gluten-free eats

The Elements of Baking: Making any recipe gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free or vegan, by Katarina Cermelj:

A beautiful cookbook and an excellent reference for free-from baking. It contains a framework for adapting recipes to be gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, vegan, or gluten-free vegan, and explains how to mix and match if you follow more than one of these diets. It has case studies that demonstrate how Kat came up with these rules—and they are rules rather than vibes—as well as dozens of individual recipes that fit each category.

I was a bit skeptical at first because I wasn't sure who this book was for with this wildly variable free-from approach, but I know now, it's for me, and maybe for you if you love baking and are gluten-free plus something-else-free or have friends and family with multiple or overlapping sensitivities, as I think we're likely to get the most out of it. For everyone else, I recommend checking it out of the library first. (I did check it out of the library because that's always my first stop, but I just ordered my own copy from bookshop.org to celebrate Independent Bookstore Day.)

I'm eager to try out Kat's system for adapting gluten-free recipes to be dairy-free, not just the ones in this book, but also those in her first book Baked to Perfection, which is all gluten-free, but only incidentally dairy-free. I also have the option of taking the dairy-free recipes in this book and making them gluten free, and, if I really want to get into it, I can even try the gluten-free vegan recipes because I trust Kat and if anyone can take the eggs and dairy out of a gluten-free recipe and still have it work, she can. Except for the vegan cheesecakes (yes, plural), because, I'm sorry, but at some point it stops being a cheesecake, and I think it's once you've removed the eggs and the cheese.

I want to call this impeccable, and it nearly is, expertly presented and arranged, with lots of flowcharts and gorgeous color photographs, but I don't think she spends enough time considering what it's like to have multiple food sensitivities. For instance, she almost exclusively uses dairy-free products to replace dairy products, and dairy-free products often contain ingredients people with multiple sensitivities need to avoid, such as soy or tree nuts, so they're not a universal solution. Instead, I would have liked it if she considered neutral oils as a substitute for melted butter, or shortening in place of solid butter. There is some of that, but I think she could have gone further. There's no reason why you can't use oil in a brownie instead of butter. I do it all the time, but she never mentions the possibility. But that's a me problem. I recognize that a cookbook can't be all things to all people. Still, it's a small disappointment in an otherwise fantastic book. I've made four recipes from it so far and will keep going until I run out.

Highly recommended for those of us who can't buy anything at the grocery store without thoroughly examining the ingredients, and who sadly scroll away from recipes when they include a dealbreaker. The only thing Kat's system won't work on is gluten-free breads—because gluten-free breads be crazy—but she does include recipes for several gluten-free breads, including a base recipe for a simple white bread and one for an enriched brioche. Both can be adapted into more complicated bakes if you're feeing adventurous. Or you can peruse her gluten-free bread category on her blog, which I also highly recommend. Her gluten-free breads are the best I've ever made.

If you have any questions about the cookbook, recipes, or ingredients, just ask!

I've made Loopy Whisk's focaccia twice now and it has become my go-to focaccia bread. It has a crisp crust on all sides and a tender and chewy middle with an open crumb. I shove some sliced Kalamata and Castelvetrano olives in the top and they stay soft and don't dry out or burn in the oven and give the bread a nice salty/briny/greasy element.

I make it exactly as written and it looks just like the pictures. It instantly became my preferred method to make focaccia. Before I was routinely making Bakerita's focaccia bread in an 9 x 9 inch metal pan, and it was very good, but difficult to get out and the bottom never got crispy. Though it always crisped up nicely when rewarmed in the oven, so that's 100% down to the cooking method. There's nothing stopping me from making that recipe in a sheet pan except that it has rice flour in it, and I'm trying to cut back on my rice intake. The other focaccia bread that I've shared here before is Snixy Kitchen's focaccia, which did get crispy all the way around when I cooked in a 8 x 8 glass pan as it practically boiled in the oil, but it has to rise twice, and that really drags out the process.

