I bought a new ingredient to experiment with this week. I've never really taken to coconut flour like my fellow grain-avoiding peeps. To me, it's like eating sawdust. I'm particularly fond of a certain brand of frozen pizza made with a tapioca-based crust, so I decided that I needed to try out some recipes with tapioca. Got the starch. It never really seemed to do well with baking like I imagined it would. Then, several months ago, I bought a pancake mix made with cassava flour as the main ingredient. The texture of the pancakes ended up the closest thing to real bread I'd had in two years. Unfortunately, it was sweetened with monkfruit, which it turns out I don't like. So I never bought the pancake mix again. I did a little research and learned that cassava flour and tapioca starch are made from the same plant, the yuca root. They're just processed differently. I've been looking for months in all the health food stores for cassava flour, and coming up empty. I can find tapioca starch in quantity, but cassava, which apparently has a little more heft (more fiber, perhaps?) and the ability to substitute nearly 1 to 1 for wheat flour, is as rare as a unicorn, even in health-conscious northern Colorado. So I did what any girl in my situation would do. I ordered it on Amazon. And when it arrived in a box with a book and some Jeep parts, torn and huffing a fine dusting of flour all over the inside of the box, I complained to customer service and got a second bag sent tout suite, for free. (Thanks, Amazon customer service!)
The first thing I made was peanut butter cookies. I found a recipe on Pinterest for them, and they sounded like a great breakfast, along with some bananas we already had. The cookies were phenomenal. I had to cook them a mighty long time, but when they came out of the oven, they were perfect. Considering I've only had cookies about three times since I went grain-free, this was a bliss I worried I'd never again experience. I'm already planning ahead for next Christmas, when I'll be making this recipe with Hershey's kisses in the middle of them.
Yesterday morning, I felt a little more daring. I was craving buttermilk biscuits, and I knew I had something that could approximate real bread in my kitchen. I tried going through Pinterest again, but I didn't find anything that really sounded right for what I wanted to achieve. I also didn't have any buttermilk, nor did I have the wherewithal to dress and run to the grocery store before I ate. So I decided to fake it. I poured a capful of apple cider vinegar into half-and-half, which I vaguely remembered would make a buttermilk-like substance. I mixed cassava flour, a little potato starch and xanthan gum for stability, salt, and baking powder together in a bowl. I didn't really measure anything, even though I was using measuring cups and spoons to scoop ingredients. I mixed some coconut oil and butter in with a pastry cutter. I whisked a couple eggs, and dropped those in, along with a squirt of honey and the "buttermilk." I told the man that I was making "prison biscuits" in the same imprecise manner that one would make prison wine. He should have been happy I wasn't stirring it together in a metal toilet bowl to complete the experience.
I think I put in a tiny bit too much fat, because they were sizzling on the parchment paper when I pulled them from the oven. Much like the peanut butter cookies, they needed to cook an extra long time. But when we tried them, holy cow, they really worked! They were slightly chewy, as I expected them to be with the cassava, but the flavor was perfect. They were a little denser than the rolls made by the same company as those pizzas I like (Against the Grain). But they were wonderful, especially with a little butter smeared on them, and we ate every bite. The man said they'd be great for biscuits and gravy (which is very easy and delicious with garbanzo flour, btw), so next time we have a hankering for breakfast sausage, they will make a reappearance. I didn't take any pictures of them, or write down any measurements, so I will have to work up a recipe for an Annie's Test Kitchen episode to come. I'll wait until I have real buttermilk to mix them with, but I promise, they'll still be called prison biscuits. From now on, that's my trademarked term.
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