Flour: Premium All Purpose Flour from the Nearly Normal Kitchen

I had the rather fortunate opportunity to try out a gluten-free premium all purpose flour from the Nearly Normal Kitchen- (now apparently re-named Jules Gluten Free). Touted as "a combination of softer starches and flours that mimic the taste and texture of whole-wheat flour," I was anxious to see how it fared in a recipe calling for all-purpose flour.

Since it was fall and I always seem to have a yen for figs in the fall- I found a tasty-sounding recipe for Chocolate Fig Oatmeal Cookies. (I think it came from the Sun-Maid Mission fig package). The ingredients are as follows: butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, egg, milk, vanilla, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, figs, quick oats, chocolate morsels, nuts, and crunchy nugget cereal.

Before I could get started I had to do some searching for a gluten free crunchy nugget cereal. I didn't want granola- so I used Nature's Path Organic Acai Apple Granola with Pomegranate. Minor/Major disclaimer here: this cereal is not specifically branded gluten free- but Rob gave it his okay. (Ingredients: organic rolled oats, organic evaporated cane juice, organic crispy rice (organic brown rice flour, organic evaporated cane juice, sea salt, organic molasses), organic pomegranate juice concentrate, organic oat syrup solids (organic oat syrup solids, tocopherols (natural Vitamin E)) organic dried coconut, organic acai powder (organic freeze dried acai, citric acid). This cereal is produced in a facility that uses wheat, peanuts or tree nuts.

But back to my Chocolate Fig Oatmeal Cookies. I followed the recipe to the letter, forming the dough into balls, flattening into 2 in. rounds, and baking on an ungreased cookie sheet for 9 minutes. I took the first batch out of the oven and let them cool for 2 minutes as directed. And then disaster sort of struck. I could not get them off the pan. Each time I wedged the spatula under a cookie the cookie parts went flying; they literally just fell apart. Now I must admit this is often the case with gluten free flours- there just isn't the same gluten that keeps your baking together. But I can't be for sure- I mean it could have also been my oven which has a hard time maintaining 375 degrees, or maybe I made the cookies too thin.

But on the up-side the cookie pieces tasted fabulous. And all was not lost. Instead of baking on a sheet, I Pam'd a square glass pyrex dish, pressed the dough in and baked until the toothpick came out clean. Well I can just tell you these now Chocolate Fig Oatmeal bars were astoundingly delicious. They were dense enough to stay together and tasted fabulous.

In wrapping up my adaptive-gluten-free re-use cooking experience- I would highly recommend From the Nearly Normal Kitchen's Premium All Purpose Flour. My cookie bars were great and gave no whiff of being gluten free. They certainly weren't around for very long.

Please note we did receive a free sample.

Ingredients:

Potato Starch, Corn Starch, Expandex, Modified Tapioca Starch, White Rice Flour, Cornflour, Xanthan Gum.

Nutritional Facts:

Serving size: 30 g (1.1 oz.)

Servings per container: 32

Calories: 100

Calories from fat: 0

Total Fat: o g

Sat. fat: 0 g

Trans fat: 0 g

Cholesterol: 0 mg

Sodium: 5 mg

Total Carb: 25 g

Dietary Fiber: 3 g

Sugars: 0 g

Protein: 1 g