Posted June 8, 2011
Tennis player Novak Djokovic is reportedly having a breakout season, possibly making him the world’s best athlete of 2011. And it may be due to his new gluten-free diet, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal: “How did Novak Djokovic conquer the tennis world? Maybe the answer is as simple as this: Since last year, he’s swearing off pasta, pizza, beer, French bread, pretzels, empanadas, Mallomars and Twizzlers — anything with gluten.”
The story goes on to say how his nutritionist discovered that Djokovic is allergic to gluten, so Djokovic banished it from his diet and “now he hits winners that seem to subscribe to the undiscovered laws of physics.”
Eliminating gluten from your diet may not make everyone a world-class athlete, but it will make you feel better if you’ve been having problems digesting it. Or, if you discover you have Celiac disease, you must give it up because eating anything with gluten will cause health issues. (Celiac disease is a genetic disorder thought to effect as many as one in 22 people, according to the National Health Institute.)
Giving up Mallomars could be done. But no bread?
“Gluten is the protein in wheat,” says Kathy Crowther, owner of Bakery of Life in Stewartsville, Mo. “It’s what binds the bread and makes it flexible and nice. Take that out, it’s dry.”
A gluten-free diet is the only treatment for Celiac disease, which may be why Mrs. Crowther is regularly asked if they make gluten-free bread. Although she has made whole-grain breads for years, using flour she grinds from locally grown organic wheat, she never tried gluten-free, until now.
“It’s a different animal,” she tells us at the new Sweet Sisters Bakery, a couple of blocks down the street from Bakery of Life. Sweet Sisters is primarily run by her daughters, Amanda Holmes and Bethany DeSelms. The women bake gluten-free bread, muffins, cookies, brownies, blondies and ready-made frozen pie crusts. It’s all done on dedicated equipment, meaning nothing with wheat is used here. Mrs. Crowley’s brother helped them get started.
“My brother is a doctor out in Washington and wanted to support them starting the gluten-free,” Mrs. Crowther says. “He was seeing more and more Celiac and thought this would be a good opportunity for them.”
There has been a learning curve for everyone, Mrs. Crowther says. A typical loaf of wheat bread needs at least 15 minutes of kneading and pounding to develop the gluten. But gluten-free dough is very sticky and should only have about five minutes of mixing. They both have yeast, but with gluten-free, you pat the bread into the pan, not punch and roll it. Missouri humidity can be a challenge. They bake with a mix of flours: chickpea, pinto bean, navy bean, sorghum and chia. They all add moisture to the bread, so you need no more. Sweet Sisters gets the flour mix from Anna Sobaski, creator of Breads from Anna, in Iowa. She developed the mix because she suffers from Celiac disease and did not want to give up the foods she loved. They tried to come up with their own blend, but found Anna’s was the best.
“We think it tastes like Hawaiian bread,” Mrs. Crowther says.
The bread is sweetened with crystallized honey and a little organic cane sugar. Sweet Sisters adds eggs, but do make bread with an egg substitute on request. They can make dairy-free and corn-free, too. (The bread contains cornstarch).
You won’t miss the gluten, even if you could eat it. The brownies are made with a fudgy ganache, that gives them a rich, melt-in-your-mouth quality. Equally delicious are the blondies, which taste something like a moist sponge cake dotted with chocolate chips. They have a garbanzo bean/fava bean mix in them, so they’re nutritious, too. The bread is great plain or for sandwiches, and they say it makes the best French toast.
“We’ve gotten a really good response because it’s something people are really looking for,” Amanda says. “They want something that reminds them of what they used to be able to have and a lot of the things on the shelf just isn’t cutting it with them.”
In addition to the bakery, the sisters sell some of their gluten-free products at The Merc in Lawrence, Kan., and at Nature’s Own, Nature’s Pantry and the City Market in Kansas City. They eventually plan to offer their products online. For customers interested in making their own gluten-free products, Sweet Sisters has an adjoining bulk food store where they sell many of the unusual flours used to make the products, along with some of Anna’s mixes for breads and muffins.
The bakery is located at 404 Main St. in Stewartsville and is open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. Call (816) 669-1310 or visit www.sweetsistersgf bakery.com.
Sylvia Anderson can be reached at sylvia.anderson@newspressnow.com.
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