls for adding the rest of the ingredients into the chocolate later.
If you still prefer your double boiler, don’t ever worry again if the container of chocolate touches the water beneath it—it may even be safer if it does!
Chocolate should always be chopped before melting so that it melts easily with gentle heat. Dark chocolate (including semisweet, bittersweet, and unsweetened) may be chopped coarsely. White and milk chocolate should be finely chopped.
The cutting board, bowl, and all utensils should be dry—take care not to let any splash or drip of liquid come in contact with the chocolate. These are best practices for handling chocolate safely, though they are truly critical only when chocolate is melted solo, with no added fat or liquid—then it is vulnerable to any contact with small amounts of moisture or liquid, which might cause the chocolate to thicken or seize, instead of melt smoothly.
Put the chopped chocolate in a stainless steel bowl. For dark chocolate, set the bowl directly in a skillet of barely simmering (or not even simmering) water. The bowl of chocolate does indeed touch the water and the bottom of the skillet. The skillet should be several inches wider than the bowl, to prevent the edges of the bowl from getting too hot to touch (see photo). Stir the chocolate frequently until it is almost entirely melted—or as directed in the recipe.
For white or milk chocolate, which burn very easily, remove the skillet of simmering water from the heat and wait 60 seconds before setting the bowl of chocolate in the water. Then stir the chocolate, letting the hot water do the job without any live heat under the pan.
Chop dark chocolates (including semisweet, bittersweet, and unsweetened) coarsely into pieces about the size of almonds; chop milk chocolate or white chocolate very fine. Put the chocolate in a perfectly dry microwave-safe container. Heat dark chocolate on Medium (50 percent) power, and milk and white chocolate on Low (30 percent or Defrost). Start with 1 to 2 minutes for amounts up to 3 ounces, and 3 minutes for larger amounts. Even if most of the chocolate is unmelted, stir it well before microwaving for additional increments of 5 to 15 seconds or more, depending on how much of the chocolate is left unmelted after stirring well. Be conservative; the goal is warm chocolate, not hot chocolate.
With the exception of German Chocolate Cake (which calls for sweetened coconut), recipes in this book call for unsweetened shredded coconut and/or wider shavings of unsweetened coconut (aka coconut chips or flakes). Both may be found in the baking aisle or the bulk food aisle of better supermarkets and natural food stores.
If a recipe calls for freshly ground coffee beans or brewed coffee, I use beans from a specialty purveyor, rather than a vacuum-packed brand, and I grind them myself. For recipes that call for instant espresso powder, use an unsweetened brand that does not contain milk, such as Medaglio d’Oro or King Arthur; or use regular powdered coffee or coffee crystals but increase the amount by about 25 percent.
Stone-ground cornmeal is made from corn that has not been degerminated. It is whole-grain flour and should be stored in the refrigerator or freezer to prevent rancidity.
Buy heavy cream or heavy whipping cream (with at least 5.5 grams of fat per 2-tablespoon serving) rather than whipping cream if you have a choice, because it whips up more reliably. The best-tasting cream is simply pasteurized, not ultra-pasteurized or “sterilized” (for longer shelf life), and it contains a single ingredient: cream. If you need to keep cream on hand for a spur-of-the-moment need, keep a carton of ultra-pasteurized in the back of the fridge—it will last for quite a while unopened. When you know you are going to use it to make dessert, buy the good stuff, if you can find it.
Dried fruit should be moist and flavorful, rather than hard and dry. Whole pieces are fresher, plumper, and more flavorful than prechopped or extruded pellets. Chop your own, using an oiled knife or scissors.
Dulce de leche and/or cajeta may be found in better supermarkets, and in Latin American or Mexican groceries, as well as online. Both are caramelized milk sauces, with cajeta traditionally made with goat’s milk or half goat’s and half cow’s milk. The terms are used interchangeably, so you must read the labels if you are looking for one milk or the other.
Ghee may be substituted for clarified butter in any recipe in this book. Ghee is a type of clarified butter—pure butter oil minus the water and milk solids found in regular butter—used widely in Indian and other South Asian cooking. Ghee has a slightly nutty flavor, even more delicious than that of clarified butter, because the milk solids are cooked and caramelized before they are removed. The shelf life of ghee is longer than that of clarified butter because the latter usually has some traces of milk left in it that will go sour unless you keep it in the freezer. Ghee is available in better supermarkets and Indian or South Asian groceries.
