The night before gluten-free Christmas is near.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,Rang the noise of the mixer, the cause of my rouse;
The only creature stirring, it seems, is my spouse.
The recipe notes, jotted down with great care,
The next winning formula - something with flare?
Could it be yet another one of those breads,
An awesome addition to holiday spreads?
Will this new recipe be considered "a wrap",
or may it turn out that something else is on tap.

Baking gluten-free foods, a serious matter,
especially great ones, worthy of some chatter.
Burn through ingredients and piles of cash,
Making recipes for the holiday bash.

The gluten-eaters among us just won't know,
The "fun" it has been creating this new dough.
Through trial and error, what should appear,
pumpernickel bread with spinach dip near.

Although a bit challenging, with the right trick,
This new GF bread is ready for St. Nick.
Anyone else that can not eat wheat grain,
is sure to enjoy this one all the same.

No barley, no gluten, no wheat in our mixin',
This recipe is done - no need for more fixin'!
Once again my wife has heeded the baking call,
When it comes to glutenfree, she's in for the long haul.

More recipes are coming in 2007,
Some bound to make you think you've gone to heaven. :)

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the gluten-free recipes published over on our book site's recipe page. It is time for me to take a break from blogging for a few days, and focus a bit more on some things I need to wrap up before the holidays. (quite literally in some cases.) I'll be back to posting on the blog before I know it, since time flies, especially around this time of year.

I hope everyone has a wonderfully enjoyable Christmas and holiday season!

No Gluten or Dairy Pumpernickel Bread Recipe

Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Pumpernickel Bread

Pumpernickel Bread: Full of Flavor and Gluten-Free with this Recipe

The Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Pumpernickel Bread Recipe is now available at our Glutenfree recipe library! I had promised this recipe a few days ago, and it seemed I had a few people getting a bit anxious for it, so there is the link to it. I described this recipe in my previous post where I showed it in use as a gluten-free pumpernickel sandwich bread. It works great for this, since it has a nice hearty crust and a soft spongy center, all infused with plenty of pumpernickel bread flavor.

Complementary Dill / Spinach Dip Recipe

In addition, I posted a recipe for a simple and versatile dill and/or spinach dip recipe. I don't know about you, but spinach-dip served with cubed pumpernickel has been rather popular at parties - both around the holidays and any other time of the year. Many people carve the center out of the loaf of pumpernickel bread, and fill the bread with the dip... using the carved out portion to form the cubes of bread for dipping. This glutenfree pumpernickel will work fine for that, since it is made in a round pyrex 2-liter dish, and achieves a height of about 4 inches when baked. So, plenty of volume for holding dip. Personally, I prefer keeping the dip in a separate bowl so as not to cause the remaining pumpernickle loaf (the part of the loaf you are using for a "bowl") to become soggy. This goes for bread with or without gluten. Why waste any great GF bread to sogginess?

Here's a picture of the dip with some cubed-pumpernickel bread - all glutenfree of course.

GF Pumpernickel Bread with Dill Dip

Continue to read this Gluten-Free Blog for all sorts of gluten-free recipes, product-reviews, and related information. In addition, visit my Gluten-Free Recipes Site where many of the recipes I have featured on this blog are available.

The Glutens have arrived! Beware!

Gluten-Monster, or gooey Gluten-Blob, or whatever

I was playing around with this idea of a "Glutens" cartoon of sorts, and I missed my first target of Halloween for an initial prototype of what one of the "Glutens" looks like, but here is the first incarnation just in time for Christmas.

My daughter sketched up the gooey little elastic gluten-ball "monster" that will hereafter serve as the basis for my "Glutens". After I had a bit of fun with the sketch in Photoshop, the Gluten monster lives in full-color. The above picture is what we envision those pesky and evil little glutens looking like as they prepare to do their dirty work on our intestines. Certainly these glutens have evil intent when it comes to our bodies!  This one has even gone as far as to appear incognito with a Santa hat to throw us off his scent.

So, what do you think? Is this what one of those "Glutens" would look like? They are always lurking in the shadows and preparing to mess with us, and I figure this one in particular is going to be out there trying to make Christmas less than optimal by tainting our holiday food if we are not careful. So, watch out for the Glutens that would steal your Christmas — I know they are out there!

Continue to read this Gluten-Free Blog for all sorts of gluten-free recipes, product-reviews, and related information. In addition, visit my Gluten-Free Recipes Site where many of the recipes I have featured on this blog are available.

Gluten Free Perfect Pumpernickel Bread

Laura's Gluten-Free & Dairy-Free Pumpernickel Bread Recipe : Perfection!

Incredible Gluten-Free Pumpernickel Break Recipe

My wife has worked tirelessly on perfecting a GF pumpernickel bread (dairy-free too!) over the past few weeks, and she has finally achieved her goal! I just had to take a picture of my lunch today, which is a tuna salad sandwich on this new glutenfree pumpernickel bread she just finished baking earlier today. Here's a direct link to this wonderful Dairy-Free and Gluten-Free Pumpernickel Bread Recipe.

