The Glutenberg Bible Blog

Ballad of the Egg Whites

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 23:15:58 -0800

Last weekend we went a bit crazy making ice cream (chocolate chili, honey thyme, strawberry, ginger, lemon, brown butter, and the best vanilla either of us has ever had), and so ended up with a few leftover egg whites.

Thirty, to be precise.

So what does one do with two and a half dozen egg whites?

Angel food cake, of course.

I started with Baking Illustrated's recipe, prepared it with most-purpose flour, omitted the almond extract and added some cloves, cinnamon, and allspice instead. Among the other reviews, I have been told that this cake is “made of pillow”.

What about the other dozen and a half? Well, as much as I hate to admit it, I wasted a dozen of them by burning the first angel food cake. Rather badly. Specifically, I made the mistake of baking while tired, fell asleep on the couch, and conveniently enough, the timer picked that afternoon to start going off silently. I woke up with a shriveled, almost-blackened cake in the oven and my timer warning me—visually—that it was over time. Of course, the Fahrenheit/Celsius switch has been acting up lately too, so I think it's time to take advantage of the lifetime warranty.

Which leaves half a dozen. And we do happen to have a very productive lemon tree in the backyard, so we're thinking a meringue pie. Okay, maybe not the best for my potassium concerns, but that's why we have friends in the area: to make them eat.

Now to get rid of the rest of this ice cream...

What’s up with the water?

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 09:08:07 -0800

Well, the flours seem to be okay—although I have switched to Bob’s Red Mill anyway (partly because it’s reliably uncontaminated, and partly because it has a better texture, and just seems fresher, than the flours I was getting at the Asian market). I’m not baking as obsessively as I was during the more experimental phase about a year ago, so I can afford to pay what probably works out to about three times the total amount.

So this leaves a mystery: Why the mildewy bread? My best guess so far is that it’s something in the water. Our tap water tastes fine, but Point Richmond does have a dubious past as far as water is concerned. This Point In History: An Historic View of Point Richmond cites an account of the town’s water supply in the old days as “vile, tasting like rotten eggs, and very hard. Dead cats were found in it and sickness was on the go from it.” Mercifully, our water source has changed since then, but I got the Brita out all the same. I haven’t tried bread again with filtered water yet, but hopefully it will help when I do.

What’s up with the flours?

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:20:57 -0800

HERE'S something distinctly funky going on with the flours I've been getting at the Asian market lately. My last several attempts at bread have all been disastrous; the sponge nearly explodes instead of rising, and has an incredibly sour smell. At first I hoped against hope that it was just some of the local L. sanfranciscensis coming to say hi and turn the bread into sourdough, but no such luck. The one time I plowed ahead and baked the stuff, the loaf smelled like mildew and had grey splotches on the bottom and sides, almost like it had turned moldy in the oven! Naturally, this has been delaying the gelatin experiments (though I do have a nice, accurate new scale now).

On closer inspection, the flour mixture itself smells slightly mildewy. It's worked okay for other recipes, and I haven't gotten sick yet, but I've decided that rather than investigate further, I'm just going to switch to the more expensive stuff and see what happens.

Of course, now's probably just as good a time as any to experiment a bit more with the flour mixture recipe itself. What I'm calling "most-purpose flour" right now is basically just a mixture I tried that worked, and I've stuck with it with relatively few modifications. I may try branching out to some more readily available starches.

Gelatin

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:38:00 -0800

ACK on topic -

I'd been thinking for a while about experimenting with gelatin as a source of protein structure. Then Jen came across a recipe that appears to do just that. It's time to do some systematic tinkering. I'm thinking of starting out with a plain white bread recipe (most-purpose flour, water, yeast, sugar, and salt), and dividing it into several groups:

- control (as is)

- gelatin added

- soy protein added

- gelatin and soy protein added

I probably can't do this right, though, until I have a real kitchen scale. The cheap grocery store model was leaving me with growing doubts, until finally I tested it by weighing 2 cups of water (which should be just about exactly 16 ounces at this altitude). The needle barely broke the 11-ounce mark. Needless to say, this is not the standard of accuracy to which I ordinarily aspire. So it is now guessing wildly at the weight of the contents above it in the trashcan.

Boo.

