Terri- Do you have the book, "Cooking with Coconut Flour"? I use many recipes out of that book. I also use Chana dal (immature garbanzo beans - looks like split peas) instead of garbanzo beans because they are low-glycemic and don't raise blood sugar and are milder-tasting than garbanzo beans. They can be milled into flour and used instead of garbanzo flour. You usually find garbanzo bean flour mixed with fava bean flour. You might try your GF Mix in these recipes instead of the white sorghum flour since it takes so little and the peanut butter in the first recipe, and the almond flavoring in the second, might mask the bean flavor. These are a couple of my original GF recipes. WHITE SORGHUM PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES 1/2 c. Natural Peanut Butter 1/2 c. butter 1/4 c. white sugar 1/4 c. brown sugar 1 egg 1/2 c. white sorghum flour 1/2 c. dried potato flakes 1/2 c. flaxmeal 1/2 T. cornstarch 1 t. baking soda 1 t. baking powder 1/2 t. salt Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, beat butter and peanut butter with an electric mixer until light and creamy. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy. Beat in the egg just until mixed. In a medium bowl, combine the white sorghum flour, dried potato flakes, flaxmeal, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. By hand, mix into peanut butter mixture, only until ingredients are incoporated. Refrigerate dough for 20 minutes. Using a portion scoop, make dough into 1-inch balls. Place on prepared cookie sheets and press with a fork dipped into turbinado sugar. Bake 8-10 minutes in a preheated 350°F oven. Remove cookie sheets from the oven and allow the cookies to rest on the sheet for 1-2 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. WHITE SORGHUM and ALMOND FLOUR COOKIES 1/2 c. butter 1/3 c. brown sugar 1 t. almond extract 1 egg 1/2 c. white sorghum flour 1/2 c. almond flour 1/4 c. dried potato flakes 3/4 t. baking powder 3/4 t. baking soda 1. Preheat oven to 350°F. 2. Cream butter. Add brown sugar and blend until light and fluffy. Add almond extract and egg. Beat well. 3. Stir dry ingredients together and mix well. 4. Mix dry ingredients into creamed mixture and mix only until blended. 5. Allow dough to chill in refrigerator for 20 minutes and keep in refrigerator between use. 6. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and place on a parchment paper lined sheet. Press dough balls with a fork to flatten slightly. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until lightly browned and set to touch. 7. Allow cookies to sit for 1-2 minutes on baking sheets before removing and place on a wire rack to cool. Yield: 33 cookies -Grainlady

Oh, no! Bad sentence on my part. Southern California. We had a wonderful Syrian bakery that made brilliant pita. I still miss them. My heart breaks for what has happened there, but I've never been to Syria. You haven't said why you're eschewing "enriched flour" and don't need to, but white flour products are required by law to use vitamin enriched flour, and even most home baking white flour (bleached or unbleached) is enriched and has a little malted barley flour in it as well, which has a lot of an enzyme that's needed for rising. Unless you have a specific problem with one or more of the vitamins or the barley, the enrichment shouldn't be a problem. Maybe you're just concerned that there's white flour in there. White flour is often added to whole wheat flour to make the rise spongier. Sometimes vital wheat gluten is added to strengthen the gluten (the bran in the whole wheat can weaken or cut it). Wheat gluten can be isolated by hand by washing the wheat and kneading out the starch, and has been done for centuries, so it's not a weird industrial product. Anything that's made with white flour in the U.S. uses enriched flour. There may be some places that mill and sift their own flours that do not, but that's an extremely rare exception. Therefore, I would guarantee that the Lebanese pita are made with enriched flour. The thinner thing is probably a lack of leavening. Even in the Middle East, nowadays, the pita have leavening and are a bit spongy. That's not traditional. :) I haven't seen Kontos, and I'd guess it's an East Coast brand. I don't doubt that it's good! Whole Foods might be a better place to get 100% whole wheat, however, unless you can find a Middle Eastern or halal store where people are into the "new" kind of dietary laws (no white flour, pasture raise livestock, etc.). Maybe try stores near the colleges? College kids tend to be into better eating. Turlock is from California. I know they freeze to ship it to avoid preservatives, so you might find it there, but more likely the Whole Foods have something local. Good luck on your quest.

