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Episode 12

Alice Medrich and her newest book: Gluten Free Flavour Flours

Get on your note taking hat because this episode is full of baking techniques which you can apply to your gluten-free baking today! My guest for this show is a culinary expert and a big believer in delicous!

Today I'm here with a special guest who has recently hit the gluten-free scene with, what I consider, a book that should be a staple in your kitchen if you are A. Gluten-free and B. Like to bake. She is largely a self taught baker and pastry chef who started out working with chocolate, when, after living for a year in Paris, she returned home with her landlady's hand written recipe for chocolate truffles and began to make and sell them in local gourmet shops. She then opened my own shop, "Cocolat— in 1972 which grew into 7 shops before she sold her shops in 1990. She then focused on publishing and created her first cookbook, "Cocolat" which she received my first Cookbook of the Year award from the James Beard Foundation.  She has since published an additional 9 cookbooks which have won numerous awards, contributed to cooking magazines, and consulted in the baking and chocolate industries.  She considers herself an inventive, ingredient driven chef who is not wed to classic rules or received wisdom, which led her to the opportunity to work with gluten free non wheat flours. 

Her most recent book, "Gluten-Free Flavor Flours explores the flavors of gluten-free grains. She teamed up with her friend, who is also a marvelous baker and cook, Maya Klein, to produce the first gluten free cookbook to focus on whole grains rather than white rice and starches and to celebrate the flavors and textures of those non wheat flours, rather than to try to make them behave like wheat. 

She is currently writing a weekly column for Food52.com and just won the IACP award for best food focussed column. Her recent reviews of two baking books appeared on April 15 in the Wall Street Journal and her book ("Flavor Flours" aka "Gluten Free Flavor Flours") just appeared on a NYMag list of best baking books

Alice Medrich has a rich culinary history, starting in Paris with a chocolate truffle recipe from her landlady, which she brought back to the United States. She is known to be one of the first women to introduce the truffle to dark chocolate and chocolate tortes to the American palette (Thank You, Alice!). 

From her beginnings selling her chocolates in the American Charcuterie to her latest cookbook, "Gluten Free Flavor Flours" we talk about why Alice chose to create a gluten-free cookbook, even though she isn't gluten-free and why Alice chose sponge cake as her base recipe. 

We discuss the textures, flavors and benefits of using the flours in this cookbook: oat, corn, coconut, chestnut, sorghum, rice and teff, the last of which is the grain of Ethiopia. Alice talks about the qualities of each of these flours, how she discovered these gluten-free flours and the process of choosing what types of recipes to make with each of these whole grains. She talks about one of the flours in her cookbook that is particularly good in chocolate recipes.

And what about xanthum gum? Do you really need it in gluten-free baking? Why do you whip egg whites? How can you add binding to a gluten-free cake? Did you know there is an easy way to hydrate your gluten-free baking? What are the two variables to making great butter cookies? How to find a good cookbook that's worth it's salt. Find