I Have A Dream: Hypoallergenic Pastry

I've been using the free My Fitness Pal app to help evaluate my physical diet for the past 3 months.  It's sort of a marriage between understanding what I need and what I want. 
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/login

I have learned that for my overall health (physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual) I need to learn to dream. And not just the kind that happens when I'm sorting things out in my sleep.

In January we celebrated the legacy of a man with a dream, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We celebrated tolerance and compassion. And in February, I wrote about another false dichotomy--healthy comfort food--over at Kitchen Stewardship.

Throughout the years I have learned much from my relationship with food. But recently I learned some important life lessons from baking:

1. Life's not ideal, and that's great!
2. Preparation is different than prevention.
3. Check your temperature: do you need more heat or do you need to chill?

I came to these important realizations while learning to make eclairs. Pictured here are virgin pina colada (lime curd, coconut whipped cream, toasted coconut flakes, and vanilla lime flavored marbled fondant,) pink lemonade (lemon curd, coconut whipped cream, candied citrus and pink lemon glaze,) chocolate citrus (lemon curd, coconut whipped cream, candied citrus and chocolate ganache,) and chocolate berry cream (seedless raspberry jam, coconut whipped cream, and chocolate ganache.)

Depending on how you fill them they're not a sugary dessert and they're surprisingly easy to make hypoallergenic! I began by starting with Glutenista's Gluten-free eclair recipe, studying her troubleshooting tips, and watching tutorials by Mary Berry and several others online.

Missing Ingredients Doesn't Mean Missing Out

Ideally, I knew what the pitfalls were and how to avoid them. I was on my way to perfect, hypoallergenic eclairs! Or so I thought.

I thought I followed the recipe exactly, but I knew something was wrong with the pastry batter. I hurried to watch another step by step tutorial and reread the troubleshooting tips. I added a little flour and tried to chill the batter, but it was obvious I wouldn't be able to bake the dough as directed.

Wracking my brain for scientific reasons why this bake wasn't behaving as it should, I discovered a small yet significant mistake: no xanthan gum.

Because I bake gluten-free whenever possibly, some delicacies are difficult to make without a little ingenuity and help from science. Xanthan gum helps give structure and elasticity to gluten-free dough so one can enjoy things like pizza crust, pasta, and yes, even eclairs. I bought the fool-proof gluten-free baking flour from King Arthur flour and I thought it had failed me for the first time. But it was I who forgot the significance of 3 tiny words on the box: no xanthan gum.

I quickly whipped up a half batch of batter with xanthan gum and it did much better. I was also careful to pay closer attention to its temperature while whisking in the eggs.

Sometimes we go through life trying to achieve the ideal results while working with a less-than-ideal situation. When baking it's important to know how long to bake something and at what temperature. Some batters have to be handled only when they've reached a certain temperature. The directions explain ideal conditions.

Knowing why directions are what they are can help a baker figure out necessary adjustments. But sometimes you'll still get stuck with a melted ice cream cake or deflated souffle.

Check Your Temperature

I used to think that if I was prepared enough I could face anything: that if I was prepared for the absolute worst, then it couldn't happen to me.

But part of being prepared for the curve balls in life isn't about preventing them from happening: it's about learning to juggle them. Some awkward moments in life can be avoided or made less uncomfortable with foresight. And sometimes, despite all our studying and best intentions, everything can go horribly wrong.

I have yet to bake anything in my mini doughnut pan that I
don't destroy when I dig it out with a spoon.

 Remember that batter that was just too runny because of its missing ingredient? It turns out that while I couldn't bake it, this batter fried up nicely. I was surprised to find that the answer was to simply turn up the heat. The dough expanded once it made contact with the hot oil. Baking it at 400 F then drying it out at a lower temperature just didn't work. 

Similarly, sometimes I grow most and produce best in life when I've got a bit of a fire lit underneath me. Sometimes we need a bit of extra pressure to reach higher and achieve greater things.

And that second, smaller batch I whipped up? After adding the extra step of putting it in the fridge before finishing the recipe's instructions, I got the delicious results expected. Sometimes in life we've got to just chill. We may already have what we need but be too worked up to make the best of what we've got.

And this isn't just baking talk.

Choose your filling

If you've had the pleasure to watch the episode of The Great British Bake-off, you'll know that there are all kinds of options for flavoring and filling eclairs. Even when limited by your needs, taste preferences, and available ingredients, you're likely still left with several options. There might be more than one "right choice" for you. Different flavors are more satisfying to different people. So find something that leaves you feeling filled. Again this isn't just baking talk.

Ready for the recipe?

My vegan adaptation of Glutenista's eclairs with one extra step can be found here: https://www.kitchenstewardship.com/gluten-dairy-free-pastry/