For maximum freshness and flavor, buy nuts raw and toast them yourself. If possible, buy nuts in bulk from a store with high turnover, and taste before buying. Big-box stores are also a good source. Whole nuts (almonds and hazelnuts) or halves and large pieces (walnuts and pecans) stay fresher longer; it’s better to chop them yourself.
Not to be confused with potato flour (which is made from the entire potato), potato starch—also called potato starch flour, just to confuse things—is derived only from the starchy part of the potato. It has a relatively neutral flavor and a light silky texture that, combined with oat flour and brown rice flour, produces superb Chocolate Chip Cookies (see recipe) and New Classic Blondies (see recipe).
The recipes in this book were tested with fine sea salt, but regular table salt may be used.
Ground spices should still smell potent in the jar; don’t expect them to keep forever. Keep whole nutmeg, cinnamon sticks, and cardamom pods on hand, in addition to the ground spices, for special needs. Use a Microplane zester to grate a little nutmeg or some cinnamon stick over brownies or cookies or over hot doughnuts just before serving. To use cardamom seeds from whole pods: Crush the pods lightly with a heavy object to split them. Pick off and discard the papery dry pod to find the black or gray seeds. Crush the seeds or pulverize them in a mortar, as directed in the recipe.
Brown sugars were once semirefined sugars with some of the natural molasses left in them. Commercial brown sugar today is retrofitted: it is refined white sugar with varying amounts of molasses added. Brown sugar imparts delicate butterscotch flavors to baked goods and desserts. Recipes may specify a preference for light or dark brown sugar, but normally you can use them interchangeably. Brown sugar hardens with exposure to the air; store it in an airtight container or tightly sealed in the bag it came in. The sugar should be lump-free before it is added to a batter or dough, since it is unlikely to smooth out. Squeeze lumps with your fingers or mash them with a fork before using. To soften hardened brown sugar, sprinkle it with a little water, put it in a tightly covered container (or wrap tightly in foil), and place in a 250°F oven for a few minutes. Cool without unwrapping before using. Measure brown sugar using a scale, if possible, or by packing it firmly into a measuring cup.
The recipes in this book were tested with C&H granulated cane sugar (a brand sold mainly west of the Mississippi). Sugars vary in different parts of the country. If your brand of sugar is coarser than regular table salt, and/or you think that your cakes or cookies could be more tender, use baker’s sugar, or superfine or bar sugar, or process your granulated sugar briefly in the food processor before using it. Beet sugar is chemically identical to cane sugar, but many bakers have reported differences and disappointments with beet sugar. Stick with cane sugar.
Also called confectioners’ sugar or icing sugar, this is granulated sugar that has been pulverized and mixed with a little cornstarch to prevent clumping. We use powdered sugar mostly for dusting lightly over desserts to soften or dress up the look.
Pure vanilla extract is a must—it simply tastes better than imitation. I use bourbon (aka Madagascar) vanilla for most things where an expected vanilla flavor is wanted, but I enjoy having Mexican and Tahitian vanillas on hand for special projects. See Resources for a supplier of great vanilla.
Xanthan gum is produced through the fermentation of a bacterium called Xanthomonas campestris on corn syrup or on other mediums such as wheat or soy. People with wheat allergies should purchase xanthan gum from a reliable gluten-free source. Xanthan gum is used in commercial food products to add volume, thicken and stabilize liquids, and hold particles in suspension (think salad dressing). It is also used to create a smooth texture in commercial ice creams and frozen desserts. And in gluten-free baking, it is used to bind ingredients and/or create chewiness in the absence of gluten. Powdered xanthan gum is available in the baking aisles of better supermarkets or online. See Resources.
If you bake, you may already have what you need to make all of the recipes in this book. For those who are still acquiring the tools of the trade, here’s an annotated inventory of a good baker’s kitchen.
Fruit desserts in this book call for 2-quart baking dishes in any shape, 2 to 3 inches deep, and pies call for 9-inch pie plates.