OT: Canola

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:17:00 -0800

Slightly off-topic thought: "Canola" = "CANadian Oil, Low Acid". So... "Canola oil" = "Canadian oil low acid oil"? Isn't this just like ATM machines and PIN numbers and UPC codes? I guess if the Canola Council of Canada says "canola oil", I should get over it. Still, though, it doesn't feel right—it makes it sound like there's a canola plant out there, ready to be harvested. (There isn't; canola is actually refined rapeseed oil.) I will probably use the phrase "canola oil" in recipes, but the more pedantic part of me would first like to voice its dissent.

Recipe in progress: English Muffins

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 02:26:00 -0800

I made this a few weeks ago, working only on the knowledge that English muffins are made from yeasted batter that's cooked on a griddle. I started with a very moist, basic batter, and found that these, while surprisingly close for a first attempt, had too little structure and collapsed into a dense mess when flipped. So I upped the flour from 1 cup to 1.5 cups, and the result was improved. They were still too moist on the inside, though, and playing with the heat caused an odd dilemma: medium heat browned the undersides before the muffins were cooked through, and lower heat dried them out without really cooking them, denying them the benefit of the gelatinization/retrogradation process that builds starch structure. A brief tour of the oven helped this, but I'm hoping to eliminate that step in the future and simplify the process. My first guess is that some additional xanthan gum and protein powder would do the trick, as it does for breads.

The pleasure of fresh-baked English muffins is one I believe every person should get to enjoy (especially if you've been deprived for a long period of time). The only drawback was having to air out the house because of all the smoke created by stray cornmeal on the skillet. Hopefully a nonstick skillet (which I unearthed just after making these) will help in that respect next time.

English Muffins

v1.1 | yield: 6-8 muffins | gluten-free | casein-free

1 large egg, at room temperature
3/4 c warm water (~110°F)
1 1/2 cups most-purpose flour, protein added
1/2 packet (1 1/4 tsp) rapid-rise yeast
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
cornmeal, for dusting skillet

Beat egg in 2-cup liquid measuring cup. Add warm water and whisk with a fork to combine. Add remaining ingredients (except cornmeal) and combine well. Let rise until almost bubbling over (rising time will vary).

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 300°F, and place a cooling rack on an oven rack in the center position. Heat a lightly oiled cast iron skillet over low heat. Use a sifter to dust the skillet with cornmeal, and then drop about 1/3 cup of batter at a time over cornmeal. Clean excess cornmeal from between batter mounds to avoid smoke. Cook until underside is golden brown and top is beginning to look dry, then flip onto a cornmeal-free area of the skillet. Continue to cook until browned, and move to rack in oven. Let bake for about 10 minutes, then remove and cool.

Serve toasted with bumbleberry jam. No, really. That stuff is tasty.

Stop and smell the flours

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 23:42:00 -0800

Well, there are two main reasons for my relative lack of posting of late. The first is that I've just been having trouble getting back into the LJ groove; the second is that there's not too much more to report. Which is good! Because baking has become far less experimental, and more about just making food. Here's the scoop on the flour mixture I use (this yields just shy of four pounds):

Most-purpose flour

2 (16-oz) bags white rice flour
1 (14-oz) bag tapioca starch
1 (12-oz) bag potato starch
1 cup millet flour
2 1/2 Tbsp xanthan gum

(Net weights are based on the flours I've found at the Asian market. The exact ratios don't seem to be too incredibly critical.)

No protein, you ask? Ah, observant you are! I've been finding that the protein is redundant if I'm making cookies, muffins, or anything else that contains eggs. Since that means extra cost, and extra protein intake (which isn't great for the ol' kidneys), I abstain when mixing batches of flour. I'll add some protein powder to the mix if there are no eggs, though—as well as extra xanthan gum if I'm making something like bread or bagels, which require more gluten-like oomph. About a tablespoon of soy protein powder and a teaspoon of extra xanthan gum per cup of flour usually does it.

I find the texture with this mixture is closer to wheat flour than any of the component flours/starches, which I believe is because wheat has an unusual starch granule size distribution. If you measure the starch granules in wheat flour, you'll find two predominant sizes. Almost all other starches have a more bell curve–like distribution around a single size. So my theory is that having a combination of flours creates the same textural effect as wheat's dual-maximum distribution.

