CARDAMOM LIME TEA CAKE

I have been trying to figure out how to bake with gluten-free flours. I have quite a collection: brown rice, white rice, corn (fine and coarse), buckwheat, almond, oat. But wait, there's more! Teff, millet, quinoa, chestnut, chickpea, coconut. I keep thinking that I have to 'know' each one before I know how to combine them. I've been a little discouraged, to be honest.

As I read more and more about gluten- and wheat- free baking, I see similar recipes with different flours and I don't understand why they used one as opposed to another. I don't like it when I don't understand...

Simple Gifts

Many years ago, when I had my first kitchen, I began to do what my grandmother called “setting up housekeeping”. I had to figure out what I needed: plates, glasses and silverware of course, but also towels, mixing bowls, cutting boards and canisters. Canisters. What to keep my staples in? I searched and searched and couldn't find anything that I wanted to look at on my countertop every day.

Part of the problem was that I've always resisted buying things that tell me what their function is: Sugar, Coffee, Flour, Salt. What if I want to put rice in the one that says 'flour'? I can guarantee that if it tells me to put flour in it I'll have an almost irresistible need to put rice in it. Or popcorn. I don't have bowls that say “pasta” in my house. If I did, they'd surely have salad or fruit in them. Some might call this perverse - I like to think of it as being creative.