Wednesday 7 July 2010

Glutenless pastry crust

If you have a friend who cannot eat gluten but you want to serve a savory starter or sweet pie that everyone can eat try this recipe - it is light and is suitable for sweet dessert fillings as well as savory fillings. It will also work as a pizza crust!
1 cup rice flour (if possible brown)

2 tablespoons tapioca flour - An easy way to make tapioca flour is by grinding old fashion pearl tapioca in a coffee grinder
1/2 cup sesame seeds, ground (or pecans, or other nuts) An easy way to grind sesame seeds is in a coffee grinder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
5 tablespoons vegetable shortening, or oil
3 tablespoons water (maybe a bit more)

Oil a pie dish.
Combine flour, ground tapioca, ground sesame seeds, and salt in a bowl. Cut shortening (or oil) into flour mixture (using a fork and a knife). Add water and mix. You want the pastry to be wet enough so that when it is pressed together, it sticks together (forms a ball easily). Often times it will not be wet enough after adding the amount of water called above, but it is better to start with less water and add more as needed; so if it is not wet enough, you will need to add additional water one tablespoon at a time to achieve a good moist dough.

Place pastry into the pie dish and press it gently on the bottom and up the sides. Using a fork, gently poke small holes all over the crust (so it does not puff up).

If filling with a non-bake filling, such as lemon merangue pie, bake the crust in a 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) oven (no need to preheat oven) for 25 to 30 minutes. Let the crust cool before filling.

If using pie crust with a filling that bakes, quiche, fill crust and bake as directed for the particular pie filling.

Makes 1 medium to large pie crust.

VARIATIONS:
For a lower fat crust, take out 1 to 2 tablespoons of shortening/oil.

Could use any combination of the following non-gluten flours: brown rice flour, whole-grain millet flour, whole-grain amaranth flour, and/or whole-grain teff flour OR if you don't mind using a flour with gluten then what ever you have available!
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