Like I said last time, I use this flour in just about everything. It often takes slightly more of this flour to get the right texture—up to 10% more—but otherwise I've been just substituting it for all-purpose flour in regular cookbook recipes.

I will continue to post recipes if I come up with things. For example, the English muffins I made a few weeks ago were actually an act of invention, since there aren't boatloads of English muffin recipes floating around out there. Will post it next.

Jumping back in...

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 18:05:00 -0800

I'm just going to pretend it hasn't been well over half a year since my last post here. Just go with it.

So I started experimenting with adding protein to the mix, with fabulous results. I've now got a basic flour mixture that I use for most things. It's based on a mixture of white rice flour, tapioca starch, potato starch, and millet flour, with xanthan gum for binding and soy protein powder for proteiny goodness. I've managed to make bread that actually looks and tastes like bread (though there's still plenty of work to be done), and just about everything else I've tried has worked, at least decently, with this mixture.

I've even found that adding rice bran isn't half bad for mimicking whole wheat flour, though I still have to go easy on the potassium (which rice bran has in spades).

Tonight, Housemate Jotan and I came up with a brilliant idea. We call it: Alphabet Quiche.

The ingredients, in no particular order of course:

Asparagus

Broccoli

Chili pepper

Dill

Eggs + egg yolks

Freshly ground pepper

Granulated sugar

Heavy cream (or half cream and half milk)

Italian mushrooms (aka Crimini)

Japanese potato starch

Kosher salt

Large onion

Millet flour

Nutmeg

Olives (on the side)

Parsley

Queso (aka cheese, preferably Gruyère)

Rice flour (white)

Soy protein powder

Tapioca starch

Unsalted butter

Vegetable oil

Water

Xanthan gum

Yellow bell pepper

Zucchini

I also opted to add some bacon. And, of course, the potato starch doesn't have to be Japanese. Mine just happens to be.

Experiment 1, part 2: the cookies

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 12:00:00 -0800

Well, the cookies came out of the oven, and they were delicious! (If I do say so myself...)

As promised, photo documentation:

Fig. 1. The dough before baking

Fig. 2. The dough in the oven, after 5 min

Fig. 3. In the oven, after 17 min

Fig. 4. The final cookies

I made three cookies from each group (from left to right: the control group, group F, group O, group S). As you can see, there's a marked difference in the dough from the beginning. After five minutes in the oven (Fig. 2), the difference is even more dramatic. The control group has begun to melt, Group S has begun to melt even more, and Group F is actually showing signs of rising. By minute 17 (Fig. 3), the cookies have, more or less, assumed their eventual morphology.

The final cookies (Fig. 4) were all tasty, but in different ways. The control group was slightly thin in the batter, with crispy edges and a slightly chewy center. Group F was all chewy ('s favorite), Group O was (not surprisingly) oatmeal cookie-textured, and Group S was even thinner and crispier than the control group. Apparently the added baking soda reacted too quickly to form much of a lasting rise, and neutralized the acids in the baking powder, resulting in a flatter cookie.

To my taste, the perfect chocolate chip cookie lies somewhere in the range represented by the control group and Groups F and S (Group O was very specifically an oatmeal cookie, and would probably have been better with raisins). The flavor was amazingly ideal for a chocolate chip cookie; the biggest difference seemed to be in my original plan—using butter and brown sugar. Perhaps half the additional rice flour of Group F, plus some baking soda, for next time. In the meantime, it's a good thing I liked them all—there's still plenty of dough in that freezer...

So. On with the narrative. Emboldened by our success, we set about adapting the Moosewood Muffin recipe, which, in my pre–gluten-free days, I often made with pumpkin and chocolate chips, for use with rice flour. This was not an experiment; I didn't measure the ingredients very carefully. But boy, did they turn out strange! They had absolutely no rise at all, so when cooked, they were remarkably similar in texture to nian gao (a rice flour–based dim sum treat which I quite enjoy, but which doesn't work well with the pumpkin flavor). Well, at least the cookies went well.

