Tuesday, 8 November 2011

Gluten Free Cooking Tips

One of my housemates is a celiac which means when I came to university I needed to adapt my cooking slightly when cooking for him. I couldn't constantly make cakes with conventional flour for fear of him always missing out. So obviously I've picked up some tips along the way to help you guys out.

1. Invest in gluten free baking products. Doves is pretty good and I would definitely get some gluten-free baking powder!

2. Without gluten cakes don't rise as well. Therefore you need to get LOTS of air in to the mixture to compensate. I often beat the mixture that little bit harder and I also separate my eggs. So I add the yolks but I whisk the eggs (till you get soft peaks) and then add to the mixture. This will create the air you need for your cakes to rise.

3. Adapt, Try, Fail, Try a little differently... I often use normal cake recipes and swap in the gluten free ingredients. If this doesn't seem to work, maybe add an extra egg or some milk. I find this often will help your cake with that added push it needs.

4. Don't be disheartened. Often it won't ever reach the heights of normal flour but you just have to accept it and look on the brighter side - it's slightly healthier for you!

5. Flavoured cakes and buiscuits are your friends. Strong flavours like chocolate can often help hide the slightly bitter(?) taste of gluten free flour. It's also much harder to pick up on in a buscuit.

Gluten free cooking just involves that little bit extra work but it really will pay off! I hope that you will find this helpful and I'll try and post some exculsive gluten free recipes on here too!

- Emma xxx

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