Loopy Whisk's focaccia is rice-free and only rises once, in the pan. I put it in a quarter sheet pan lined with parchment paper, as recommended. I put that sheet pan on top of a heavy duty sheet pan that preheats along with the oven, and this helps give the bottom crust some extra heat and intensify the crunch. The dough expands to fill the sheet pan as it rises, then it shrinks away from the sides as it cooks, giving it a nice crust along the edge (unlike when made in a cake pan) and it literally slides right out of the pan.

All three of these focaccia breads taste great and, thanks to the psyllium husk, are very satisfying to chew. They're also easier to make than a loaf of bread, so if you've never made gluten-free bread before, but want to give it a try, this is a nice, low-stakes place to start. It helps a lot to have a stand mixer, and I do, but if you've got the verve, you can mix the dough by hand.

All three of these breads freeze well, too. I just wrap them in foil and stick them in a ziplock bag. Then when I want bread for dinner, I take out a portion and let it defrost on the counter before popping it in the oven to warm up. To reinvigorate the crisp of the crust, unwrap it first so it gets nice and toasty.

Birthday Cake Sandwich Cookies: These taste just like a Golden Oreo. Sandwiched between two crisp vanilla cookies, the creme has "fun, colorful sprinkles" to make them birthday cake flavor, but the creme isn't thick enough to see them from the side unless you pry the cookies apart, so that's not really a big selling point. They're very good, though, and like the Goodie Girl S'mores cookies don't taste gluten-free at all. Like the S'mores, a box of these also has 24 cookies in one sleeve, and they also got stale before I finished them, but I'll keep buying them all the same.

Current Ingredients: cane sugar, gluten free whole grain oat flour, palm oil, rice flour, high oleic sunflower oil (or canola oil), invert sugar. Contains less than 2% of each of the following: soy lecithin, corn starch, inulin, baking soda, xanthan gum, salt, natural flavors, edible glitter (gum arabic, spirulina extract, red cabbage extract, turmeric extract, radish extract, beet juice concentrate, vegetable juice), ammonium bicarbonate.

Fudge Striped Crunchy Oat Flour Cookies: Well, you know exactly what these are going to be just from the name, but I wanted them to be like the Keebler fudge stripe cookies of my youth and they were not. The oat cookie—the ad copy calls it a "shortbread" which it is not—is indeed crisp and has the occasional crunch of a sugar crystal for added interest, but, and I know it's unsporting to say this about a dessert, they're a little too sweet for me. The chocolate is perfectly fine, but unremarkable. I mean they're fine! But just fine. They're also much thinner than the Fudge Stripe cookies I remember and feel somewhat insubstantial.

Comes in a single sleeve of 24 cookies. Certified GF and kosher.

Current Ingredients: gluten free whole grain oat flour, confectionery coating (sugar, vegetable oil [palm kernel and/or palm], cocoa powder processed with alkali, buttermilk, soy lecithin, natural flavors), cane sugar, palm oil, brown cane sugar. Contains 2% or less of: invert sugar, sodium bicarbonate, natural flavor, soy lecithin, ammonium bicarbonate.

So Delicious Cookie Dough: The coconutmilk ice cream is smooth and creamy and has a strong taste of coconut. The lumps of cookie dough are tasty and enjoyably gritty, like you're actually eating cookie dough, and they have a firm and distinct texture but are easy to bite into when frozen. It's probably quite similar to actual cookie dough, though I can't say for sure because I've never been one to eat raw cookie dough. The chocolate flecks are mostly on the outside in the ice cream, though the ingredients indicate they're inside the cookie dough as well, and it's their usual bittersweet chocolate with nice flavor and no wax or grease to it. This is very good, as long as you like the taste of coconut. Personally, I found it overpowering.