So my challenge, over the next couple days, is to figure out why the cookies turned out so well, while the muffins, with essentially the same flour mixture, turned out so atrociously. Off to Whole Foods for more xanthan gum (and maybe some guar gum for comparison), and then back for some good old-fashioned kitchen chemistry. In the meantime, remember: You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you knead.

Battle of the...proteins?

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:25:00 -0800

Now, I can't tell if this is an epiphany or not. It struck in the middle of the night, which gives it about a 50/50 chance.

It arose, in some ways, from my growing obsession with Alton Brown. It's not healthy, really. Recently, the imaginary conversations that usually run through my head when I'm having trouble getting to sleep have begun at times to morph into imaginary Good Eats episodes. And, of course, they now turn to gluten-free baking. Patently unhealthy as this is (I won't even delve into how it's affected my dreams—no, not like that), it has gotten me thinking about baking less as physics and more as chemistry.

I was thinking about xanthan gum, and why it's become the de facto nearly-all-purpose gluten substitute. Simply put, it's sticky. It provides the cohesion that gluten-free flours lack on their own. But then I realized where it falls short, and why it works so poorly for breads. Xanthan gum is a polysaccharide—a carbohydrate. Gluten, on the other hand, is a protein (or rather, its components, gliadin and glutenin, are proteins). As such, it does more than just provide cohesion. It's responsible for the structural integrity of bread, not to mention the lovely golden brown crust of a freshly baked baguette... (ahem) I'm getting wistful. "No," Alton told my subconscious, "no carbohydrate can ever substitute for a protein. They don't, uh, form the right intermolecular bonds. Look: No gluten, no protein. No protein, no quaternary structure. No quaternary structure, no, uh, structural integrity." Then he looked confusedly at some sort of toy he'd apparently been using as a visual aid (I wasn't really paying attention; it was my subconscious). Wrinkling his nose, he tossed it dismissively aside, cuing a zany sound effect. The frame froze and dimmed, and a rotating, nondescript factoid heralded the arrival of a commercial break.

When my conscious mind processed what had just happened, I realized that Alton was right. It is the quaternary structure of the protein complex that gluten forms when baked (or at least something like that) that gives bread its crumb, its rise, and its ... well, its breadiness.

Which explained perfectly why my one disheartening attempt at gluten-free bread baking had turned out so dismally. No matter what type of GF flour I used, and no matter how much xanthan and/or guar gums I added, the end result was a pale, overly moist brick so dense I had to calculate its event horizon before attempting to take a bite. The dough had been plenty sticky, so it was able to form "cells" of water vapor and carbon dioxide as it baked. But there was too little intermolecular structure, so the walls of the cells (the dough separating the gas bubbles) were way too thick. Some gases were able to escape, but rather than forming channels and allowing circulation of hot, dry air as wheat bread would, it simply collapsed back down on itself and trapped moisture in. Hence the moistness and density.

This also explained, I think, why my chocolate chip cookies take so much longer than normal to bake. Moisture is trapped in to some extent—though less, since it's a less floury dough—so it takes longer to cook out; also, without the flour proteins, they brown less quickly. (They still brown, what with the eggs and butter, only more slowly.)

So.

The question now is, where can I turn to get the protein content back into my dough? I'm contemplating another experiment (after we move up north, where it's actually cool enough to bake!), to test various sources of protein. Some ideas I've come up with so far:

Eggs—would also provide some fat for a moister (in a good way) bread

Milk—specifically, curds. If I strain cottage cheese, I should be left with most of the protein and fat, with less of the water of plain milk

Cheese—this seems to be in part how pão de queijo holds together, but bread shouldn't always taste like cheese

Soy—nice, pure protein, but probably too water-soluble to be useful

I'm open to suggestions! I'm plotting this experiment for late August. Time will tell whether this is a dead end train of thought caused by cat-induced lack of sleep, or a true epiphany that could lead to some seriously... well... you know.

(Sorry, Alton, you were saying?)

Pie Crust, Round 2

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 22:18:00 -0800

I finally got around to it tonight. I upped the sorghum flour to 1 cup, downgraded the xanthan gum to 2 tsp, added 3/4 cup rice flour, and used tapioca starch only for rolling out the dough—oh, and I added a tablespoon of sugar.

It was super-yummy, but still a little hard. It wasn't the chewy sort of hardness of the last round, but more of an overly crispy texture, edible with a knife. Maybe more butter. More butter never hurt anyone, right?

