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Baking and the Bulk
Aisle
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What I Choose to Buy at the
Co-op... and Why
A series of monthly
articles from members of the HWFC Nutrition Committee |
by Louise Frazier
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What a delight to shop in
the new bulk aisle section of the Co-op, now moved to the back of the
store! It is spacious and well displays its grand array of basic
ingredients, enabling shoppers to find and fill their bags with ease.
So it was for me as I test-baked cake recipes for this article
featuring the famous carrot cake from long-time Co-op member and
well-known area cook: Marci David. She usually relies on the bulk aisle
for ingredients and was able to find everything she needed to develop
her gluten-free version below.
As Marci tells it: “A friend challenged me to make food for her 30th
wedding anniversary party—free from gluten, dairy, night-shades and
vinegar—and she wanted my carrot cake to serve 80+ people! First I
tried gluten-free mixes, finding some contents unsuitable, for example
potato starch is from a nightshade plant and bean flour doesn’t taste
good in cakes. After assembling a ton of books, magazine and newspaper
articles, I started experimenting. Since we needed five times the
original measurements, it seemed best to make a glutenfree mix. This is
the final one”:
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Gluten-Free
Mix
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1½
cup white rice flour
1½ cup brown rice flour
1 cup arrowroot powder
½ cup tapioca flour
1 tsp xanthum gum*
Mix well in mixer. (This is enough for several cakes and can be stored
for several months in a large canning jar on the pantry shelf. Marci
also used it for pancakes.)
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Marci’s
Original Carrot Cake
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1¼
cup salad oil (bulk GMOfree canola)
2 cup organic sugar
2 cup less 2 TBS flour or gluten-free mix
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 eggs
4 cup peeled, grated carrots
1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup raisins or currants
(1) Whisk together oil and sugar. (2) Sift together flour mix and dry
ingredients. Blend half of this into sugar-oil mixture. (3) Alternately
add one egg at a time along with a quarter of the remaining dry
ingredients, beating well after each addition. (Note: Glutenfree cake
is more forgiving if over-mixed, as it contains no gluten to toughen
it.) (4) Fold in carrots, nuts and raisins/ currants. (5) Pour into
welloiled and lightly floured bundt pan. Bake at 350° for 70 mins.
or longer, until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Cool at least 10
mins. before inverting onto cooling rack or plate.
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Cream
Cheese-Butter Frosting
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8
oz. unsalted butter
8 oz. soft cream cheese
3 cup confectioner’s sugar (Co-op bulk)
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp lemon oil or zest from 2 organic lemons
Note: Using the same amount of Earth Balance spread and tofu cream
cheese makes a perfect substitute for a dairy-free recipe. (1) Cream
well butter and cream cheese (or substitutes). (2) Stir in
confectioner’s sugar. (3) Add vanilla + lemon oil or zest.
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Marci
said that many of the guests at the party were people who had been
eating the original-recipe carrot cake for many years, and she was
nervous about their reaction to the gluten-free version. They gave a
“thumbs up!” Now heady with success, she’s converting other recipes.
She recently made a low-fat version of the cake by using only ½
cup of oil and ¾ cup of plain unsweetened applesauce in place of
the 1¼ cup of oil in the original recipe. She then simply dusted
the cooled cake with confectioner’s sugar, instead of icing it.
The Co-op carries SOYATOO! Soy Whip in the dairy refrigerated section,
which can be used as a dairy-free or vegan creamy-type topping. I
whipped this up and put a dollop on each slice of carrot cake I was
serving recently and everyone liked the flavor and its whipped
consistency.
Here is an egg-less version of a carrot cake recipe I adapted to suit
both the gluten-free and vegan diet using organic ingredients, mostly
found in the bulk aisle:
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Egg-less
gluten-free vegan carrot cake
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1
cup sunflower or safflower oil
1 cup maple syrup
1 cup sucanat sugar
3 cups finely grated carrots
¼ cup raisins
¼ cup chopped walnuts
2¼ cup gluten mix or whole spelt
flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp allspice
2 tsp baking soda
4 tsp cream of tartar (a traditional leavening agent ground from grape
stones that develop in making wine)
Mix together the oil, maple syrup, and sucanat. Mix the dry ingredients
together. Combine the dry and wet ingredients. Fold the grated carrots,
raisins and nuts into the batter.
Pour the cake batter into an oiled, flour dusted bundt pan. Bake at
325° for 80 min. or until a clean, dry knife or cake tester
inserted into the cake comes out clean (or moist, but not wet with
dough) and the top springs bake when pressed. Gluten-free cakes take
longer to bake. An oiled piece of brown paper covering the top of the
pan prevents over-browning. (For layer cake, bake in two oiled, flour
dusted layer cake pans for 45–60 min., until done.)
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There
are a number of ingredients that can be substituted in a recipe to suit
your diet or interest in adapting it to a more wholesome treat. When a
recipe calls for eggs, one can use egg replacer found in the cereal
grocery section of the Co-op, or use 1 tsp of arrowroot powder for each
egg replaced, plus add 1 TBS of fluid such as milk/soy milk for each
egg replaced.
Sugar may be replaced with one third the amount of maple or agave syrup
and increasing by one-fourth the amount of flour in the recipe. Agave,
maple syrup and honey are sweeter than white sugar, and the extra flour
compensates for the syrup’s added fluid. Sucanat is a brand name for
organic cane sugar that is simply extracted and evaporated, retaining
its nutrients, whereas in chemical and further refining of sugar, all
nutrients are lost.
You can find all of these ingredients at the Co-op, mostly in the bulk
section, with a few packaged in groceries.
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*Xanthum
gum is
produced in fermentation of glucose/sucrose, usually from corn, by a
bacterium (xanthomomas campestris), affecting the viscosity of fluids
in a recipe, giving the batter a gluten-like stickiness.
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