Get AKI Gluten Free Flour anywhere in The U.S.

AKulinary Innovations has officially opened its online store!   As an added bonus you can get 10% off all of our gluten-free baking mixes and our purposeful gluten-free flour, until the end of November, by sending us a friendly email.  Be sure to check out our recipes for the holidays, now go get your gluten-free bake on!

 

GF Pizza Dough

After much trial and error we have finally developed a pizza dough using our gluten-free flour!  The whole time we were trying to develop our bread flour we were looking in the wrong place.  I dug up an old recipe for pizza dough that I used at a family style pizza shop in Boulder Colorado.  With a few minor adjustments we were able to develop a beautiful pizza dough that is extremely functional as a bread at the same time.  The original recipe was only slightly changed, the only original ingredients that were changed were the oil and the addition of baking powder.  When we added the original amount of oil the dough would not stick to itself, which is understandable.  The baking powder is to help with rising as it bakes.  This is because gluten-free flours don’t have the ability to trap the gasses from yeast as well as wheat based products do.  To sum it up we truly have a product that can be used as a direct replacement for wheat flour, and with a little knowledge in cooking small adjustments can make a big difference.  Now go get yourself a bag of our GF Flour, mix up a batch of GF pizza dough, and enjoy the better things in life!

 

Spinach Gnudi

Gnocchi’s “naked” friend, this light and fluffy version of a dumpling is short on potato but not on versatility. Gnudi’s are similar to gnocchi’s in the way that they both have eggs and flour, but the one thing that they do not have in common is the potato. This version of a gnudi uses spinach as its base, egg, cheese, and flour as its binding agents. When sautéed and basted in brown butter these fluffy little pillows will be sure to satisfy.

Spinach Gnocchi

2.5# Fresh Spinach

1/2C Parmesan

2ea Eggs

~1/2C Bread Crumbs

1/4t Nutmeg

~1.25C AP Flour

• Place a large pot of water on the stove and bring to a boil with enough salt to where you can taste it.
• Prepare an ice bath.
• Once simmering place the spinach in the water and cook until tender, about 3 minutes. This may need to be done in smaller batches because fresh spinach takes up a lot of space and may not fit in your pot.
• Once the spinach is cooked, transfer it to the ice water, and let cool.
• Once cooled remove the spinach and squeeze as much water out of the spinach as you can.  You can place the spinach in a kitchen towel and use it to ring out the water.
• Place another pot of salted water on the stove and bring to a simmer.
• Once the spinach is drained and most of the water has been removed, place it in a food processor with the Parmesan and the eggs. Pulse until the mixture looks creamy and the spinach is finely chopped.
• Add the remaining ingredients and mix. You may or may not need more flour/bread crumbs, this is all determined by how much water you removed in the previous steps.
• To determine if you need more bread crumbs/flour, if it is too sticky to work with, add 1/4c more bread crumbs and 2T of flour. Test a bit of the dough by rolling it in a bit of flour than dropping it in the simmering water. If it holds together and later floats, then your are all set. Check the seasoning as well at this point.
• Once you have determined that the gnudi are the proper consistency, you can begin to form and cook the rest.
• Prepare an ice bath.
• Start by dusting the counters with flour then portion the dough into the desired size and place each gnudi on the floured counter top, I like a half ounce to an ounce in size

• Roll the pieces of dough in the flour to prevent them from sticking in your hands when forming.

• I like to form my gnudi in a quenelle shape(miniature football), you can leave them in a nice round shape

Round shaped gnudi

Quenelle gnudi

• Once your shape has been decided drop each piece of dough into the simmering water as you finish forming them.  Once the water stops simmering, stop adding the gnudi and wait for the first batch to start to float.  Once the gnudi floats, remove them from the water and place in the ice bath to chill.

• Continue to cook the gnudi until all the dough has been used up.  Remove the gnudi from the ice bath and place on a kitchen towel to dry.  The gnudi will hold in the fridge for three days.  They are best reheated in a little brown butter.

Currently we feature Spinach Gnudi with Brown Butter and Frisee on our menu at The Lodge Restaurant.

Related articles

• Fried Ricotta Gnudi with Spinach and Pancetta (justaddcheese.com)
• Ricotta gnudi in a brown butter sauce with fried sage and prosciutto (food-for-thought.me)

Roux

A roux is used as a thickener for gravy, other sauces, soups and stews. It is typically made from equal parts of flour and fat by weight. A traditional roux, used in most European cooking, consists of equal parts butter and flour. In Cajun cuisine, a roux is almost always made with oil instead of butter and cooked until dark brown in color, which lends more richness of flavor but less thickening power. The two different stages of a roux that are most commonly used are:

Blonde Roux: Used for soups and sauces that need to be thickened and kept a light color.

Brown Roux: Used in Cajun cooking or making sauces that need to be kept a dark color.  A brown roux will also add a slight nutty flavor from the cooked flour

Durum Wheat

Durum wheat, or macaroni wheat (also spelled Durhum), was developed by artificial selection of the domesticated emmer wheat  strains formerly grown in Central Europe and Near East around 7000 B.C. (like emmer, durum wheat is awned).  This selection developed a naked, free-threshing form of wheat. Durum in Latin means “hard”, which is appropriate since this species is the hardest of all wheats. Its high protein content and strength make durum good for special uses. Durum wheat is used extensively in breadmaking, however, it is an unusual flour in that despite it’s very high protein content, it is low in desirable gluten needed to form a glutinous web necessary for bread to rise and have structure. As a result, only a few 100 percent durum wheat breads exist, one of which is Pagnotte di Enna from Sicily. Semolina is the same as durum but a much coarser grind.