For thin, crispy cookies like tuiles, or any cookies meant to be uniformly crispy, a silicone mat is a good option (though not essential) for lining baking sheets. However, silicone is not the best liner for most other cookies, and I don’t consider it a must-have item.
The recipes in this book call for 8-inch and 9-inch round and square pans, 2 inches deep; 8- and 9-inch springform pans or cheesecake pans with removable bottoms, 2½ to 3 inches deep; 4-cup and 6-cup loaf pans; 10-inch (10- to 12-cup) tube pans with removable bottoms; and 10- to 12-cup Bundt pans.
For even baking and moist, tender cake layers, medium-weight to heavy light-colored aluminum pans generally work best. Metal pans that are thin or dark produce cakes that overbake at the sides and on the bottom, sometimes even before the inside is done. (Glass pans may do the same—don’t use them unless they are called for.) There are some exceptions: some pound cakes and rich cakes baked in heavy (often decorative and often dark) tube, Bundt, or loaf pans acquire a deep golden-brown crust that is both delicious and beautiful.
In the traditional baking repertoire (that is, baking with wheat flour), light, airy cakes with delicate structures, like angel food, chiffon, and certain light sponge cakes, are baked in large, tall tube pans. The tube not only helps these cakes bake evenly both inside and outside, it also prevents delicate cakes from sinking in the center as they cool, which they might otherwise do. Decorative tube pans, such as Bundt pans, are also used for some heavier and sweeter cakes (think rich coffee cake) that would ordinarily sink in the center.
Since the flours used in this book do not contain gluten, tube pans provide essential support in several recipes. Sponge and chiffon cakes stick to the contours of decorative Bundt pans, but they do very well in plain tube pans with removable bottoms—the type traditionally used for angel food cakes. Rich butter cakes do well in plain tube pans or Bundt pans. Each recipe will specify the right type of pan.
Medium-weight to heavy light-colored aluminum baking sheets and jelly roll pans will not warp or bend and they cook evenly, without hot spots. Avoid dark or nonstick surfaces, which can overbake and toughen tender sheet cakes and cookies. For both cookies and sheet cakes or roulade sheets, I like medium-weight commercial “half sheet pans,” which measure 12 by 16 inches by 1 inch—nothing fancier. If cookies are baking unevenly or browning too quickly on the bottom and edges—before the tops are baked—your pans may be too thin or too dark. In a pinch, parchment liners may help promote even baking, even if your pans are less than ideal.
A baker’s kitchen needs a variety of bowls of different sizes. They need not be expensive. Glass and stainless steel bowls are good for different tasks. Glass is great for use in the microwave or when you need the added stability of its weight—for instance, when you must whisk or beat with one hand and pour in an ingredient with the other. But stainless steel is more versatile. It is preferable for melting chocolate or heating anything in a water bath or improvised double boiler. Bowls that are nearly as tall as they are wide are best for beating egg whites and for keeping sugar and flour from flying out when using a handheld mixer.
Racks allow air to circulate under cakes and cookies while cooling.
Doughnut makers find that a fryer, even a small one, with a temperature gauge produces better (less greasy) doughnuts without breaking down cooking oils.
A food processor pulverizes nuts (with the steel blade) or grates them (with the fine shredding disk) to make nut flours. It also mixes cookie dough and cake batter in a flash. A blender is good for liquid ingredients or purees, or for turning nuts or buckwheat groats into meal, but is apt to turn large quantities of nuts into paste rather than meal or flour. A coffee grinder is best for making flaxseed meal for up to ⅓ cup (about 50 grams) of flaxseeds; for up to ⅔ cup (100 grams), use a blender instead.
Dry measuring cups are designed to measure dry ingredients such as flour. Metal or plastic dry measures come in sets of ¼, ⅓, ½, and 1 cup. These measures are meant to be filled level with the rim: use a ½-cup measure to measure ½ cup; don’t shake what you think is ½ cup into a 1-cup measure. Liquid measures are clear glass or plastic pitchers with measures marked up the sides: pour liquid ingredients to the appropriate mark with your head lowered so you can see the amount at eye level.
