This year it finally hit me that I am gluten intolerant. Maybe it was the stress of the past few years that led to this. Maybe it is age-related. Who knows? All I know is that if I take any gluten containing food I am plagued by headache, nausea and other symptoms.
It is a bummer for I had to give up everything I love- cakes, pastries, pies, pasta, bread, roti, sooji (semolina) upma...the list is simply endless. Everything had to be re-jiged. Of course, being South Indian, our main staple is rice. So it was not too much of a problem. But I also now include lots millets, ragi, jowar (sorgum), and bajra in my diet. Wheat rotis have been replaced by ragi/bajra/sorghum roti.
For the past several months I simply gave up on baking. Slowly I am picking it up now by experimenting with gluten free flours.
Yesterday I was simply craving for brownies. I used this recipe, doubling everything so that I can bake in a 8 x 8 inch pan. I ground up oats and almonds in my blender for oats flour and almond powder that the recipe called for. Instead of 4 eggs, I used 2 eggs and 1/2 cup of yogurt. I added only about 1/4 cup of melted chocolate. I like walnuts in my brownies so I added walnuts and broken up bits of Cadbury's chocolate for chocolate chips.
The trick is to refrigerate the brownies after they have cooled down before cutting them into pieces.
So here it is:
This batch of brownies is for my students.
