Gluten free desserts are plentiful. Some desserts, such as fruit, are naturally gluten free. Some are easy and simple to make – like Angel Delight. Other gluten free desserts are more complicated, like pies, cakes, trifles etc. But, just because you’re on a gluten-free diet, doesn’t mean you need to give up desserts, or spend hours in the kitchen making them!
Gluten is a protein present in many cereals, specifically in wheat, barley, oats and rye. I’ve outlined some practical tips and ideas for gluten free desserts – for yourself, for packed lunches, picnics and entertaining:
- Pancakes made with coconut milk and rice flour – accompanied by ice-cream, Nutella, or anything else you fancy!
- Rice-cakes with peanut butter
- Amaretti biscuits
- Angel Delight – a fast easy dessert which you can have in the cupboard. An instant dessert that can impress.
- Make waffles with a batter made with buckwheat flour and rice flour – select your favorite topping!
- Then there’s always fresh fruit – make it more appetizing by carving it into shapes, or cut into pieces and make a fruit salad – this could be accompanied by vanilla ice-cream or crème fraiche!
- Coconut macaroons are gluten-free. or make your own.
- Adapt your favorite trifle recipe by using some gluten free Madeira cake, or gluten-free biscuits and use all the other ingredients as they are to make a wonderful trifle. Once the cake/biscuit has been soaked in the brandy no one will know it’s a gluten free dessert!
- Bananas and custard. Custard is the easiest gluten-free dessert – either make your own, or by the instant version.
- Fill a meringue basket with fresh raspberries or strawberries and top with a spoonful of greek-style yogurt.
- Pan-fry canned or fresh pineapples slices with some butter and brown sugar and serve with ice cream…
- Fill the center of cored baking apples with mixed dried fruit, some butter and brown sugar. Microwave or bake till tender and serve with custard or ice cream.
- Make fruit kebabs and dip into chocolate sauce!
- Thick fruit milk shakes or smoothies
- Chocolate rice crispy or cornflakes cakes
- Home-made chocolate mousse.
- Roulades – chocolate or strawberry.
I hope the above provides you with inspiration for gluten free desserts, to be enjoyed by coeliacs and non-coeliacs alike!
The first surprise here is will the Gluten Free Chocolate cookies last until tomorrow, perhaps not. These yummy cookies will come straight from the kitchen with a soft runny centre if you eat them warm or, even better, a thick chocolate middle if you can wait long enough for them to cool and the children will leave them alone!
For an alternative if the chocolate is too much for all the family, try substituting milk or white chocolate in place of the plain chocolate or replace 25g (1oz) of the Gluten-Free Mix with 25g (1oz) cocoa to make double chocolate cookies!
The quoted measures below makes enough for 12 – 14 people, or one hungry child. It is not a hard recipe and from start to finish it should take you 15 minutes to prepare and then a cooking period of up to 15 minutes. Ample time to start again should anything go wrong.
The full ingredients for theis Gluten Free Chocolate Surprise are
- 250g (10oz) Gluten Free Cake Mix
- 12-14 squares plain chocolate
- 125g (5oz) caster sugar
- 1 medium egg yolk
- 125g (5oz) butter
To whip up this Gluten Free Chocolate culinary delight you should pre heat your oven to a temperature of 190ºC/375ºF/Gas Mark 5 and then follow the outline below
- Cream together the butter and the sugar and beat in the egg yolk ensuring that everything is well mixed.
- Once done carefully fold in the Gluten-Free Mix . Typically the mixture will be crumbly at this stage but that is no problem.
- Mix together to form a dough and knead thish for two to three of minutes until it is smooth on a surface lightly dusted with Mix.
- Gently Roll out the dough and cut out 12 circles with a cookie cutter and place these on a baking tray ready to go into the oven.
- Carefully insert a square of chocolate into the middle of each circular shape.
- Cut out another 12 rounds with the cookie cutter and use these to cover the chocolate, pressing the edges down lightly to seal it in.
- Bake all these in your pre-heated oven for 12-15 minutes until the dough is golden.