Metal or plastic measuring spoons come in sets of ¼ (1.25 ml), ½ (2.5 ml), and 1 teaspoon (5 ml), plus 1 tablespoon (15 ml, which equals 3 teaspoons). Some sets include ⅛ teaspoon. Measures are meant to be leveled. I don’t bother to use measuring spoons that purport to measure a pinch or a smidgen.
A nut grinder allows you to make nut flours that are fresher and more flavorful than store-bought. The best grinders produce fine, dry (not oily) flours by allowing the nuts to pass through a grating or shredding device rather than keeping them in continuous contact with a blade. I use an inexpensive Swedish grinder with a barrel-shaped grater/shredder and hand crank; it clamps to a cutting board or tabletop and has lasted for decades.
A microwave oven is good for reheating sauces; softening, melting, or even clarifying butter (click here); liquefying crystallized honey; defrosting ingredients; and softening rock-hard ice cream to scooping consistency. A microwave can also be used (very, very carefully) to bring cold dairy products—milk, eggs, and cheese—to room temperature.
Recipes that call for an electric mixer most often call for a stand mixer with a whisk or paddle attachment, depending on the recipe. Batters and doughs without gluten often get structure from whipped eggs or egg whites; a stand mixer with a whisk attachment always outperforms a handheld mixer and usually in less than half the time. The paddle attachment similarly handles very thick, sticky doughs. A few recipes call for a handheld mixer.
Parchment paper makes a superb and reliable pan liner for cake pans or baking sheets when a liner is called for. Wax paper is less expensive than parchment and makes a good surface for measuring and/or sifting flour; layering between cookies, crepes, or cake layers; or performing miscellaneous tasks that do not involve the oven or high temperatures.
Nylon or polypropylene is better than cloth for pastry bags, because the bags wash easily and don’t become sour smelling, nor does the moisture from whipped cream weep through them. Disposable plastic bags also work well and may even be washed and reused. Bags should be bigger than you think you need as you should never fill them more than half full: a large 16- to 18-inch bag is good for piping a batch of meringues or lots of whipped cream. A 10- to 12-inch bag is good for smaller quantities.
Natural boar bristle brushes are a pain in the neck to wash, but they do a better job than nylon or other synthetic bristles for most baking tasks where a thin but thorough coating of something (egg wash, melted butter, etc.) is needed, or even for moistening cake layers without shedding. Silicone brushes may be good for ribs on the grill, but other than for smearing butter around a hot crepe pan, they don’t cut it in the pastry kitchen. Keep at least one natural bristle brush dedicated to desserts so you won’t have to worry about the lingering flavor of barbecue sauce.
A scale is the best and simplest way to measure almost everything, especially dry ingredients like flour and cocoa powder. A battery-powered digital scale is most efficient; choose one that will switch between ounces (imperial) and grams (metric), ideally with increments of 5 (or fewer) grams or one-tenth of an ounce.
A serrated knife with a 12-inch blade is ideal for cutting cakes into thin horizontal layers, but in a pinch, a shorter knife will do the job.
For testing cakes, wooden toothpicks or slim wooden skewers are better than metal “cake testers.” Moist batter and crumbs stick to wood much better than to metal, so you can see exactly how gooey or dry your cake is within.
A metal spatula with a straight 8-inch blade is perfect for frosting cakes. An offset spatula (with a bend in it right after the handle) at least 8 inches long is good for spreading a thin, even layer of batter into a jelly roll pan. A 4-inch offset spatula is useful for smoothing batters or soft doughs in smaller cake or tart pans and for myriad other small tasks. Removing cookies from baking sheets and flipping pancakes is easiest with an ordinary pancake turner/spatula. Spatulas with thin metal blades are much easier to slide under cookies or pancakes than plastic or coated nonstick utensils (which are needed for nonstick cookware and bakeware).
Silicone spatulas have largely taken the place of rubber spatulas and even wooden spoons in our kitchens. Three sizes take care of any contingency. Use the largest for folding egg whites (or anything else) into batters and scraping big bowls. Use the medium size for mixing, and the tiny one for teasing the last sticky bits of anything from a jar or measuring cup. Silicone spatulas are better than wooden spoons for cooking anything from custards to caramel. They can sweep the sides, corners, and bottoms of pots without missing a square inch of territory where ingredients may stick or burn. Flat spatulas are more versatile than those that are spoon shaped, because they are easier to scrape against the sides of a bowl or pot.
