Fearless Frankenstein Creates Frankencakes

I’ve always been a little intimidated when it comes to the kitchen. My mom was always a fantastic cook, but I don’t appear to have inherited her skills. Now that my whole diet has completely changed it’s been more than intimidating. Take baking yeast bread, for example. In order to get the right dough consistency, I can always pull from the experience of baking it with my mom. The first time I made gluten free bread, I found myself feeling slightly panicked as my Kitchen Aid mixed the ingredients. It was like exploring unchartered territory. Gluten free dough is exactly the opposite of wheat bread when it comes to consistency. Add xanthan gum and it’s even scarier. It’s ooey and gooey and screams epic failure as you scrape the dough out of the bowl and into a pan. I feel like a pioneer who has no map to follow save what I find on the Internet, and I discovered that the Internet doesn’t really replace hands-on experience. However, I haven’t let my intimidation stop me from experimenting. I’ve had to be fearless in the kitchen, and the other day I donned the persona of Dr. Frankenstein.

In an effort to help offset the flops with the gluten-free flours in my kitchen, my wonderful mom found a recipe in one of her cookbooks for buckwheat pancakes made with yeast. I've never been a huge fan of buckwheat, but it's an acceptable food I can eat. The recipe seemed simple enough, but here’s where Frankenstein came in: I had to improvise with some ingredients. I had to do a little guesswork and math with the yeast. It called for just a portion of a yeast cake. I didn’t have a yeast cake, so improvised with active dry yeast. Once you mix the yeast, water, flour, and scalded milk together, the batter is supposed to rest all night. Well, since I wanted breakfast for dinner, mine rested all day. This questionable looking concoction that was resting in my kitchen looked something like this:

When it came time to add the baking soda, molasses, and egg, I was extremely nervous. Not only did I improvise with the yeast, but I also used almond milk for the milk; for the egg, I used Enger-G Egg Replacer. Well, as I dumped in the baking soda/water mixture, the batter came alive! It fizzled and fuzzled, and once it was mixed up it was ready to be fried.

The end result? They looked somewhat suspicious with their wrinkled "skin," but the texture was amazingly light and fluffy. Flavor wise, my little Frankencakes didn’t turn out quite as well as I had hoped. I’m speculating I may have been a little heavy handed on the yeast, and I’m wondering about that almond milk and fake egg I used. Someday (hopefully) when I’m able to use the actual ingredients, I will try these again without having to employ Dr. Frankenstein’s tactics.