So. Until next time, don't go basting butterballs; please stick to the seventeen-pound turkeys you're used to...

Pie Crust, Experiment I

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 22:00:00 -0800

So. I always thought the Holy Grail of gluten-free baking was bread.

Ha.

The truly unattainable goal is, evidently, pie crusts. Popular gluten-free cookbooks have this to say on the matter: "Don't bother." (Actually, I believe those are the exact words of one cookbook I have.)

Here's what I have to say: Bother.

Cookbooks try to make things too easy, too fool-proof. If you want something where you can toss a few ingredients in a blender and call it done, pie crust isn't for you. But I had a sudden burst of inspiration today.

Okay, time to backtrack. So there was that chocolate chip cookie recipe that I'd found before, which was originally supposed to have been a pie crust, and which behaved nothing like pie crust. I figured, they're probably going about it the wrong way. So let's start at the beginning. Pie crusts are supposed to be flaky and buttery, right? Well, what's more flaky and buttery than a pie crust? Croissants? Sure. Well, how do you make croissants? You have dough with a rising agent in it, you wrap it around cold butter, flatten it, roll it up, refrigerate it, and repeat ad nauseum before you bake.

So I adapted that idea to pie crust. It wasn't perfect. ... But it's on its way.

Here's what I did:

1/2 cup sorghum flour

1-1/4 cup tapioca starch

1 Tbsp xanthan gum

1/2 tsp "dough enhancer"*

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup cold water

1 stick (1/2 cup) cold, salted butter

Combine dry ingredients (including dough enhancer), and then add water. Stir until smooth. Knead with about 1/4 cup additional tapioca starch. Flatten slightly, then top with butter (cut butter into strips or chunks first). Roll up, knead until butter is dispersed, wrap in wax paper, and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes. When dough has hardened slightly, flatten with a rolling pin, roll up again, and flatten once more. Repeat until large chunks of butter are incorporated (you'll need at least another 1/4 cup of tapioca starch for this process). Lay across pie plate and trim to fit. Bake blind at 325° before filling. This will make about eight tarts, or top and bottom crusts for a decent-sized pie.

Now. I was completely making this up (and doing so after two martinis, mind you), and I half expected it to consume the raw rice I was using to bake it blind. It didn't quite disappoint. Perhaps beans or those pie-crust-baking-marbles would work better (they'd certainly be easier to remove), or even baking without anything inside would be okay. (The sides didn't melt into the bottom and bubble over, like that other pie crust recipe I tried.)

How it turned out: Quite tasty, nice and buttery, but a bit hard and chewy. Flavor-wise, it was a perfect savory pie crust. I think the amounts of baking powder and salt were particularly appropriate. My theory is that reducing the amount of xanthan gum to 2 tsp would help the chewiness factor, and changing the flour ratio to about 1 cup sorghum to 3/4 cup tapioca starch would give it a nicer crumb and make it less hard. And a tablespoon of sugar should make it a better dessert pie crust. I shall try this soon. In the meantime, never forget that the bun always rises in the yeast.

*I found this at Whole Foods, in the gluten-free area. This innocuous name belies a sinister blend of lecithin, ascorbic acid, and ginger.

The Battle of the Flours, delayed somewhat

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 22:31:00 -0800

Well, obviously I didn't get around to the full experiment. But I did some playing around, and I've done some more baking since then, and I have some preliminary conclusions.

First of all, I have to say, most of these flours aren't flours at all (IMHO). They're either meals or starches. They're all finely ground versions of whatever they're made from, but none of them has the same dry powderiness as all-purpose flour. This might vary from brand to brand, but here's what I've encountered:

Sorghum flour: Really nice, slightly sweet flavor (sorghum is a relative of corn), but coarse! And slightly moist. I've had a lot of luck using this in blue corn muffins—I'll post the recipe later—but as a straight flour substitute it's pretty much useless.

Amaranth flour: Slightly nutty flavor. Coarse like sorghum, but drier.