- Allow the cookies to cool slightly before transferring to a cooling rac, remember they are full of liquid chocolate.
- Sprinkle with icing sugar to serve
Then stand back before you get bowled over in the rush and covered in Gluten Free Chocolate.
If you are one of the many people in the world who like a drink with their meal or even go out at night for a drink and then finding gluten-free beer is very important for those with coeliac condition. There is no room for doubt over the gluten content, too much beer has an effect on most people producing headaches and upset stomachs and celiacs do not want to compound this by ingesting large amounts of gluten.
Although there are 1 in 500 people who are gluten intolerant there are few beers commercially available which are gluten-free. Breweries are commercial companies, targeting large market segments and catering for what they perceive as a small percentage of the population is not in their marketing plans. Having said this there is a growing awareness of the need for gluten-free beer and in 2006 in the UK CAMERA, the campaign for real ale, held its first international gluten-free beer Festival.
Many beer aficionados claim that beer can only be made with specific grains and unfortunately all of these contain gluten. Perhaps their expertise and advice is best placed to one side as we live in the real world and if you want a beer then you want a beer and shouldn’t let some pompous attitude stand in your way. This attitude can also cause problems as certain beers are claimed to be gluten-free because they have been filtered several times. Whilst filtration will remove many of the components which contain gluten this is not a 100% purification process and tiny amounts of gluten will remain to which you could be sensitive. The only solution is to take a beer which is guaranteed to be 100% gluten free.
Some people have overcome the problem by brewing their own gluten free beer. An important part of this process is to find gluten-free grains which are produced in a form for home brewing, this means that they are malted. This can be a problem as many grains are sold in the bird seed form which contain chemicals, and you need to contain a pure form, and information on malting grain is not commonly available.
Several smaller breweries have started to produce gluten-free beers, Green’s Discovery, Ramapo Valley Brewery, Bard’s Tale Beer, Fine Ale Club New France Beers, O’Brien Brewing, Hambleton Ales and in Italy Bi-Aglut to name some examples. Hopefully this represents really the beginning of a much larger number of breweries understanding the commercial opportunity in catering for people who need to maintain a gluten free diet.
Scoop – an internal memo from a chef to the kitchen staff about the gluten content of their meals.
Fried foods: i have been informed that some celiacs may be sensitive to foods that have been fried in the same deep fat that floured and breaded foods have been fried in. Many of our items are breaded using flour. For example, if french fries are cooked in the same shortening as breaded chicken, it is possible that minute particles of wheat flour may still be suspended in the oil and be deposited on the french fries. Unfortunately, this restaurant does not have a separate fryer for french fries. We use the same fryer for breaded foods. Therefore, we do not recommend eating fried items at this café.
Griddled foods food that is sauteed on the griddle (like breakfast potatoes) may pick up tiny grains of flour from pancakes that have been cooked on the same griddle. Please check with your doctor on this, as sensitivity varies from person to person. We can have griddled foods prepared singularly in a saute pan and get the same relative cooking effect. Please ask if concerned about crossover contamination.
Appetizers:
Fresh vegetable quesadillas – order them made with corn tortillas, without chipotle sauce. The fresh salsa is ok.
Salads:
A note on dressings: our mayonnaise contains “vinegar” as an ingredient but does not specify what type of vinegar it’s distilled from. Also, we use ketchup in some salad dressings (heinz and hunt’s) and mustard (french’s and grey poupon) which both contain “vinegar” on their labels, without further Specifying.
Lemon wedges and bottles of oil & vinegar are available, or you may bring your own dressing. This restaurant nonfat sweet & sour french dressing will be ok, as long as you can eat ketchup. Our other dressings may contain grain vinegar, soy sauce, worcestershire sauce and/or caramel coloring. Ranch dressing is very bad, it has hvp and yeast extract, so avoid this.
Cobb salad – ok (see note on bacon, in breakfast section) order without dressing
Zesty tostada chicken salad – ok, order without ranch dressing and without chipoltle sauce.
Chicken and fruit – ok, request broiled chicken
Salads are accompanied by a muffin or bread. You can order corn tortillas instead.