Current Ingredients: Organic Coconutmilk (Filtered Water, Organic Coconut), Organic Cane Sugar, Cookie Dough (Rice Flour, Brown Sugar, Water, Vegetable Oil [Palm And Canola], Dark Chocolate Chips [Cane Sugar, Chocolate Liquor, Cocoa Butter, Vanilla Extract], Guar Gum, Natural Flavor, Sea Salt, Baking Soda), Organic Coconut Oil, Chocolate Chips (Cane Sugar, Organic Coconut Oil, Cocoa, Chocolate Liquor, Natural Vanilla Flavor), Organic Tapioca Syrup, Pea Protein, Locust Bean Gum, Guar Gum, Natural Flavor, Annatto Extract (Color).

Chocolate Vanilla Creme Cookies is a really awkward and trademark-free way to say "like an Oreo" while also leaving out the "sandwich" part: Two extremely crisp chocolate cookies with a bit of vanilla creme squished between them until it oozes out the cookie holes on the top and bottom. The chocolate cookies are on point, if like weirdly crispy, but the vanilla creme is unexpectedly soft—not in a bad way—but it also has a very distinct flavor I can only describe as "Easter candy question mark." Does it taste like a Peep? Or a jelly bean somehow? It's fine! It probably just tastes like marshmallow, which sets these apart from what I remember of Oreos, but, depending on who you are, that might be a selling point.

20 cookies, all in a single sleeve, but they didn't get stale while I was eating them over the course of two weeks. I'd buy these again.

Certified GF.

Current Ingredients: Powdered Sugar (Sugar, Corn Starch), Sugar, Palm Oil, Tapioca Starch, Rice Flour, Cocoa (Processed With Alkali), Tapioca Syrup; Less than 2% of: Cassava Flour, Cocoa Powder, Water, Potato Flour, Soy Lecithin, Salt, Xanthan Gum, Baking Soda, Natural Flavor.

Coco Whip Original: This has the exact vibes of Cool Whip, only dairy-free (and soy-free!):

• silky
• sweet
• found in the freezer case
• doesn't deflate, run, or separate

It has a slight taste of coconut, but it's not overwhelming. I put it on some strawberries and a slice of orange almond loaf and it was a perfectly appropriate topping for a strawberry shortcake, even with the hint of coconut, but it'd also be great in a tropical desert like a banana cream pie, where you can lean into the coconut flavor.

I keep this in the freezer, and it defrosts pretty quickly if you leave it out on the counter. After an hour it softens enough to spoon around the edges of the carton, or you can just dig into it frozen where it'll have the texture of ice cream. You can then put it in the fridge or refreeze it, which makes this a very tasty and convenient topping. I'm looking forward to trying it on top of some gingerbread.

Also comes in a "Light" version with half the fat.

Certified GF & vegan.

Current Ingredients: Filtered Water, Organic Coconut Oil, Organic Tapioca Syrup, Organic Cane Sugar, Pea Protein, Guar Gum, Sunflower Lecithin, Xanthan Gum, Natural Flavor.

Goodie Girl Magical Animal Crackers: I think we can all agree, the most important thing about animal crackers is what kind of animals we'll be eating. "Magical" ones according to the box. This includes:

• Unicorn
  • on a scooter
  • playing a guitar
  • dabbing
• Mermaid (isn't this at least partly cannibalism??)
  • mermaid hugging/subduing a fish (cannibalism all the way down)
• Dragon
• Narwhal (I'm sorry, but these are real animals?)

Despite its non-magical nature, the narwhal was my favorite because it was a nice shape and noticeably thicker than the other cookies, more like what I expect from an animal cracker. The guitar-playing unicorn was particularly thin as well as being a weird narrow rectangle because the unicorn was at open mic night, I guess, and standing upright on its hind legs. It just raises a lot of questions is all. Anyway. How do they taste? The oat flavor is quite pronounced, which I normally don't mind, but found distracting here, and I missed the traditional animal cracker flavor of lemon or vanilla. So they're not my platonic ideal of an animal cracker, but once I managed my expectations, they were good enough.

Current Ingredients: gluten free whole grain oat flour, cane sugar, palm oil, rice flour, invert sugar. Contains 2% or less of: natural flavors, sodium bicarbonate, soy lecithin, inulin, salt, xanthan gum.