We’re open ’till 6 on Thursday, and Friday July 3rd from 10-2 for orders only (no baking that day), then we’re totally CLOSED Sunday July 5th and Monday July 6th.

(I’m sorry for the short notice. June was crazy and I desperately need to catch up on paperwork from the Cookie Dough Giveaway - some people still haven’t received their coupons yet!)

We RE-OPEN Tuesday July 7th — If we don’t see you before, we’ll see you then!!

We don’ need no stinkin’ crust! Bring on dessert!

This recipe makes a generous amount for 5 or 6 people, but believe me when I tell you that it won’t go to waste! You can let leftovers sit on the counter up to a day, but any time longer than that I’d put it in the fridge, and re-warm before eating. In fact eating warm, with maybe a dollop of vanilla ice cream on the side, is my favorite!

For the flour I usually use the “Easy” flour blend that I talked about last time, but this is a very flexible recipe and almost anything will work. Feel free to improvise!

Apple Brown Betty

1 cup flour blend
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine (such as Earth Balance)
optional: 1/4 cup quinoa flakes or gf-oatmeal
*
5 large baking apples (I prefer “Granny Smith”)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
optional: 2 Tbsp corn starch
optional: 2 Tbsp apricot jam
*

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, combine flour; brown sugar; and oatmeal or quinoa if using. (They add nice texture.) Add margarine to bowl, and “cut” into dry ingredients using either two knives, the tines of a fork, or a tool called a “pastry blender” you can pick up at the grocery store. Basically, you’re cutting the margarine into smaller and smaller pieces while mashing it into the flour and sugar so that you end up with a crumbly mix that they say looks like peas. I say “they” must eat small peas! It’s actually more like lentils. Set that bowl aside.

Next, peel your apples, then slice or dice as you prefer. [Larger pieces will be firmer after cooking, smaller pieces will be more saucy, but it's all good.] [Except the core - throw away the core.]

Put apple pieces into an 8″ square baking dish or 8″ pie dish. Toss the apples with the cinnamon, then the corn starch if using. (It absorbs the liquid from the apples as they cook and makes almost a like gravy in the fruit - yum! Other starches work too if you’re sensitive but corn is the strongest and cheapest.) The optional apricot jam is heavenly - it adds depth to the flavor and a hint of sweetness.

Sprinkle the crumb mixture on top of the apples. Don’t squish the crumbs too much - you want to keep them a little loose. You can pat them down into place, just use a light hand.

Place on middle rack of pre-heated oven for about one hour. Which should be just long enough to run out for that vanilla ice cream! Enjoy!

{Makes a good gf-dessert for 4th of July.}

After all, the whole essence of gluten-free baking comes down to the flour. Obviously, most baking recipes in the world call for flour from wheat (or some other glutenous grain) and the trick is to make the same thing out of gluten-free flours like rice.

But never just use rice. Just rice flour alone would make a very dense cookie. At very least, you want to lighten the rice flour with some kind of starch. Many recipes call for rice & tapioca but when you’re ready to branch out and experiment a little, you’ll save time and get more consistent results if you keep a pre-mixed blend on hand.

I think the easiest blend is also the most popular. It was popularized by the book, Gluten Free Baking Classics, by Annalise Roberts, which is a really good book, chock full of recipes using this exact blend, to make things easy.

There are only three ingredients (I’ve seen recipes calling for six or seven!) though you will still have to buy xanthan gum separately.

As I said, you can purchase the blend ready-made. But even if you don’t use Authentic Foods’ blend, use their extra-fine-grind brown-rice flour - it really does make a huge difference!

Here is the recipe:

Easy GF-Flour Blend
2 cups rice flour
2/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup tapioca starch

Make sure to blend well. One method is to place the flours in an oversize container with a tight lid and shake well. I always just dump everything into my mixer with a whisk attachment, and leave it on low for 20-30 minutes while I go do something else.

[A lot of people will tell you to weigh your flour on a scale, instead of measuring it. That's the correct way, that's what we do at the bakery. But we're mixing up 30 lbs at a time. When you're making 3 cups or 6 cups of flour-blend at a time, it just doesn't make that much of a difference.]

ADD XANTHAN GUM to specific recipes, at about 1/4 teaspoon per cup, to start. If your cookies crumble too much, try a little more xanthan next time.

Classic blend works well as one-to-one substitute for wheat flour in cakes, muffins, and cookies. (Sadly, it’s not so good for bread.) It’s terrific in Nestle’s Toll-House cookies - go get a bag & try it today!

Note- if you want to keep your cookies dairy-free, we suggest using Earth Balance margarine - it’s the best! The only drawback is that it doesn’t come without salt, so if you use it, don’t add additional salt when called for in the recipe. Also, try the kosher section of the supermarket for non-dairy chocolate chips.

Further exploration; Three Chips for Sister Marsha, Alton Brown, Good Eats.

The store managers were surprised and a little overwhelmed by the response - one man told me he had a new message every time he opened his email! Clearly many, many more letters went out than I even saw - you were doing it out of love, not for the cookie dough. And that is something that I will always appreciate. Thank you.

Also some people wrote some really nice things about us and our products - I’m going to pick out some samples to share on a “testimonials” page.

Plus (JOY!) a lot of stores who weren’t even on the list have called us, some I don’t even want to mention lest I jinx the relationship. And a big BIG thank you! to everyone who wrote in to tell us about Vitamin City in San Dimas! I can’t believe I didn’t know about them!

We’re actually going to re-run this giveaway on a smaller scale next week and God willing we’ll be able to include Vitamin City. We’re definitely adding the Lassen’s Market in Santa Clarita!!! How cool is that?

