Product - Caputo Flour
If you are like me you have a partner (The Pirate) who likes to watch Youtube videos to relax. And he gets on kicks about different topics. The topic last summer was the perfect gluten free pizza crust. This led to the discovery of Caputo Flour. The Youtube videos implied that you could make a dough that would create a crust that was very hard to distinguish from a regular pizza crust. We like a bit of a doughy crust. We want some mouth feel and some chew. Very thin crusts are pretty common in the gluten free world, but they are not our favorite. This seemed like a challenge. Could we make our own crust that looked like the crusts touted on Youtube?
And the answer…
We are thrilled with the way these crusts turn out and have also made gluten free pasta with the Caputo flour which was delicious and easy to handle. Our crafty sister-in-laws have made some delicious cinnamon rolls as well. Check out the recipes page if you’d like to try the Caputo flour pizza and pasta for yourself.
What is in Caputo flour and why does it work so well? This "flour" is actually a starch. Gluten free wheat starch. It seemed a little confusing to me. How can something made of wheat be gluten free?
If you’ve done much gluten free baking you know that there are all sorts of things you can use to make a baked goodie. I like to bake and have all kinds of flours and starches in my pantry. Flours are made from grains. Grains contain an ectoderm or covering, proteins, fiber, and carbohydrates (starch). Flours contain multiple components of a grain whether that grain is (for example) teff, rice, buckwheat, or oats. Grains can be processed to take off the covering, or take out the protein, fiber, or starch. These products are sometimes used separately as when you might use oat bran (fiber) in a recipe or millet protein to increase the protein content of a recipe. The starches in a grain are usually water soluble and can be rinsed out of a ground grain. I use tapioca starch and cornstarch in my baking and these have been obtained by rinsing those ground grains in water and then evaporating that water to leave the powdery starch behind. Wheat starch is made by rinsing ground wheat and washing the starches out of it and then evaporating the resultant cloudy mix to leave behind pure carbohydrate. The proteins that cause inflammation for those with celiac and gluten intolerance are long gone from this product. At least, that is what the FDA and manufacturers would have us believe. They state that this product qualifies as gluten free and is safe for those with celiac disease. However, if you have a wheat allergy you may still react to wheat starch. It is NOT wheat free.
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