Gluten Free Goodies
 

One thing I miss having to be on a GF diet are baked goods. I've found a few recipes that work really well and I stick mainly to them. I also miss a good loaf of home baked bread, but I'll have to forego that because I've tried baking my own following a GF recipe and all I'm doing is wasting expensive flours and other ingredients. They flop every time.

If anyone else has Celiac and has some tried and true recipes for baked treats, I'd love to hear about them. And, if anyone is interested, I have a surefire recipe for brownies.

I am celiac and have had a lot of success with cook books by Bette Hagman and also those by Carol Fenster. That said, GF baking isn't easy and nothing tastes exactly the same. All you can do is keep trying. Fortunately there are more and better products out there than there once were. Are you looking for a specific recipe?

There are some great GF baking blogs online.

http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.ca/ is one I enjoy.

I have got some great recipes from Living Without Magazine http://www.livingwithout.com I get regular emails with yummy recipes. One of the great tips I got from the magazine a couple years ago was to add poultry seasoning to the bread I baked for stuffing the Thanks Giving turkey. Preseasoned bread I had never thought of doing that, even when I was making regular bread for the dressing.


I am lucky to have a GF bakery about an hour away. They have wonderful baked goods.

I find that homemade GF bread with milk and eggs works better than ones made without. I also mix it for a long time in my stand mixer before baking.

A couple tips:
Get a good kitchen scale and use it instead of measuring cups for dry ingredients. I have found that made a huge difference to my success baking gluten free.

Find a couple flour blends that work for you and stick with them. When I started baking GF I bought a huge variety of GF flours, but I find I turn to only a couple GF flour blends over and over. I have loaned out my recipe book with the blends I use.

Check if there is a local Celiac Support Group near by. http://www.theceliacscene.com/ is near me and has lots of great resources.

One recipe that has translated beautifully to GF is my banana bread recipe.

1 1/4 cup GF flour blend with xantham Gum Or add 1/2 tsp of xantham gum
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar (I only use 3/4 cup, but the original recipe calls for a full cup)
2 ripe bananas (I use medium sized ones)
1/4 cup chopped nuts (you choose what you like)

Sift flour and baking soda (xantham gum if using) into a big bowl.

Mix mashed bananas, eggs, sugar, and oil well.

Add wet to dry ingredients (when I made this with regular flour I just hand mixed with Gf flour I use the mixer). When well mixed add nuts.

Bake in a greased loaf pan at 350 degrees for up to an hour. I check a few times for doneness.

Once it is baked tip out onto a cooling rack. Once cool, slice the whole loaf and freeze in serving sized portions. I do 2 slices in a sandwich bag, but you could do the whole loaf and separate the slices by waxed paper.

Even the family cannot taste the difference between this and 'normal' banana bread.

Here's another site that I check out regularly: http://glutenfreeonashoestring.com/

Thanks for the tips. I have the cookbooks one poster mentioned. I also bought several different kinds of flour. But wouldn't you know it, the recipes I want to make always call for the one flour I don't have. Or else other ingredients I don't normally have on hand.

I would like to find a recipe for making chocolate chip cookies. Also a shortbread recipe for strawberry shortcake. I found one but neglected to write it in my special GF notebook and couldn't make it again. Then I tried the Bisquick GF mix, but it calls for eggs and butter and makes too many. I used to make the regular Bisquick shortbread and only make enough for 5 servings. I'm thinking I may have gotten the recipe I like online because I can't find it anywhere in the cookbooks.

So if anyone can help, I'd appreciate it. Until then, I guess I'll live without my goodies.

Betty Crocker puts out gluten free goodie mixes that are awesome. My DH had to go gluten free also just a few months ago. It was a real challenge for me to switch everything. He was really missing his bread & goodies. When I found the chocolate chip, brownie, & cake mixes from Betty Crocker & made them, he was totally happy. They are like the real thing.