Ironically, I was using coconut flour (and also nut flours) long before I went gluten-free as a way to reduce high-glycemic foods in our diet. When it comes to sorghum flour, I suggest milling your own, but I suggest that with all the whole grains because "fresh is best" - for the flavor as well as the nutrition. Sorghum is soft enough you can mill it in small batches in a coffee/spice mill. Sorghum flour tends to be gritty, so try to use it with a mixture of other textures, like oatmeal, unsweetened coconut.... Using the "soaked flour" method also helps; and when you make cookies, chill the dough overnight and that will help eliminate the grittiness. --Add 1/2 to 1 T. of cornstarch to every cup of sorghum flour to improve the smoothness and moisture retention. Arrowroot or tapioca flour can also be used measure-for-measure for cornstarch, or you can use 2 T. of Ultra Gel for every T. of cornstarch. --Use xanthan gum as a binder and for moisture retention. Add 1/2 t. of xanthan gum per cup of sorghum flour for cookies and cakes; or 1 t. per cup for breads. --Add a little extra oil or solid fat if you think your recipes are too dry. --Make small cakes, large cakes can dry out quickly. --Add an extra egg or egg white for improved smoothness and crumb structure. --Add a little extra baking powder and/or soda to boost rising properties. --Interestingly enough, you may find mixing doughs and batters longer than what you think would be necessary also helps the end results. --Sorghum flour works well combined with other grain/seed/bean flours. When working with bean flour, mill small white beans because they have the least amount of "beany" flavor. Sorghum flour, in combination with bean flour, helps cut the bitterness of bean flour. --You can also help "mask" some of the strong flavors of these gluten-free flours by choosing brown sugar, or even better, coconut palm sugar, or maple sugar, over white sugar. --Many gluten-free products and recipes use flour/starch mixtures that tend to be very low in vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber, and are high-glycemic, which can raise the blood sugar of diabetics. I tend to side on healthier ingredients and milling my own grains/seeds/beans for improved nutrition from the commercial all-purpose flour mixtures. Even though these commercial all-purpose flour mixtures are gluten-free, they are not healthy options, in my opinion, so I wouldn't use them frequently. You are potentially trading one health issue - gluten - for another. --Adding legume flours, ground flax, ground chia seeds, amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat, millet, and flour milled from corn (especially high-nutrient blue corn), are going to add a wider variety of nutrients, vitamins, and antioxidants. Nut flours add protein to keep the glycemic impact lower. --Potato starch is often used in combination with other gluten-free flours, but you can also add dried potato flakes to baked goods, which will aid in holding moisture. --Benefits of using sorghum flour. Sorghum is high in insoluble fiber, with relatively small amounts of soluble fiber. The protein and starch in sorghum endosperm are more slowly digested than many other cereal grains. The slower rate of digestibility of sorghum products may be beneficial to diabetics over using high-glycemic flours and starches. --Sorghum flour tastes similar to wheat flour and is mild-flavored. --Sorghum flour mixes well with corn flour in tortillas. -Grainlady

I made the one called "Our Easiest Stollen", because I didn't have marzipan, I didn't have almond paste, I didn't have dates, and I don't like the fruitcake mix kind of candied fruit. That one seemed to be the one that I could most easily adapt to the ingredients I had and that we like. Hmm. So FOAS is familiar with stollen where the raisins are soaked in rum, and Peppi had one with rum, so maybe that IS traditional, like the brandied fruit cake. The bakery doesn't bake the rum IN the bread, they mix butter and rum and use it to baste the already baked bread, it makes kind of a glue for the powdered sugar, and they make a thick coat of it. I do like almond flavoring, though, I just sniff the bottles of almond extract at Penzey's and I LOVE almond paste in those Italian neopolitan cookies. Almond paste isn't something that's readily available here, though, usually the cans of "Solo" brand are available around the holidays and occasionally I'll see a block of it in the refrigerated case with the rolls of cookies and stuff, but again, only at the holidays. Annie