We’ll be in Rainbow Acres in Culver City; Co-Opportunity in Santa Monica; Full o’ Life in Burbank; and Grassroots of South Pasedena starting early next week, but many new stores will not have their cookie dough for a few days - I’m going to email everyone when it’s safe use your coupons, and we’ll extend the expiration date so you have at least a month to pick it up. Thank you, really and deeply, thank you.

Oh, and just in case you’re into it, we have a printable pdf of that “Please Carry” letter that you could drop off at other stores where you buy gluten-free foods.

If you could please email (or write) to your local independent health-food store, and ask them to carry our stuff. That’s it. We have a sample letter that you can cut and paste, on the “page” called The Great Gluten-Free Cookie-Dough Giveaway which you’ll find over in the right-side column. ->-> (More detailed instructions are there, too, about the terms of the giveaway.)

Anyway, if you did this, it would mean a lot to us. We’d be so happy and grateful we’d send you a coupon for a FREE regular-sized (1.25 lb.) tub of cookie-dough.

We’ll send the cookie-dough to the store that you wrote to, for you to pick up there.

You’d be doing us a huge favor, because this way the stores will see how many people would buy our stuff if it was in their freezers. In fact, the email is great, but actually seeing people, real live customers traipsing through their store, is even better. That’s why we’re making the coupons non-transferable — You can’t pick up someone else’s cookie dough.

But we hope that it will be no trouble for you - we’ve found some great stores to work with, in every direction, where you’re sure to find many other wholesome and nutritious gluten-free items, and every single one of them keeps more convenient hours than we do! That’s how your life will ultimately be better - you’ll be able to get the same wonderful breads and treats that you do at our bakery, at our NEW LOWER PRICES, but closer to home and at all hours.

[Some of the stores haven't officially given permission as of this writing, so if your store is not listed as "available" you should wait and check back in a day or two. BUT the whole promotion ends by June 4th, so don't wait too long! Check right now and if your store is available, send the email today!]

But you can imagine, 20% hurts. We’re depending on making it up in volume, by selling to stores. That’s the only way we can survive at this point. (Yeah, it’s that bad.) But the stores, at this time, aren’t running to take on new suppliers.

Next week, we’re starting a new marketing campaign. We’re going to ask you to ask your local, independent health-food store (NOT Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s - nothing our little oven can’t handle!) to carry our bread &/or muffins, cupcakes, and cookie dough. You’ll pay the same $8 per pack* of bread or muffins that you do now at our bakery, but you’d get it a lot closer to home!

It’ll all be really easy; basically just come here and choose the most convenient store to you from a drop-down list, and hit “send.” We’d be so grateful we’d give you a free tub of gluten-free cookie dough, which you would pick up at the store you chose.

That’s why we call it “The Great Gluten-Free Cookie-Dough Giveaway!” which sounds hokey I know but, hey, we’re a little desperate here.

We’re just working out the logistics with the local stores but we really want to get out there (think Ventura to San Bernardino, Lancaster to San Clemente.) If you have any suggestions, please let us know at giveaway(at)thesensitivebaker.com!

Check back with us in a couple of days and it will be all set up for you! (And have I told you recently how much I love you? No kidding. I really really appreciate every one of our “peeps” who have kept us running so far. Thank you everyone, for being a part of this.

***
* BTW, if anyone is NOT struggling, and can still afford to pay more for gluten-free bread, please give us a call at (310) 815-1800. We can arrange to take your excess cash in exchange, for example, for home delivery.

I thought Andrea was remarkably poised on camera - much more so than I ever am! - but I have to say as long as we’ve had the honor of knowing her (even before the bakery officially opened, like 2 years now, so she wasn’t even a teen back then!) Andrea has always seemed poised and self-possessed. Quiet, yes, but lovely. You rock, girl!

[Would it sound self-serving if I said a factor in Andrea's socialization was certainly that her mother has had her on a gluten-free diet since she was two? Of course it would. But it's true.]

Mark the date: We’re closed Friday, MAY 29, for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, or…. um, wow, what is Shavuot, anyway? Pentecost (according to Wikipedia.) It’s a pretty obscure holiday, but closed we will be, nonetheless.

But we’re open to 6:00, the Thursday before. Stop in and load up on cheesecake — a shavuot tradition!

**
Here is the schedule:

Mondays: North thru Santa Clarita to Lancaster
Tuesdays: I-10 East to San Bernardino
Wednesdays: South to San Clemente
(Down the 405 and up the 5, or vice-versa, we’ll see.)
Thursdays: 101 (North/) West to Oxnard
Friday: West LA (west of downtown)
*

Please, keep in mind that “Greater LA” is a big place, and we only have the one truck. We go south for example, every week, but we’ll try to group deliveries so that each household/neighborhood will receive deliveries once every four or five weeks - that is, monthly.

If you add a birthday cake to your order one month, for example, you may not get it the exact week you’d like it. But we’ll always do our best to accommodate you.

Not everything - Bundt cakes only went down to $6 (from 7), cupcakes are $13.50 (from $15), and those little apple tarts and cheesecakes haven’t budged a bit.

Life is like that.

[Not available with any other offer.]

To learn how we did it, read on! ….

Our bakers, God bless them all, took a 20% pay cut. Everybody. The economy is bad, we get it, and we can’t keep asking people to pay $10 for a loaf of bread.

Our food costs are high, too, there’s nothing we can do about that. That’s why we still end up with an $8-loaf. But our bakers just went from being relatively well-paid (because they knew secret methods of baking gluten-free and we couldn’t afford to lose them) to being kinda-on-the-low-end-but-not-actually-picketing, employees.

And still they said they were just happy to have jobs. Like, wow. What a change from two years ago.

We really owe these wonderful and hardworking people - me, for saving the bakery; and all the gluten-free bread eaters out there, for making it relatively affordable.