gluten free familyA mum's blog about gluten-free living in Australia

... or would bread be better?

I’m glad to see those brainy folk at the CSIRO have got their priorities right. They are developing a gluten free barley strain with one particular end product in mind….beer!

In case you were wondering, yes it is a gluten free bloke at the head of this project.

Now it’s not that I am averse to a tipple. No indeed. But it does make me wonder if perhaps he doesn’t have gluten free kids like we do here at GFF.

If he did I reckon we might soon be looking forward to munching into a lovely gluten free barley loaf instead. Read the rest of this entry »

What happens when you own two squishy bananas and a new gluten free cookbook?

Banana bread of course!

Unlike many gluten free cakes, this bakery treat is indistinguishable from its wheat-based equivalent.

And the one I made tonight was up there with the best.

My inspiration was 100 Best Gluten-free Recipes, a new US cookbook by Carol Fenster.

I had to tweak the recipe a little as it asked for a specific US brand of sorghum flour, but it turned out well regardless. Read the rest of this entry »

Lemon meringue pie has always had a strange magnetic pull on me.

When I heard that it was one of the specialties of the house at gluten free bakery, Healthy Feast in Sydney’s Leichardt, a visit was inevitable.

So last weekend I strapped the bicycles to the back of the car – the plan was to have a gluten free picnic in the park followed by some hardcore pedalling – and off we went.

You can see what we bought in the picture. The lamingtons and lemon meringue pies were amazing. The former tasted just like the gluten-based variety and the latter even better. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the tough parts of being a blogger is reviewing products.

This week we were really put through our paces, chomping our way through a feast of bakery goods, this time dispatched our way from Melbourne bakery, Silly Yaks.

Baguettes, rolls, loaves (fruit and plain) pies (savoury and sweet), sausage and vege rolls, nocchi, quiche, pizza bases; I’ve tasted most of these things over the past seven days and I must say it has been rather a pleasure.

The whole family enjoyed the fruit loaf at breakfast time and the rolls and baguettes were handy to grab from the freezer when we needed them.

The tomato/chilli nocchi made a very nice lunch for two, and I also sneaked a yummy sausage roll when no-one was looking.

But the highlight had to be the pies – both large and little. They have tasty, tender pastry that contains a variety of ingredients such as rice, soy, tapioca and maize flour. Read the rest of this entry »

Chia seeds

Now many of us have been forced to look beyond wheat as a source of nutrition, attention has begun to shift to some of the ancient grains of our ancestors.

They don’t just look wholesome – but actually contain higher levels of protein and fibre than more traditional gluten free staples such as rice, corn and potato, which could mean a healthier and more balanced diet for those of us who have sworn off gluten for life.  Here are a few that have caught our eye in recent times.

Chia

Chia seeds are popping up in a wider range of gluten free goods, so we thought it might be time to take a closer look at this grain.

The Lifestyle bakery has had great success with its award-winning chia loaf and breadmaker Dovedale has also released a number of breads and other chia-based goodies.

Dovedale says chia’s origins date back to Central American civilisations and “improves human nutrition by providing the richest natural source of Omega 3, antioxidants and dietary fibre”.

Read the rest of this entry »

Before I get down to some more of the nitty gritty issues that arose from the Gluten Free Expo last weekend, I thought it might be helpful for those who couldn’t make it to get a little run-down of some of the new products at the show.

Cakes and bread led the charge as usual – but there was also some very interesting additions with the number of suppliers to this market growing ever larger.

Lets begin with new kids on the block, Vitarium, who have been releasing products at a rate of knots. In coming months you will see a bunch of new cake mixes including low fat versions of  chocolate cake and muffins, multi-purpose cake mix and muffins, and some
crumpets. They are excited about the arrival of a new natural sweetner called Natvia helps to keep the calorie count down (we shall be investigating this further down the track).

Simply Wize recently brought a new bread mix to the supermarket shelves – now they have added Nocchi to their range. I bought some today and will be testing it out for lunch.

The makers of our favourite frozen convenience foods, Bayview – who brought us chicken nuggets and fish bites and a bunch of other tasty kids favourites – are preparing to launch a line of calimari. They are still deciding whether it will be salt and pepper calimari or plain (one would be for the grownups and the other for kids – so I guess from a selfish perspective I know which I would prefer!).

Melindas already sells a range of sumptuous sounding cakes and puddings in the cute pink packaging. Now she has added Risotto Cakes and Lemoncurd Cakes to her collection. I have one of each and can’t wait to try them. Read the rest of this entry »

Choices gluten free bakery

This weekend we jumped in the car and headed for Choices gluten & wheat free bakery in Sydney’s Turramurra.

It was our first trip because it is a good 40 minutes away in quiet traffic. But we were inspired by news on the Gluten Free Pages that Choices has opened new Sydney stores. It now has outlets in Bondi Junction, Bella Vista and Mona Vale.

Though none of them are close to us, this is still great news and gives me hope that a gluten free bakery may some day open its doors in my neck of the woods.

Like most of the specialist bakeries they will deliver to other areas. But for those like me who like hands-on shopping, there do seem to be more bricks & mortar bakeries popping up. Silly Yaks for instance has opened a factory outlet for its frozen bakery goods in Preston Victoria.  Then there is Deeks Bakery & Cafe in Canberra. Read the rest of this entry »

Simply Wize bread mix

Get your oven gloves on because there is a new gluten free bread on the market.

