gluten-free eats

This was new at my library so I thought I'd give it a peek.

Ingredients include:

• brown, white, and sweet rice flour
• corn starch, corn flour/meal
• potato starch, tapioca starch
• buckwheat flour
• sorghum flour
• quinoa flour
• millet flour
• oat flour
• teff flour
• flaxseed meal, whole psyllium husks
• nuts and seeds

The master sourdough recipe uses buckwheat and oat flour and there's no discussion about how to use anything else. Specific recipes might require one or more additional flours, and there is occasionally a substitute offered for those.

Thompson says you can make most of these recipes vegan through substitutions, as well, but doesn't give specific advice for each recipe, short of naming several that just won't work with substitutions. Instead there's a chart with suggestions for how to replace eggs, dairy products, and meats, but not honey, which is also used.

The introduction covers ingredients, tools, and the basic maintenance of a sourdough starter in a way that isn't intimidating, with general times and expectations for each stage of development. The first recipe, the beginner sourdough loaf, goes through the process in detail with photos for each step, and then each subsequent recipe gives detailed instructions up front for how far ahead to activate your starter and feed your levain before you start baking.

Recipes range from simple white breads to ones with savory or sweet additions, and shaped breads like pretzels, English muffins, and baguettes. There are also a bunch of recipes you can use with the starter discard including crackers, flat breads, scones, waffles, and a pizza crust.

All measurements are in grams (except for teaspoons) and every recipe has storage advice, a gorgeous photograph, and a headnote that describes the item, its ingredients, and often what kind of timeline it requires.

This seems like a good introduction to sourdough baking, and the breads look amazing. Worth checking out if you want to get into sourdough.