Sweet rice flour: aka glutinous rice flour. This was the problem with the pumpkin muffins, if I recall correctly. This stuff is perfect for nian gao, and as far as I can tell, not much else. Except the cookies—I don't remember what type of rice flour I used for the cookies, so I'll have to repeat that recipe with different flours. But I've tried glutinous rice flour in both biscuits (along with sorghum and amaranth flours) and a preliminary attempt at bread, and it gave them both an overly moist, stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth texture. In bread terms, no crumb at all.

White rice flour: One of the most promising multi-purpose GF flours. Nice and fine, not too much flavor of its own, and a decent texture.

Brown rice flour: Coarser than white rice flour, since brown rice includes the bran. I had some failures with this when I first started trying GF recipes, but it might be a good way to add some crumb to recipes with white rice flour.

Potato flour: Dear God, this stuff is starchy! I added some water to potato flour and mixed it up, and did the same with cornstarch for comparison. You know that thing we did as kids with cornstarch and water, where you squeeze it and it's solid, but you let it sit and it becomes liquid? Potato flour works scary well for that. It stuck to my hands after I let it liquefy, and snapped in chunks when I tried to bend it. No wonder it's a staple of recipes; unfortunately, I recently found out it has way too much potassium to be useful to me.

Potato starch: Yes, Virginia, there is a difference. Evidently most of the potassium in the potato gets washed away when they isolate the starch, because I wrote Bob's Red Mill to ask about potassium content, and got this reply a few days ago: "From the information I could find, there is a minimal amount of Potassium in Potato Starch measuring 1.8mg per serving size of 1 Tablespoon." Sweet! Sure, 1 Tbsp is a small serving size, but 1.8 mg is below negligible. I haven't played with potato starch at all yet, but it's on my list.

Will post recipes soon for blue corn muffins and yummy biscuits (completely fat-free and calorie-free, of course). Until then, don't thank me—it's the yeast I could do.

Battle of the Flours: Prep

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 23:12:00 -0800

I didn't have time today to run the tests I have in mind, but and I ... went a bit overboard, shall we say, at the Asian market. After picking up some guar gum, xanthan gum, a GF "dough enhancer", and a rather promising-looking GF cookbook at Whole Foods (along with some sorghum flour, which I've run out of, and which is great in corn muffins—I'll post the recipe soon), we headed to Shun Fat, where we were confronted with an entire side of a supermarket aisle consisting primarily of gluten-free flours. So... $12 and change later, we were loaded down with rice flour, glutinous rice flour, mung bean flour, tapioca flour, tapioca starch, sweet potato flour, potato starch, and green bean flour. At home we already have amaranth flour and brown rice flour. So tomorrow or Monday, it's off to the test kitchen to make more of a mess! Until then, remember: the love you take is equal to the love you bake...

A cookie base?

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 16:19:00 -0800

Last week, at my parents' house, my dad suggested I look for GF pie crusts to make a pecan pie. A Google search yielded this surprising discovery:

http://spiritkeep.net/recipebox/azgfpiecrust1.html

I tried it. It was definitely NOT a pie crust. It didn't even form a dough; it was a batter, more of a cake-frosting consistency than anything else. The crust bubbled up among the pecans and became part of the filling. And it stuck to the pan like crazy. BUT... it sure was tasty! It was basically a very flavorful, if slightly grainy, shortbread.

So the next day I took the leftovers (the recipe makes enough for about 95 pies, so if you try it, bring some friends along for the ride), mixed in some chocolate chips, dropped it onto a silicone baking pad, and had at it. The result: passable chocolate chip cookies! Still a bit grainy, and they flattened out into one 10"x14" cookie, but they tasted pretty good.

I substituted shortening for the margarine, and I'm sure that contributed to the thinness and the shortbread taste. I also opened up my first bag of Trader Joe's Sweet Rice Flour for this recipe, and I have to say, it was the nicest GF flour I've tried yet! It was fine, smooth, and tasted good. I'll post some reviews of the other, INCREDIBLY COARSE gluten-free flours I've tried and hated soon.

So my plan for tomorrow is to make this recipe cookie-specific. I plan to substitute butter for the margarine, brown sugar for part of the sugar, and to try adding oats (I'll post my oats disclaimer with the recipe tomorrow) and chocolate chips. I also plan to tweak the carbonate content to see if I can get more of a rise out of them. Until then, remember to stop and smell the flours!