Great Reviews for Gluten Free Goodies

It’s great, I’m getting wonderful comments about my book. It is solving a dilemma for some mom’s of Celiac kids.

One mom wrote me, “ You know, a few months ago we baked something and my celiac daughter, ___ noticed the smell. She had never noticed before. She asked about it and was so upset when told it wasn't gluten-free. It broke my heart. Ever since then, it's a rule around here that we have to bake only gluten-free. (My other daughter likes to bake too.) I wasn't sure how to handle the holiday baking - you have really come to our rescue! I'll try to send pictures of the baking results.”

Thank you J. for sharing your comments. I put a picture in to show you some I made awhile ago. Cutting out cookies at Christmas is still one of my fondest memories with grandma Burdie, in NC. The Sugar Cookie recipe was inspired by what she called, Vanilla Wafers or Tea Cakes.

The Braided Artisan Bread recipe I developed out of a necessity when we planned to take the boys camping and I needed something easy to take with me, that I would still be able to make fresh after two weeks in the woods.

I make it all the time at home now, because it is make ahead easy. I also like playing with and kneading the dough, sort of therapeutic. I mix it dry ahead, store and then just add the eggs and water to activate. I could probably use egg substitute if I needed to.

One day I quickly activated a batch between photo shoots. I usually let it rise 2 hours before baking, so when I got an unexpected call that I had to go back to the shoot early, I wondered what I was going to do to save it. The dough starts to taste too yeasty to me, if it rises longer than that, at room temperature, so -I just stuck it in the fridge and it was still great next morning. I just lifted it out of the fridge, kneaded a little more of my rice flour mix into it, shaped it and popped it into the oven, cold, turned it on to 350F and 40 minutes later, that divine smell of freshly baked bread!

Lots of times now I bake it the night before and make the sandwiches to take along the next morning. A couple of mornings ago, my son surprised us with the best French toast, made from some slices of the Braided Artisan Bread I’d baked the day before.

New: November 2009 -You can now buy this bread mix and others at www.AstoriaMills.com