The bread is wonderful. A nice hearty crust, and a soft spongy center! What more could anyone ask for in a pumpernickel? Oh, yeah... taste... it tastes great too! I think it is very much like a real pumpernickel. In addition to the sandwich, we tried it with a gluten-free dill-dip / spinach-dip (recipe here) that was being made as I type this. Once again it is time to start planning how to burn off these extra calories! But, I much prefer having this "problem" of calorie expenditure over the problem of not being able to find good food to eat as a Celiac person.

With a fair number of breads in our repertoire now, there really isn't too awful much I find "missing" from my daily eating habits when compared to the pre-gluten-free days. I am so glad to have a wife that is quite gifted with baking gluten free recipes, and most food in general. And, if something gives her a rough time, she takes it as a challenge to figure it out and perfect it. This recipe and a couple others now join our online GF recipes collection (see links below).

I noticed Lynn Barry just finished a version of pumpernickel recently too! I guess it is the perfect season for pumpernickel! Can't wait to serve it at a Christmas party or dinner.

Continue to read this Gluten-Free Blog for all sorts of gluten-free recipes, product-reviews, and related information. In addition, visit my Gluten-Free Recipes Site where many of the recipes I have featured on this blog are available.

GlutenFree Sesame Cookie Recipe

Gluten-Free Sesame Cookies : Yum!

Sesame is the star of these Gluten-Free Cookies

This one is definitely a winner - a delicious gluten-free sesame cookie recipe! I think I put on a pound today as I ate about a dozen of them! That's not likely to be a pound of muscle either, though I did make sure to go outside afterwards and walk a mile and jog another mile. Still, I doubt that will offset the calories in these gluten-free temptations of the day, but better than nothing.

I have to give credit to my daughter for this recipe. She just wrapped up another semester at college and is done with her GRE's, so she finally has had a bit of extra time between grad-school applications to get back into the gluten free baking spirit! This recipe took her a couple tries, but she definitely prevailed with a tasty cookie that has a wonderful texture.

This GF cookie has sesame and coconut inside and out, with sesame tahini in there too! So, plenty of flavor, and plenty of calories to boot I'd guess. But, it is a cookie and as such calories just have to take back seat to wonderful taste! Now if this recipe would have come along a few months back, I'd surely have considered putting into our new gluten-free desserts cookbook, but this recipe was just a bit late arriving on the scene.

I have another recipe to post soon, also from my daughter: a gluten free tea-leaf and honey cookie.  That one reminds me of a sugar cookie, but not. It worked well for holiday cut-out cookies for Christmas, and was delightfully crisp and crunchy with accents of honey and tea. Different, and good. It'll be coming soon.

Continue to read this Gluten-Free Blog for all sorts of gluten-free recipes, product-reviews, and related information. In addition, visit my Gluten-Free Recipes Site where many of the recipes I have featured on this blog are available.

Dairy-Free Gluten-Free Pumpkin Cake Recipe - Bundt

Dairy-Free Gluten-Free Pumpkin Cake, Bundt Pan style

Gluten-Free Bundt Cake Recipe : Pumpkin and Spices

Here is another gluten-free recipe, a lovely GlutenFree Pumpkin Bundt Cake Recipe which I just uploaded to our free recipes library for anyone that is looking for a holiday pumpkin treat that is a bit different than a traditional pumpkin pie.  Some other pumpkin-theme blogs also recently included a spectacular Gluten-Free Pumpkin-Roll recipe my wife created for the holidays.

This recipe is easy to make, and it has much of that pumpkin-pie type flavor but in the form of a cake. All sorts of flavor comes together in here: clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger - and even a bit of cocoa. This recipe is also dairy-free, in our push to accommodate those of you who can not tolerate milk products very well.

We made this recipe for Thanksgiving dinner, but it should be equally welcome around the Christmas holiday table - whether for dinner or at a party. We have tried it both with and without added Xanthan gums, and it works fine either way (the Xanthan gum does give it a bit better bounce, and makes it less likely to crumble), so take your pick whether to include that in your gluten free recipe or not.

Now, if I can only remain this productive in my blog postings for the rest of the week! I am finally catching up on posting a few of those outstanding recipes. Some of the others recent recipes include a new type of GF and dairy-free/casein-free muffin my wife came up with, some cranberry pumpkin muffins, and there is also a chocolate angel-food cake to post eventually.  I did get around to posting a gluten-free chocolate-chip angel-food cake (variation to one in our book), a GF pumpernickel bread, and a few others. I have quite a few other things I want to still get done this week though, so time will tell whether they are posted sooner rather than later on this blog.