This one is called Simply Wize and comes in two varieties: a free standing loaf (crusty bread mix) and a  french loaf (french stick mix). I haven’t spotted it in the supermarkets yet but the folks from Momentum Foods sent me a pack of the french stick mix to test out in my non-scientific kitchen.

A sophisticated baker I am not – and I am afraid this loaf did prove a little beyond me.  Not because the mix is terribly difficult to master but because the instructions were not as clear as they might be (for a non-baker) in a couple of places. For example in one place is says to roll out the dough – but I wasnt sure if this required a rolling pin or hands? In retrospect I have decided it was a rolling pin moment because my loaf was a little bit knobblier than the one on the packet and was more dense than I feel sure this loaf is intended to be.

Please do not be put off though. The nicest gluten free breads I have discovered took two or three attempts to nail and I certainly intend to give this one another go.

I have reviewed a few bread mixes now and two different categories are becoming apparent. One category is simple to bake, moderately foolproof and results in a nice loaf that toasts beautifully but does not have quite the silky texture of wheat bread, and becomes a little leaden after a few hours (so not so great for lunch boxes).

The breads of the second category are a little more demanding when it comes to their preparation and  the skill level required to bake them, but they reward you will delicious, soft bread that is as near to the real thing as you can get. Simply Wize goes into this category along with Spring Hill’s Real Bread Mix, and FG Roberts Bread Mix.

Like FG Roberts, Simply Wize mixes are combined with a few other ingredients to create a real dough which is then molded and baked. In spite of the fact that I messed up one or two steps, our first-time-around results were encouraging and we will be experimenting further with the mix once it pops up in the supermarket.

Beware, though. The products that are higher on the delicious and soft end of the spectrum might not be as allergy/intolerance safe as the traditional loaves, as they do contain ingredients such as yeast and soy – which may or may not agree with you. So always read the pack!

[UPDATE: We have since spotted the Simply Wize in Woolies' and Coles gluten free section]

LH

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FG Roberts gluten free bread

One of my dearest gluten free wishes was granted this week.  Fresh, soft, delicious bread that is perfect for sandwiches, and stays nice and bouncy in a lunch box.

This was the result of my most recent attempt at FG Roberts’ new bread mix which is headed to shops any minute now.

It’s taken me a couple attempts to nail it. The first time around my creaky old scales let me down when measuring out the dry mix which created a slightly stodgy though very edible loaf.

Older, wiser, and armed with some slick new scales I baked another Vienna style loaf for school lunches which resulted in a nice looking loaf. Then, armed with new confidence, I finished off the packet by baking a tasty thin baguette for a barbie last weekend.

Today was my first proper school-day trial of the sliced up Vienna loaf. I am very happy to say that only half a sandwich returned home in my son’s lunchbox – but  more remarkably, this half had retained normal bendy bread-like qualities.

There are plenty of excellent gluten free breads – readymade and mixes – on the market and many of these are tasty and avoid ingredients likely to trigger food sensitivities like soy and yeast, both of which are found in FG Roberts mix.

The readymade loaves are okay as toast but in my view don’t have a soft enough texture to make a satisfying sandwich and many use preservatives as well.

The mixes do better on this score but can quickly lose their form.  Many will toast up nicley, but may resemble rubber within two hours out of the freezer.

FG Roberts has somehow managed to stumble on a winning formula – and they say it only took 15 years of experimentation and 800 loaves.

But by jove I think they’ve cracked it.

LH

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I have battled with lousy kitchen equipment for too long. Scales that are way out of whack, whisks that give off smoke and a mish-mash of tablespoons, teaspoons and cups that just don’t cut the mustard – or even measure the mustard accurately.

It’s all well and good if you can buy all of your cakes, breads and pastries from the shops, but we of the gluten free persuasion do not always have that luxury.

Even simple bread and cake mixes can be hazardous for the ill-equipped. My once-favourite white bread mix, for example, suddenly stopped working out the way it used to. It bubbled up over the bread tin every time I cooked it and I couldn’t tell if the mixture had changed or I had added too much rice milk three times running (seemed unlikely).

I wrote to Orgran’s customer service to see if they could advise me about why this might be happening (for instance, was it because rice milk is more liquid than dairy milk?) but got no response at all from them. As a result I have begun experimenting with other loaves.

But it’s not just bread mixes I have had trouble with. All mixes and recipes can be spoiled by substandard equipment. Although they may seem to work out okay, when we are talking about gluten free cookery, dry, stodgy or doughy results can discourage us from future experimentation, and I have come around to thinking that my time is way to precious to waste on anything that is less than extremely edible.

I used to try to get by on a shoestring when it came to kitchen equipment, but over the last few years I have slowly accumulated a decent collection of baking paraphernalia. My most recent acquisition is a set of digital scales so I can bake another FG Roberts free standing Vienna loaf (necessary because the dry mix needs to be measured out by weight). Not the cheapest piece of kit i’ll admit, but I found one at a fairly bargain price and I hope it will see me through for many years.

So here are my favourite kitchen contraptions:

-Dough hooks (came with my hand mix)
-A good deep bread tin
-Bread cooling rack
-Bread slicing rig (see video)
-Electric knife
-Silicon muffin tray
-Digital scales and measuring jug/spoons
-Silicon rolling pin
-Oven timer (would be lost without it)

LH

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