Communion Wafers

A few months back, I found this recipe for tapioca gluten-free bread.  Of course I latched onto it immediately.  It's quick and easy, and very delicious.  The recipe instructs you to make rolls but I make a small loaf instead, it stays softer and makes pretty dandy toast.

I've been making communion wafers for church for a couple of years now, but I haven't been impressed with the taste.  Not that it's a big deal, I'm just glad that the few of us at church who can't tolerate wheat can participate in communion.  But still it's nice to have something that isn't totally yucky!

Sooo-why not roll the Pan de Yuca dough out really thin and cut out wafers?  Why indeed, so I did just that.  Success!!

Nice and crispy.  In the next few days I'm going to make regular sized crackers out of the dough.

I put one each in little pill bags and store them in the church freezer.  30 or so will last a year.

A Quick Hint

I have found, in all my baking experiments, that it's extremely difficult to get a light texture in your wheat-free baked goods.  Especially, as in my case, when you can't use rice flour.  A few weeks ago it hit me-what about club soda?  So first I used it in place of milk for some cupcakes, which were pretty successful, and last night I used it in biscuits.  They were very good!  The thing you have to do with non-gluten flours is cut back a bit on the liquid, since there's no gluten to hold the dough together.  The recipe called for 2/3 cups of milk and I put in 1/2 cup of club soda instead.  It worked perfectly and the biscuits even held together better than they have in my other experiments!  And don't worry if the club soda isn't the freshest-I used some that barely has any fizz and it worked fine.  Next on my agenda is scones-if it works for biscuits it should work for them!

Communion

What do you do when communion is scheduled at church? The elders offered to get rice crackers, but I had to explain that I'm allergic to rice, too.

Today was communion again. I usually just skip the bread and drink the juice, but today they threw me a curve. Last month they used juice that was sweetened with Splenda-not my favorite, but I tolerated it. (Why does grape juice have to be sweetened anyway?) This month, right after I downed the tiny glassful, I could taste the corn syrup. I immediately got welts on the roof of my mouth, my lips itched, and I coughed all afternoon.

After church I went down to the kitchen to see if I could find a label, but the juice was in a regular pitcher, so I couldn't tell. If there was a can in the trash, it was buried and I wasn't going to dig. I'll have to have a chat with the elders. I'm thinking of making a cracker of some kind that I could use for the bread-any ideas?

The worst time I had was Good Friday service. They decided it would be more meaningful to file to the front of the church, tear off a piece of bread and dip it in the juice. Of course I couldn't take ANY of that, especially after all that wheat was dipped into the juice. People kept trying to urge me to the front and couldn't understand why I was skipping communion. I think they thought I had some terrible sin to atone for or something.

I let myself have a bit of a pity party today. Communion is such a meaningful time and I can't completely participate-C'mon, Lord, it's for You-help me out here!

First Recipe

Wheat/Gluten Free Crepes

1 C flour mix (I use 1/2 C potato flour, 1/4 C coconut flour, and 1/4 C teff flour)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 1/4 C milk
1 Tablespoon cooking oil
dash salt

Combine all ingredients. The best way to mix this is to use a blender, but if you don't have a blender, let it stand a few minutes after mixing. You might have to add a bit more milk-this is a very thin batter.

Pour about 1/4 cup batter in a hot, lightly greased 10 inch non-stick pan, swirling to cover bottom of pan. Cook on medium high until it starts to brown, flip by sliding a spatula under. Cook second side till dry. Keep mixing batter while cooking, it tends to settle. Makes 9-10 crepes. They freeze well-layer them with waxed paper, wrap and freeze.

Teff is a tiny grain from Ethiopia. It's actually a grass and is delicious. I like to cook the whole grain as a cereal similar to Cream of Wheat.

You will seldom find xanthan gum in my recipes. My digestive system dislikes it, and I really can't tell a difference in the texture of the baked goods when I use it anyway.