Going Gluten Free

I never did really catch up on posting on here, but I have added a few recipes to the website as I've made them.

Something terrible happened when I tried to lose some baby weight a few months back...I discovered I was wheat/gluten intolerant. As someone who loves all things carby and made of wheat this was a bit heartbreaking. Especially after I tried eating some GF bread.

Now I've had a bit of time to get used to it it's not so bad, I have lost over stone just from cutting it out and not really any other effort which is great, and I feel a lot better generally. Turns out it was causing all the lower back ache, and joint ache I was getting, not to mention the panic attacks (seriously - I NEVER would have associated them with eating wheat, but there is a definite correlation), my eczema also weirdly got loads better - again something I wouldnt have associated with it. So it's a good thing.
Just sometimes I really want fluffy bread or a doughnut.

I did get a blood test for coeliacs, which came back negative, so I'm lucky in the sense that if I do break and scoff a doughnut, I'm not actually damaging myself (but I WILL regret it for about 3/4 days afterwards with a bad stomach, and some emotional freaking out).

So anyway I've been learning a lot the last few months and I thought I'd pick up this blog again and share. Going GF is a bit of a nightmare and can be a bit confusing so I think it's helpful to read other people's tips.

I live in the UK and surprisingly I've found that Asda seem to have the best GF own brand alternative foods so far. Which was a massive surprise to me. Their bread is pretty decent (and handily split into 2 vacuum packed halves) and their pasta actually tastes like pasta and doesnt dissolve in water (I'm looking at you Heinz pasta).
Something I am also beginning to learn is not to trust the cooking instructions on the packets, I get the feeling they often just copy it from the 'real' packaging which means it doesnt often work that well. Take the pasta for instance - cook it as per instructions and it turns into a mass of chewy half cooked stuck together horror.

Soak it for say 30mins before hand in cold water, make sure you add it to a pan of already bubbling boiling hot water (with a touch of olive oil in the water to make sure the bubbling doesn't get out of hand). et voila. Perfect pasta. Which is so good you can actually eat it cold (seriously).  The science is something to do with the extra starch I think.

I had to spend a fair chunk of time searching on the internet to find that bit of advice which is daft because if they actually put it on the packages surely more people would buy it as they wouldn't be put off by the frankly inedible pasta they get otherwise. It was only because I was desperate that I kept looking for another way.

I tried making bread btw - it was a disaster. But I was never any good at bread WITH gluten in so I wasn't particular surprised. I will keep trying though - I did manage to go from inedible scone, to inedible crumpet. So there was some progress just not a lot but I promise I will keep at it.

The hardest thing about gluten free baking, is learning to bake all over again, the cooking times are different because there is more liquid, the consistency to eyeball a mix is different (again because of the liquid). There is so much science involved into how gluten works in baked good that getting your head around understanding that to be able to change your own recipes is a head ache.

I do feel like I'm getting somewhere though.

Fortunately I've been doing normal GF cakes for quite a while for other people with success with the addition on some extra liquid in the batter and some xanthan gum so it's not all failure.

I've just watched a craftsy class on some gluten free baking and it's confirmed some thought's I had already been arriving (increasing protein) at so hopefully soon I'll get some experiments done and we'll see if we can get somewhere with that.