FAQs

Besan flour, also known as chickpea flour, garbanzo flour (in the USA) or gram flour, is a 100% gluten-free flour made from dried chickpeas.  Besan flour is high in easily digestible carbohydrates and protein, making it an ideal food for vegetarians.

Here at Silly Yak Foods we use besan flour in biscuits in order to achieve a crispness of texture and crunchiness in mouth feel that is otherwise quite difficult to obtain in gluten-free baking.  We also use besan flour in a small number of other recipes (such as our Biscuit Crumb recipe) where these characteristics are desirable.

Glucono Delta Lactone, often abbreviated GDL, is a naturally occurring food ingredient and is one of a class of ingredients known as acidulants.  In food manufacturing, acidulants are used to reduce the pH of the food, retarding spoilage (GDL can be used as a natural preservative in some circumstances), as well as to prevent the discolouration of the final food product.  In large scale commercial manufacturing GDL is widely used in products such as tofu, honey, fruit juices and wine.

GDL is made through the fermentation of plant-derived glucose, generally rice or maize.  It is not made from wheat or from any other gluten-containing grain.  The final product, which is a fine white powder, is 100% free of wheat, gluten and dairy.  It is soluble in water, is completely non toxic and is completely metabolised by the human digestive system.

Silly Yaks uses GDL as a part of our yeast-free leavening mix, which we use to raise our Bread Loaves (not the Bread Roll products, which contain yeast) and our Pizza Base products.  We combine the GDL with Sodium Bicarbonate and Potassium Bicarbonate to form a baking powder.  When the baking powder is combined with water, the acidity of the GDL reacts with the Sodium and Potassium Bicarbonate to produce carbon dioxide, which causes the bread to rise.

In yeasted products, the yeast metabolises sugars during the proving process and excretes carbon dioxide to achieve the same effect.

No, we do not.  We did trial a home delivery service but we’re really not set up for it and it caused many more problems than it solved.  There are a number of companies in Victoria who offer home delivery of gluten free products, including ours.

For information on the best of these Victorian options, click here.

We continue to seek partnerships with companies who are set up to provide a direct home delivery service and are able to handle products such as ours.  We are particularly interested in forming partnerships with organisations which are able to provide this service in states other than Victoria.  We would encourage any organisation which might be interested in discussing such a partnership to contact us.

Yes we do!

In October 2008, Silly Yak Foods sold the Silly Yaks Cafe in order to concentrate on what we believe we are best at – the development, manufacture and distribution of the highest quality 100% gluten free, 100% wheat free food products in Australia.  However, since that time we have been deluged with feedback telling us that you want to be able to purchase our products directly from us.

In response to this overwhelming feedback we have opened the Silly Yaks Factory Outlet Store.  The store is very much a work in progress, and has very limited hours of opening at present, but will be further developed throughout 2010.  Full details can be found here.

No we do not. In fact, the Silly Yaks Cafe no longer exists as a business name or trading entity.

We sold the cafe in October 2008 to an organisation called SACS Gourmet.  They operated the cafe through until September 2012, when it closed its doors.  The building which housed the old Silly Yaks Cafe is now part of the Fruit Pedallers organic food store.

Detailed information on the sale of the cafe, including the motivation behind our decision, can be found here.