A large medium-mesh strainer is good for sifting flour and other dry ingredients with just one hand and is easier to clean and store than a classic sifter. A medium-fine-mesh strainer is good for straining custards or removing seeds from a berry puree. A fine-mesh strainer (or even a tea strainer) is good for dusting a little powdered sugar or cocoa powder atop a cake or soufflé.
Tart recipes in this book call for a fluted 9½-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Tartlet recipes call for fluted 4½-inch pans with removable bottoms. Choose shiny reflective pans rather than those made of dark steel.
Good bakers need reliable ovens. Oven thermometers are inexpensive and are useful for checking the accuracy of your oven temperature.
A standard instant-read thermometer with a range from 0°F to 220°F (designed for meat) is good when making custards or buttercream, but recipes that involve cooking caramel or deep-frying require a thermometer with a greater range. Polder makes a thermometer with a range of 32°F to 392°F; it has a remote wire probe that can be attached to a pot of caramel or stuck into a chicken in the oven, while the easy-to-read digital display sits on the counter. The excellent Thermapen has a range of 58°F to 592°F and a large display, but no remote probe or clip.
A timer (whether on your stove, on your phone, or the old-fashioned countdown type with a dial that twists) reminds the busy cook to check the cookies or cake before it’s too late.
Wire whisks are great for whipping cream and mixing batters as well as blending dry ingredients and fluffing and aerating flour—often eliminating the need to sift.
A flat (rather than round) Microplane zester shreds and removes the thin colored layer of any citrus peel effortlessly and without scraped knuckles. It is also handy for grating whole nutmeg or cinnamon sticks.
Working with new methods and new flours that behave in new or unexpected ways means that the little details are more important than ever! Here are my top ten.
1. Keep flours fresh: Store whole-grain and other perishable flours in airtight containers in the fridge or freezer to prevent them from turning rancid.
2. Do your mise en place like a pro: Measuring all of your ingredients before you start ensures that you have what you need and will not forget an ingredient along the way.
3. Measure accurately: A scale is always the best way to measure ingredients, but if you must use measuring cups, review the proper methods here and here.
4. Check your oven temperature: Put an oven thermometer in the center of the oven and make sure it registers the same temperature that you set. If not, adjust the dial. Better yet, get a professional to calibrate your oven. For convection ovens, consult the manual that came with the oven; you may be instructed to use a lower temperature and check for doneness early.
5. Position your oven racks: Things bake differently on different racks. Unless using a convection oven, always position your oven racks at the level called for in each recipe and rotate pans if called for as well. For convection ovens, consult the oven manual for rack position advice.
6. Mix it right: Some recipes need vigorous beating or whisking; some need only delicate folding. Use the utensil, type of action, and speed called for. Where it matters, mixing times are given to help you get it right. Don’t forget to set a timer!
7. Rest and hydrate: Some flours in some recipes need time to absorb liquid from the batter so that the finished cakes or cookies don’t taste raw or feel gritty on the palate. Hydration is built into the recipes where necessary. Fruit cobbler recipes may call for mixing the biscuit topping first and letting it rest (and hydrate!) while the fruit is prepared and baked. Cookie recipes may call for resting dough for at least 2 hours, but preferably longer—and I don’t call for it unless I know that the payoff is worth the wait. Just think of resting time as a do-ahead advantage.
8. Use the type and size of pans called for: Metal and glass pans bake differently. A 9-inch pan may not seem much bigger than an 8-inch one, but it has 25 percent more surface area, and the same is true for a 9-inch square compared to an 8-inch square. If your pan is too large, your cake will be much thinner than you expect and will be done long before your timer goes off.
9. Always cool cakes and cookies completely: Cool them until fully room temperature, not even slightly lukewarm, before frosting or wrapping (unless instructed otherwise).
10. Create like a pastry chef: The best way to make a new successful recipe from an existing but unfamiliar recipe is to first follow the original recipe as written, so that you know what the flavors and textures are like when the recipe works. Then change one thing at a time. If you make too many changes to a recipe at once, you will never know which change was responsible for the failure.