For Choc chip cookies I use the recipe on the bag of chips, substituting Bette Hagman's Four flour bean mix for the wheat flour and adding 1/2 to 1 tsp. xanthan gum. The flour mix calls for 2 cups garfava bean flour, 1 cup sorghum flour, 3 cups tapioca flour and 3 cups cornstarch. Mix these 4 ingredients in a large canister with a tight lid and shake well. Then just measure and use as you would wheat flour. Don't forget to mix the xanthan gum with the dry ingredients for the recipe before using. It will help the final product to not be so crumbly.
Garfava bean flour is a blend of garbanzo and fava beans. I believe it is a trademarked name, but several companies make this blend. I buy Bob's Red Mill brand.
Good luck!

I tried for a full year to mix GF flours and then went to bread mixes. I bought a special bread maker that is programable for GF doughs and I just follow the instructions. The bread mixes cost from $5-$8 a box (one loaf) and some taste better than others but all are eatable. I have also found that I can substitute Betty Crocker GF Bisquick mix for flour in any regular recipe that calls for a small amount of flour, like 1/2 cup or less and the result is fine. This lets me use my regular brownie recipe, my pumpkin bread recipe, etc. These are heavy type recipes.I use the Betty Crocker GF cookie and cake mixes also. For all other bakery goods I have been able to buy frozen goods at one health food store that is 60 miles away. They have muffins, cookies, bread, all sorts of buns, etc. GF snack crackers are not hard to find when a store has a supply of GF products. Finding the store in the first place is the hard part. I have yet t o find a pasta product that tastes like pasta.

I don't think the Tinkyada brown rice pastas are bad. Some of the white rice ones are gruesome.

I make my own flour mix with rice, potato, tapioca, coconut and sometimes GF oat flours. With the xanthum gum, I can use my regular recipes. I'll have to look for the garfava flour. Bob's Mill white cake mix is good. I haven't tried the shortbread cookie one yet but it's in the cupboard.

An apple coffee cake made with GF Bisquik was excellent. I think you could make biscuits with it by adding a butter/shortening mix and cutting it in like real biscuits. I'd add some vinegar to help them raise.

I can't have corn or yeast either, so I haven't played with regular bread.

My daughter was just diagnosed and her MD feels that with my symptoms, (plus those my mother and her mother also had when they were alive), CD runs rampant in the females of our family. I will be watching this thread to learn for myself and will pass on tips, hints, recipes, etc to my daughter as well. Thank you for the info you have shared. I am just beginning to learn, as she is, also.
Donna

TanyaL, have you tried the corn or quinoa pastas? I think they taste as good as the wheat. Be sure to cook according to the directions or maybe 1 minute less. They are not as sturdy as the wheat, but they taste great and don't stick to your teeth like the rice.

I don't like the corn pastas but haven't tried the quinoa ones. However I am ever so grateful for corn tortillas. I eat a ton of Mexican food.

Pilsbury, the regular cake and brownie mix company has a good brownie mix. Check your local grocery store. Up high on shelf in two differant store in a yellow box. They also have a yellow cake mix..both gluten free. Bisquick has a a gluten free product. It has the taste as same orininal recipie as the crumb cake breakfast brown sugar once on original brand box..yum! First 3 weeks I starved. Getting better. If you are not sure of your brand just google it. Diagnosed 3 years ago and hard to find. Now bloggers have taken out the hard work out of finding things.

These are some of the best chocolate chip cookies I have found since going grain free:

http://www.theprudentwife.com/fabulo...tly-sugar-free

I used honey and the Enjoy Life brand Dairy/Soy/Gluten Free Chocolate Chips. YUMMY!

I also make Flax meal bread and my family loves it.

Golden Flax Meal Bread
2 cups Flax Meal (I alternate using golden and the darker brown meal)
5 Eggs
1/2 cup Water
1 Tbs Honey
1/3 cup Ghee or Butter softened/melted
1 Tbs Baking Powder (or you can use 1.5 tsp Baking Soda)

Mix dry ingredients. Then add wet ingredients and combine well. You can grease and use a loaf pan, but I usually melt lard or ghee in the bottom of a cast iron skillet. Pour in the dough (I double the recipe, too) and bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes and it comes out very similar to corn bread or a dense wheat loaf.

