Gosh, I love popovers.  And coconut.  And chocolate.

I would like to go on record and say I am beyond joyous that I can tolerate gluten.

You hear about it everywhere these days – Celiac, gluten intolerance – what on Earth?  I don’t remember anyone ever being gluten intolerant when I was growing up.  For that matter, I don’t recall any kids at my school having peanut allergies either…and especially nothing that would require the allergy kids to all have to be quarantined to a separate table at lunch.

Does your child’s school do that?

We just took Seven to his Kindergarten registration, and thanks to Twitter and Facebook, I went in armed with the weird questions.  Or, weird in the sense that if asked 20 years ago, they would have looked at me like I stepped off the cuckoo train.

• “Can I send peanut butter and jelly in Seven’s lunchbox?”
• “His favorite food is Nutella – how about that?”
• “Are the school doors locked all day?”  (This one seriously frightens me.  I’m sad we live in such a world.)
• “Does he really need 10 packs of crayons to start the school year? Ten?”

The answers:

• Yes, you can send it.  We have an Allergy Table. (Poor Allergy Table.  I mean, I guess I am glad for such a thing, but, that must feel awful to be separated from their friends.)
• Same goes for Nutella. So that’s good.
• Yes, the doors are locked.
• Yes. crayons break.

So, there you have it.

But let me get back to gluten.  I can’t imagine having to learn to eat gluten-free. What an ordeal!  I love flour. Love it!  Bread, pasta, cake…gotta have it.

Oh yeah, and popovers.  You know I love my popovers.

I was recently sent some Coconut Flour from Bob’s Red Mill.  I’ll be honest, I had never tried it.  So, me being me, I decided to make popovers and just sub in equal amount coconut flour for my usual AP flour.

Hmmm. Not good.  As in, hard, not fluffy, not popovery.  Sad.

So I did my research.  After a lot of reading, I figured it was in everyone’s best interest if my experiment didn’t involve making a totally gluten free recipe.  Heck, I just wanted it to work after failing so horribly the first time.

After a couple of tries, I got a great result, and one that I am proud of.

The flavor of the coconut flour is subtle and rich – you definitely know you are onto something.  I imagine the coconut flour would be great in a chocolate chip cookie or a savory bread or muffin (just be sure to adjust the liquid content).  The advice I got was to sub in no more than 25% of the flour with coconut flour, and to add an equal amount of additional liquid.  In case that makes little sense:

If you have a recipe that calls for 1 cup or flour and 1 cup of milk, you can use 3/4 cup regular flour and 1/4 cup coconut flour.  Add the full cup of milk, but also add an additional 1/4 cup of milk to allow for the coconut flour being so absorbent.

See? Easy stuff.

And even better popovers.

GIVEAWAY

Courtesy of Bob’s Red Mill, I have a nice $50 Gift Card to spend at their online shop.  There you can pick up any of their great products – like coconut flour – or you can grab a tee, an apron, a Sil-Pat, you name it!  The gift card is good for anything they have online!

Just comment here, letting me know you’d like to win.  That’s all you HAVE to do!

However, if you’d like bonus entries, you can opt to do any of these:

• Pin a picture from this post on Pinterest
• Stumble this post
• Tweet a link to this post, including @doughmesstic in your tweet
• Share this post on your Facebook Wall
• Become a fan of Bob’s Red Mill on Facebook

Just be sure to leave me a separate comment for each entry, and you are all set!

Contest is open to US Addresses, ages 18 and up.  Prize is courtesy of Bob’s Red Mill.  Contest ends April 5 at 11:59pm EST, and winner will be chosen at random and emailed upon verification.  Good luck!

Tagged as: Bob's Red Mill, breakfast, chocolate, coconut flour, gluten free, pop overs, popover