Need tips on Tf gluten-free diet

[janinemh]

So I am planning on giving up gluten soon-ish. I tested positive for a gluten allergy nearly a year ago but my ND didn't think I needed to worry about it for some reason (she can be kind of spacey.... Now I'm thinking I should cut it out since cutting our my other food allergies (egg and cow-dairy) hasn't gotten rid of all of my symptoms. Anyway, I've been doing some research on gluten-free baking and there seems to be a lot of white rice flour and other refined flours cooked then with refined sweeteners. I think I will mostly cut back on cooking with grains in general but I would like the occasional quick-bread and I want to make a yellow cake for my son's birthday in june. So, i'm looking for tips on how to bake gluten-free and TF. Plus I would also like some resources for learning the methods and science behind converting recipes using alternative flours so that I can convert some of our favorite recipes.

[jamie79]

Originally Posted by janinemh

So I am planning on giving up gluten soon-ish. I tested positive for a gluten allergy nearly a year ago but my ND didn't think I needed to worry about it for some reason (she can be kind of spacey.... Now I'm thinking I should cut it out since cutting our my other food allergies (egg and cow-dairy) hasn't gotten rid of all of my symptoms. Anyway, I've been doing some research on gluten-free baking and there seems to be a lot of white rice flour and other refined flours cooked then with refined sweeteners. I think I will mostly cut back on cooking with grains in general but I would like the occasional quick-bread and I want to make a yellow cake for my son's birthday in june. So, i'm looking for tips on how to bake gluten-free and TF. Plus I would also like some resources for learning the methods and science behind converting recipes using alternative flours so that I can convert some of our favorite recipes.

Honestly the easiest way to go gluten free is to go grain free. You can use coconut flour in recipes pretty successfully. For the occasional treat, I would just use the gluten free stuff at the HFS. I have not found a good way to TF gluten free stuff. I have been GF since November and grain free since late November/early December.

[darciedoodle]

The arrowroot cookies in the NT cookbook are delicious and you can make them with coconut oil so they are dairy free. I've made a cornmeal/almond cake, which was yellow and not too sweet but it probably had an egg in it, do you use egg replacer? I have a recipe for tapioca rolls, but it has egg and dairy in it so that might not work for you. We were gluten free for 5 years but now seem to be able to tolerate soaked grains, sourdough, triple fermented beers, etc.

[janinemh]

Originally Posted by darciedoodle

I've made a cornmeal/almond cake, which was yellow and not too sweet but it probably had an egg in it, do you use egg replacer? I have a recipe for tapioca rolls, but it has egg and dairy in it so that might not work for you.

Would you mind posting your recipes? I usually make my own egg replacer with flax for recipes that only call for one or two eggs but it doesn't usually work for recipes that rely on egg for leavening. I seem to do OK eating egg occassionally so I think I may just make a gluten-free cake with eggs if I need to to.

"We were gluten free for 5 years but now seem to be able to tolerate soaked grains, sourdough, triple fermented beers, etc."

I hope that this will happen for me... I love my sourdough bread !

[Rachel J.]

Nak
Check out the GFCFNN yahoo group, very helpful.

[kbchavez]

you should try duck eggs... I order pastured duck eggs from farmers on localharvest.com because I'm allergic to chicken eggs. Once you have eggs you can use, it will make cooking GF sweets MUCH easier, because you can make things with nut flour and coconut flour. There are LOTS of recipes for the SCD that are yummy that have no grains (but use eggs). Good luck!

[JaneSmith1010]

If you need gluten free products for special occaisions you'll want to just buy the packaged mixes. Its near impossible to make items like this from scratch. I recommend Pamela's mixes and Bob's RedMill (esp the choc chip cookies). Pamelas has yellow cake miix , frosting mix, etc.

[RootBeerFloat]

There have been alot of discussions on this topic here in recent months. It doesn't seem that any of us (and there are a mess of us who are gfcf and TF) have found good ways to do gluten free baking traditional style. Some things, like pancakes, are easy to do using the dairy free suggestions in NT; other things, like cookies and cakes, are darned near impossible. Merengues may be the exception. Generally, I've found that our conversion to gf (which has really taken us several years to get down) has meant a conversion to an eating style that is more based on vegetables and fruits and healthy meats than grains, and I am amazed by how much healthier I feel because of it.

