Gluten-Free Flour From the French Laundry - NYTimes.com

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Douglas Gorney commentary:

I'm not off gluten, but it seems like every other person I know is. The culinary landscape can be a radically different place when you look at it through their eyes: no bread, no biscotti, no cous-cous, no falafel — well, no pita bread, that is, so what's the point? — no sandwiches and no cakes! To say nothing of croissants, brioches, pizza, focaccia and PASTA.

Well, help is at hand, at least for the bread/bakery/sandwich/wrap side of the equation, in the form of C4C. Sounds like the active ingredient in a pesticide, true, but given its origins at the French Laundry, Thomas Keller's epicurian Valhalla, it's got to be a lot closer to wheat flour than the mealy and unsatisfying gluten-free stuff I've tried in years past.

In a San Francisco Chronicle story on C4C, researcher Linda Kwak is quoted as saying she saw a gluten-impaired diner at French Laundry literally cry when, after ten years, she was able to eat bread again. I know how deeply my soul is stirred by fresh-baked bread; this seems like important stuff.

link source: nytimes.com »

Page Excerpt

It started about a year ago, when customers at the French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., began requesting gluten-free versions of some of Thomas Keller’s specialties, like the flaky cornets filled with salmon tartare, or the lush little gougères. Lena Kwak, the restaurant’s culinary researcher, developed a gluten-free flour. Now she and Mr. Keller are partners in a company called Cup4Cup, so-named because its flour, C4C, can replace the regular all-purpose variety for cakes and pastries. It is a blend of flours from white and brown rice, tapioca and potatoes, with potato starch, cornstarch and milk powder.

I tried it in a poundcake, a chocolate cake and a pie crust. It works very well, though the cake textures were more delicate than usual and I found that the pie crust was best rolled somewhat thicker for ease of handling, since the lack of gluten made it less malleable than pastry…

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Comments

Steven Meyer

Pretty expensive for my tastes. For a long time my mouth watered at the mere thought of going sometime in my lifetime (trans. bucket list) to the French Laundry. I guess this is when they were considered the top restaurant in the US by some. The fervor which I wanted to attend a meal there has subsided, but if someone wants to take me there, I will definitely oblige.

10.04.11 •

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