Going Gluten-Free

Gluten Free Spritz

I am a baker.  I love baking and my biggest fear when my daughter and I were diagnosed with Celiac Disease was that I would no longer be able to bake -- or bake anything that tasted good.  After a few years without wheat flour, I can honestly say that I have overcome my fear and find gluten free baking to be almost (almost -- there are still some tricky bits) trouble free.

My mother-in-law makes Spritz cookies at Christmastime, so my husband was craving them.  Since they are run through a cookie press, I knew the dough would have to be just right, so I was very excited to see a recipe for them in Jeanne Sauvage's new cookbook -- Gluten-free Baking for the Holidays.  It's a lovely book and I highly recommend it!  The cookies were delicious and had just the right texture.

I even made the chocolate sandwich variation she shows in the book and they were easy and delicious.

(Oh yeah, the trees are being decorated with purple sugar -- ha!  That's how we roll here.  Or more to the point, that's the only colored sugar I happened to have in the cabinet when the spirit moved us to make these.)

Gluten Free Donuts!

I recently purchased Babycakes Covers the Classics: Gluten-Free Vegan Recipes from Donuts to Snickerdoodles becasue of the cover, basically...

We have been eating and enjoying Kinnikinnick donuts since going gluten free, but I wanted to try my hand at baking donuts at home.  After getting the book, I read through all the recommended ingredients and purchased those too (I ordered the deodorized coconut oil because I couldn't find it locally) and then I tried out the basic recipe. 

I have to say that I really liked the cinnamon sugar coated plain donuts.  The vanilla glazed were a favorite with my daughter, but I didn't like them nearly as much.  I definitely had  to bake the donuts longer than the recipe suggested and I think I'll add some spices to the batter next time (a little nutmeg and cinnamon will make them taste more donut-like, I think.)

All in all, a great recipe to start with.  I'll be making more donuts for sure!

Gluten Free Birthday Party

Well, we made it through our first gluten free birthday party.  Maddie wanted a pizza party, and I was not up for making gluten free pizza for more than a dozen guests, so we ordered pizza and I cooked a special pizza for Maddie. 

Dessert was the real challenge.  I like to bake things from scratch, but I was not confident enough to try making gluten free cupcakes from a recipe, so I purchased a mix and made vanilla buttercream from scratch.

Our local Dominick's had Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Chocolate Cake Mix , so that is what I used.  The only weird ingredient (something you might not always have on hand) was fresh lemon juice.  Fortunately I had picked up a bag of lemons at Trader Joe's, so I was good to go.  The package made 18 cupcakes and they baked up beautifully with a nice rise.  They tasted great and were very moist.

For the frosting I used my absolute, all time favorite cookbook -- Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.  Of course there were the usual bits of panic.  I knew the butter, sugar and cream were okay, but had no idea if the vanilla extract I had was gluten free.  After a bit of Googling, I determined that the Trader Joe's vanilla is, in fact, gluten free.  Whew.

I also did a sundae bar -- using plain vanilla and chocolate ice cream from Hagen Dazs, which I had confirmed was safe.  I made my own butterscotch caramel sauce (using Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything once again) which I'm finding is the best way to ensure things are gluten free. 

Maddie loves gummi bears on her ice cream, so once again there was a slight panic until we confirmed that Haribo Gummi Bears were safe. I'm finding that the internet is one of the best tools I have as I switch us over to this new diet.

In the end, we made it through with a little extra work, a lot of web searching and a willingness to try new things.  Now if we can just make it through Halloween, I'll feel like I have a handle on this thing.