Deb

These are some of the best chocolate chip cookies I have found since going grain free:

http://www.theprudentwife.com/fabulo...tly-sugar-free

I used honey (instead of stevia) and the Enjoy Life brand Dairy/Soy/Gluten Free Chocolate Chips. YUMMY!

I also make Flax meal bread and my family loves it.

Golden Flax Meal Bread
2 cups Flax Meal (I alternate using golden and the darker brown meal)
5 Eggs
1/2 cup Water
1 Tbs Honey
1/3 cup Ghee or Butter softened/melted
1 Tbs Baking Powder (or you can use 1.5 tsp Baking Soda)

Mix dry ingredients. Then add wet ingredients and combine well. You can grease and use a loaf pan, but I usually melt lard or ghee in the bottom of a cast iron skillet. Pour in the dough (I double the recipe, too) and bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes and it comes out very similar to corn bread or a dense wheat loaf.

Deb

If you don't also have allergies to corn, potatoes and rice most of the commercial mixes will do you well.
On the west coast, there is "mama's Almond Blend" and Mama's Coconut Blend" which can be used cup for cup like regular flour. I just made a wonderful Gingerbread made with Stout that held up beautifully and had a nice texture. Course it does need gluten free stout to be really all gluten free. That is this year's new desert for Thanksgiving.
Gingerbread with a Hard Lemon Sauce.
i use Sorghum flour for breading with a bit of Tapioca starch mixed in. Makes for nice fried fish and chicken.
Remember that in the healing phase your body needs easily digested vitamins particularly calcium and Mg ( liquid or liquid capsules) and a good liquid multiple. Not all doctors will tell you this. Read the research from Europe. they never stopped researching and treating celiacs there the way the USA did after WWII. We are just starting to catch back up here.

Wow, I don't check in for a day and so many responses. Thank you.

To the poster who makes Chocolate Chip Cookies subbing the regular flour with GF flour, that's what I did, but everything spread across my cookie sheet into one big blob. I had to scrape it off and eat it with a spoon. It tasted just like the regular cookies though. I just wish I knew how to keep them from spreading.

As for the other suggestions, I'm going to check them all out. I've mastered making my own brownie mix though, which saves me a bit of money as the storebought mixes are a little pricey.

Joyce, have you added the xanthum gum? It does make a difference. It's expensive, but a bag goes a long way. Let the dough set a few minutes to absorb some of the moisture from the eggs. Use half shortening and half butter. Butter tends to spread more, but tastes so good. Add a little extra flour. Add some coconut flour - it seems to absorb moisture better and it's so finely ground it improves the texture. I haven't opened my almond flour yet. Experiment with different brands of rice flour - some are less grainy. The next time I mix up my flour, I'm going to write down the proportions I use. A friend needs it for her daughter.

Wow so many great ideas, I really like the betty crocker gluten free brownie mix... add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and drizzle with choc... yum yum

I made the gluten free bisquick biscuits and just about choked to death, they were very dry.... not going to make them again. I do use the bisquick to make gravy.

I went to those sites mentioned above. And, of course, the links led me to other sites and so on. Anyway, I found a chocolate chip cookie recipe that called for unsalted butter and kosher salt. Now those items are not a staple at my house and I don't want to buy them just for one recipe. So I was wondering if I could substitute regular salted butter and use regular salt but a little less than the kosher salt called for. I know recipes are modified all the time, but I don't want to do it if it will ruin the end result. What does everyone think?

As for gravy, I use a little of my gf blended flour instead of straight cornstarch.

And, yes, I added the xanthan gum to my cookies but maybe I should add more.

Wanda Lou, give the biscuits another try. I use bisquick all the time and the biscuits aren't that dry. I eat them split in half, hot with melted butter and jelly or honey or with gravy over them. They are the best biscuits I have found. I haven't ever tried eating them cold as I don't like a cold biscuit.

Wanda, GF Bisquick doesn't have any shortening like the regular does. You have to add your own.

Yes, you can use butter and less salt. It's a whole 'nother thread, but sea salt is healthier than regular salt, IMO. I have never baked with kosher salt and I don't make dill pickles any more.

Plain rice flour thickens well, too. That one surprised me.