Alternative Baker: Reinventing Dessert with Gluten-Free Grains and Flours

AN IACP AWARD-WINNING COOKBOOK

100+ Recipes Featuring Corn, Oat, Chestnut, Almond, Buckwheat, Sorghum and Other Gluten-Free Flours

Find a Unique Palette of Textures, Tastes and Fragrances You Never Knew Existed

Have you enjoyed a brilliant corn flour roll that preferences like daylight, or encountered the hearty pleasantness of chestnut flour? Did you realize teff flour scents of malted chocolate milk, and mesquite flour of newly heated gingerbread? Put aside your insipid generally useful flour to praise the convincing kinds of a wide exhibit of nut-and grain-based elective flours that are pressed with flavor and are beneficial for you, as well. From top of-season natural product pies settled in a compellingly crunchy hull, to treats that emphatically liquefy in your mouth, creator Alanna Taylor-Tobin offers in excess of 100 healthy treats using effectively open elective grains and flours for each taste and preparing level.

Presently we should get baking―let's rethink dessert.

About the Author
Alanna Taylor-Tobin is a classically trained pastry chef and founder of the popular recipe website The Bojon Gourmet. Her recipes, food styling and photography have been featured in the New York Times, Food and Wine, Food52, The Huffington Post, GFF: Gluten-Free Forever Magazine and Williams-Sonoma.

Alanna has produced an utterly gorgeous (no surprise) cookbook on baking with alternative (gluten-free) flours. I follow the Bojon Gourmet, so I was expecting jaw-dropping photographs, meticulously crafted recipes, easy-to-follow instructions, and tasty results. That's exactly what I got. In a slight departure from what feels like normal, the discussion of each individual gluten-free flour, where to find it, what brand Alanna tested her recipes with, how to store it, how to use it, and it's nutritional impact is at the back of the book. The cookbook jumps quickly into recipes after a brief intro and a how-to-use-this-book list of the "easy", "intermediate", and "advanced" gluten-free flours and associated recipes. Each recipe is accompanied by a photo of the finished product and a cute little header about where the recipe stems from. I've found several recipes that I'm extra excited to try because Alanna references them as being inspired by some of my favorite places in SF: Plow in Potrero Hill (Millet Skillet Cornbread with Cherries and Honey), Josey Baker Bread (Nut and Seed Loaf), and Tartine (Buckwheat Pear Galettes). Aside from an astonishing array of various gluten-free flours, Alanna's desserts rely on (delicious) ingredients like butter, creme fraiche or sour cream, cream, buttermilk, yogurt, maple syrup, and brown sugar. There are some (4) vegan recipes and one recipe I noticed labelled lactose-free. Many of these recipes could be adapted to specific dietary needs as necessary, but it may take a fair amount of trial and error for perfectly-created recipes like the pie and tart doughs. The section on pies/tarts spans what feels like a third of the book, so if you aren't a huge fan of pies and/or making your own pie crust, that may not be an ideal proportion. However, I would strongly encourage everyone to give it a try. There's a very detailed two-page photo spread on making the perfect gluten-free pie crust, and the variety of pies is outstanding. I've already learned something new just from my quick read of Alternative Baker - maybe if I position my pies lower in the oven I'll have less trouble with soggy crusts. That seems like a "duh" idea now, but I'd never considered it. -Kat L

I’ve been following Alanna’s blog for many years. So why it took me so long to buy the book is beyond me. I should not have waited! The book is amazing! I cook a lot, I read a lot of recipes on the Internet, and I tend to try new things. Frequently, they are a flop. But this book totally delivers, the recipes are so incredibly well researched and tested that I know they will be reliable. And delicious! Frequently better than similar gluten containing recipes if you ask me. I love the blog, but I think I love the book even more, if that’s possible. I want to make almost everything listed. Also, the book is beautifully printed, full of stunning photographs, and easy to read. There is a great index and the interior is organized into sensible sections. One of the things that I love about Alanna’s recipes is that she lists both weights and volumes for all. At home, I only cook by weighing things, so it takes a ton of time for me to convert everyone else’s recipes into measurements that use weight. I don’t have to fuss with that when making the recipes in Alternative Baker. It’s such a thoughtful and precise book, and the writing style has made me chuckle a number of times. Love it! It will also be my new go-to gift to friends who enjoy baking. -Eric & Kim

This a is a beautiful and delicious gluten-free cookbook! I've made numerous recipes including: blueberry corn flour muffins, sorghum peach oven pancake, apple buckwheat and gruyere puff pancake, chocolate zucchini cake with matcha cream cheese frosting, maple teff apple pie with walnut crumble, pumpkin pie with a buckwheat crust, coconut cream and raspberry tart, chocolate cranberry pecan tart (so good!), chocolate bergamot truffle tart with olive oil and flaky salt (also so good!), maple bourbon peach cobbler with cinnamon teff biscuits, triple coconut tres leches cake with mango and lime, teff oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and meyer lemon bars with vanilla-almond crust. Everything has been so delicious and worked out well. I even had a question once about one of my tart doughs and contacted the author who responded quickly. I also love looking at the author's blog and contributions to the GFF magazine.I appreciate that the flours have weight measurements and that there is no gluten-free mix. While I recognize some people like the ease of one single mix, I make so many different gluten-free recipes that I don't have enough space to store all these separate mixes on top of all the flours. There are some less common flours (and more expensive ones like chestnut), but the most of the more frequently used flours are fairly accessible, especially if you frequently do gluten-free baking (like millet, oat, sweet rice/glutinous rice flour, almond). One thing to note is that most of the recipes involve fruit. While this is yummy, it also increases the cost of some of the recipes depending upon where you leave and some of the fruits may be less accessible (or not accessible year round--although it's probably a good thing to be more in tune to what's in season). The author does provide some substitution recommendations though. There are a couple of dairy-free recipes and the odd vegan recipes. Currently, this cookbook and Flavour Flours by Alice Medrich are my favourite gluten-free baking cookbooks. I really appreciate how they try to incorporate various whole grains and embrace the properties of each of the flours instead of just trying to mimic wheat flour. I highly recommend this book! -B. Ross