I agree with the pp who said that the easiest way to do it is to go mostly grain free. I bake only rarely, and when I do, I either follow conventional recipies from scratch substituting whole gf grains ground at the hfs, or I use a mix (I like Pamela's best--I did her yellow cake for dd's birthday party and it was a huge hit). The Whole Food Allergy Cookbook is EXCELLENT for wheat free dairy free baking with no refined sugars; I have had no trouble converting any recipie in that book to totally gluten free (I use all gf flours and add 1-2 tsp xanthan gum). I highly recommend that book. While the grain-based recipies aren't traditional in the soaked/sprouted sense, they are at least totally whole food based with rarely anything loaded with additives and no refined sugars, only things that are TF like honey and maple syrup.

[summerlilies]

Priscilla is my friend who is a Weston A. Price chapter leader and she wrote a gluten free cookbook that you can download for $5. It got a thumbs up approval in the most recent Wise Traditions magazine from Sally Fallon.

She has recipes for gluten-free pancakes, bannana bread, pizza crust, muffins.

You can get it at http://www.nourishingyouandyourchildren.blogspot.com

It is called, "Living, Loving, and Cooking with my Daughter. A Guide to Cooking Gluten-Free Nutrient dense foods."

You can also look at her recipes she posted there for free.

I use Priscilla's cookbook every day and I am not gluten-free.

[quietserena]

I just went gluten free about a month ago, and it's totally doable TF style. I didn't cut out grains completely, I still have rice at dinner occasionally and quinoa and I have a package of teff to make injera with but I've not quite gotten to it.

It's way easier to shift your lifestyle not to include things like bread and cookies and cakes than to try and make substitutes because most often those are disappointing.

Oh, bob's redmill has a GF cereal that's pretty good that's a mixture of buckwheat and rice and something else that escapes me at the moment. I soak it overnight and have in the morning with plenty of coconut oil.

[darciedoodle]

Sorry, I have a newborn and haven't been on-line for awhile, but finally have time! Here is the cake recipe:

1 Cup Butter
1 Cup Sugar - I use rapadura
2 Cups Ground Almonds or Almond Meal - I ground them in the food processor
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
Juice of one orange
1 Cup Polenta
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 375, butter 9 inch cake pan

Beat butter, then add sugar and beat, stir in almonds and vanilla extract. Add eggs one at a time, fold in the orange juice, polenta, baking powder and salt. Spoon into cake pan and bake 35 to 40 minutes, cool 20 minutes.

Serve with fresh fruit, whipped cream or creme fraiche.

Obviously you'll have to tweak it if you want it to be dairy/egg free...I wonder how it would be with coconut oil instead of the butter. But maybe just for the birthday it would be okay. I think I used less sugar when I made it because I didn't want a big sweet gooey cake thing, which is what alot of the gf mixes seem to be to me.

I'll look for other recipes, I know I have an almond popover recipe, but it wasn't in the file.

[Junegoddess]

Originally Posted by darciedoodle

fold in the orange juice, polenta, baking powder and salt.

Do you mean prepared polenta, or dry? I am really excited to make this... sounds like something I'd really like. Any idea if it freezes well? I suspect no one else 'round here will like it all that much, so... it'd be all mine!

[darciedoodle]

Dry polenta. I don't know if it freezes well. It was tasty.

[Meg_s]

Corn does bad things to us... but we can deal with rice/potato/tapioca and those are the flours I use to bake with. You don't need much flour in a recipe, compared to wheat flours (at least my recipes) and the cakes and muffins are fantastic.

These are very cakey, and don't have anything weird or different in terms of taste and texture that would take away from a person's "cake experience"

sorry I never measure, and I use butter oil/ghee instead of real butter.
pound cake: melt butter and lard, mix in sugar, flour, baking powder, pinch of salt, plenty of egg yolks. I never use even remotely as much flour as you would regular wheat flour! Bake. It's delicious.

a lighter fluffier cake on the same note: use a greater percentage of potato flour, and add a splash of lemon juice to it. More lemon and poppyseeds on top are both nice, as is a cake lined with strawberries on top. I usually make my "cake" in mini muffin tins for ease of serving to tiny kids and portability.