Birthday Custard Pie?!

Gluten free baking is quite an exciting animal in its own right, but then throw in a recipe transcription error and it really gets interesting!  I made this cake the other day, I halved the recipe and substituted my own flour blend (1/2 cup each tapioca and corn starch, 1/4 cup millet) and it made wonderful cupcakes!  Then my little son decided he wanted a yellow cake for his birthday, and I thought I had my recipe.  I ended up with a gluten free impossible custard pie!  It actually was quite tasty but it wasn't a birthday cake.  I had transcribed the recipe wrong, leaving the sugar at 2 cups but halving everything else, oops!  I tried again and it was delicious and now we have a memory to laugh at for every birthday here on out!

All we like cows?

I've had a few classes in epidemiology, I have spent a significant portion of my career diagnosing and managing contagious disease in a population setting, albeit my patients moo, but herd health is herd health, whether you are dealing with chickens or people.  While I appreciate everyone's concern and efforts to protect the health and lives of the most vulnerable in this epidemic, from the start I think we've had it all backwards.  Hiding out at home won't do squat to fix this problem, it only kicks the can down the road; it won't go away while we cover our eyes and pretend it can't see us if we don't look at it.  The theory of 'flattening the curve' might work if we had some 'herd' exposure, but we aren't flattening anything, we're avoiding exposure altogether and are just elongating the line leading up to the exponential peak.  The minute we leave home, the virus will start spreading again, as viruses do, this plan does nothing but put off the inevitable, unless we plan on staying home forever, which might work with chickens, but people aren't content to live like that.

Anecdotally I heard in school that Iceland has a native breed of cattle that will die if exposed to foreign cows because the creatures are so isolated that they have never been exposed to the common gamut of bugs every other cow in the world takes for granted, their immune systems will be overwhelmed by the usual microbial flora endemic to your average bovine.  That seems to be the current theory at work in many parts of the world: stay safely in Iceland with no exposure to foreign cattle.  But this can't last forever, that theory only works because there are Icelandic farmers willing to make hay and support the beasties in their isolation, how do we maintain a society in complete isolation?

My first year of school, the teaching hospital was full of West Nile patients, every stall was filled, neurologic horses everywhere.  Since then I have seen one case.  One case in fifteen years.  We could have kept our horses in mosquito proof stalls their entire lives, though it would not have been much of a life for the horse and kind of makes owning horses pointless, but they would be safe!  They developed a vaccine and natural exposure instilled immunity in the population; the very next year it was as if it had never happened, when the previous year it was the very end of the horse world, at least if you listened to the talking heads, and it was easy enough to believe, seeing all those flailing horses and full stalls, but the next summer those same stalls were empty and nobody seemed to remember a year ago it had been the end of the world.

I am not saying that we should just go back willynilly to life as usual with no precautions whatsoever, far from it, but thinking this will just magically go away if we hide at home long enough is ridiculous, that isn't how viruses work.  Protect those most at risk, use common sense and practical measures to slow spread (but not stop it entirely), but putting the entire country on house arrest only delays the inevitable.  Should we hide at home until a good vaccine is developed?  No.  It can take years to get a good, safe vaccine to market, and even if we wait that long in anticipation, who says we can develop a good or effective vaccine?  Corona virus vaccines in other species are lousy, the flu vaccine isn't great, there's a good chance we won't ever have a decent vaccine for this particular bug either.  There's my two cents, I'm just a cow doctor, so what do I know!

Gluten free sandwich and toasting bread!

BLTs, Grilled Cheese sandwiches, toast, fresh bread...do you remember those days?  Well, they don't have to be over, after a lot of searching and trial and error, finally here is a bread you can quite literally sink your teeth into.  It isn't starchy or stiff or gritty or cake-like or otherwise characteristic of the worst of gluten free, it doesn't even taste like cardboard!  Here's the original recipe  where I found the genius idea of using whipped egg whites to help make it an airy, fluffy dream when you can't have wheat!  You can slice it thin, you can freeze it, you can toast it, you can eat it plain (warm!) or make a sandwich, everything you expect from normal bread!  It is a batter bread, I've tried the whipped egg whites in a gluten free dough and it doesn't do much (too heavy?).  I use my bread machine but a heavy duty stand mixer is good too, by hand or a light mixer might not do the trick but you can try.  I used the flours I like/can eat, feel free to try your own mix if you wish.  The original recipe calls for a lot of tapioca starch and the first time I tried it, it was almost rubbery (still delicious) and shrank quite a bit as it cooled.  Substituting some corn starch and oat flour adds a bit more texture and structure to the loaf, and reduces shrinkage, enjoy!

In a bowl, mix with a wire whisk to combine:

1 cup tapioca starch
1 cup corn starch
1/2 cup millet flour
1/2 cup oat flour
2 tsp xanatham gum
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp instant yeast

In another bowl whip 3 egg whites until they form stiff peaks.

In the bowl of a heavy stand mixer or the pan of a bread machine place:

3/4 cup warm water
1 tbsp vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup oil

Add the dry ingredients and the beaten egg whites and mix until smooth (3-5 minutes kneading in the bread machine, scraping down the sides occasionally).  It will be a very thick, sticky batter.  Scrape into a greased and floured (I used corn starch) bread pan and cover loosely with plastic wrap.  Let rise 45-60 minutes in a warm place (I turn the oven on for a few minutes and then turn it off).  I bake mine for 48 minutes in a 350 degree oven.  Remove from pan and let cool completely (I wrap it in a towel and place it on a wire rack) before slicing and enjoying.  If there is any left, slice and place in the freezer for later use.