Continue to read this Gluten-Free Blog for all sorts of gluten-free recipes, product-reviews, and related information. In addition, visit my Gluten-Free Recipes Site where many of the recipes I have featured on this blog are available.

Gluten-Free Panettone Bread Recipe

Gluten-Free Panettone Bread Recipe, baked, and sliced

Holiday Sweet Bread with Citrus: Gluten-Free Panettone

My daughter recently created a rather tasty gluten-free Christmas Holiday bread in the style of traditional panettone bread. It features orange/citrus flavors in a sweeter dough that has dried fruit and nuts in it. Here is a link to the gluten-free panettone bread recipe (as pictured above).

I promised this recipe to my blog readers a while back, and finally the gluten free recipe is online and ready for others to try. Baking a panettone, in the traditional full-cylindrical form would probably be a bit rough for a variety of reasons: the first being the tall cylindrical shape, which I doubt many would have a specialized panetone pan for. I have wondered if it could be baked in a coffee-can or a couple smaller cans, though I do not know if it would come out of the can easy when done, or if it would rise enough to fill the entire height like a gluten-containing one would probably have an easier time of.

Regardless, this version of a panettone is done glutenfree (sorry, not completely dairy-free this times), and is baked in a standard springform pan. The bread has a nice mellow flavor, with a touch of sweetness, and accents of orange. Perfect for the Christmas holiday. If anyone tries it, please let me know your thoughts. And, as always, if you have variations or improvements, feel free to share them.

Continue to read this Gluten-Free Blog for all sorts of gluten-free recipes, product-reviews, and related information. In addition, visit my Gluten-Free Recipes Site where many of the recipes I have featured on this blog are available.

Dairy-Free Focaccia Bread & Crouton Recipe

Gluten-Free / Dairy-Free Focaccia Bread Croutons

Gluten-Free Focaccia Bread / Croutons Recipe 

I had time to post the Gluten-Free and Dairy Free Focaccia Bread and Croutons Recipe today that I promised in my last blog. It features plenty of pictures to go with the various steps too, like these:

The Fresh Gluten-Free Bread Dough Rising, with Caramelized Onions on Top

Beautifully Caramelized Onions used on top of the bread dough

The picture above shows those wonderfully tasty caramelized red onions that are both in the dough and on top of the bread. The onions combine with garlic, pepper, rosemary, and more to create a very flavorful bread and crouton. It's a bit of a specialty bread, and I have not had focaccia in a long time (since going GF), so we may still end up tweaking the recipe a bit over time. But, I think it is plenty good enough for public release — readers, you tell me what you think after trying it.

Hope everyone enjoys the recipe!

I have been busy reformatting quite a few other gluten-free recipes from Word into an HTML format for upload to my gluten-free recipes-library, so stay tuned as more GF creations are coming and will be online soon.

Continue to read this Gluten-Free Blog for all sorts of gluten-free recipes, product-reviews, and related information. In addition, visit my Gluten-Free Recipes Site where many of the recipes I have featured on this blog are available.

Gluten Free and Dairy-Free Focaccia Bread Croutons

Specialty Gluten-Free / Dairy-Free Croutons by Laura

More GF Recipes from Laura

My wife has once again outdone herself!

Today's undertaking was this GlutenFree and Dairy-Free Focaccia Bread recipe, and subsequently some Croutons (shown above) made from that bread. The results, in my opinion, are remarkable. These are some darn fine croutons! Loaded with flavor to say the least... red onions, and all sorts of herbs. Fantastic!

The Focaccia bread itself was plenty fine too. It has been a LONG time since I had focaccia bread, and that is a bit of a problem for me since my memories of it are a bit faded. I think what she has created is rather like the real deal, and I await feedback from others once they try the recipe. I was mixing up bruchetta and focaccia in my mind at first, which goes to tell you how long it has been.

Needless to say, there have not been any memorable gluten-free focacia breads in my diet since going gluten free — until now. That's one thing about Celiac Disease you have to watch out for... you avoid so much of what you used to eat, you start forgetting what the "real" thing tasted like. That is also why we enlist the help of our friends and neighbors (not gluten-free persons) in taste-testing, just to make sure we have a valid test-group.

This one is a winner in my opinion!

Continue to read this Gluten-Free Blog for all sorts of gluten-free recipes, product-reviews, and related information. In addition, visit my Gluten-Free Recipes Site where many of the recipes I have featured on this blog are available.

Almond Paste in Baking GlutenFree Recipes

Solo Foods Gluten-Free Pure Almond Paste

I have had a few people ask me about Almond Paste as an ingredient in various Gluten-Free recipes. We use it in a fair number of recipes, as it adds a nice flavor to certain desserts and breads. To being with, Almond Paste is not to be confused with Almond Butter. Almond Paste is a combination of Almonds, Sugar, and water basically — it is a very thick paste. We use a canned variety of pure Almond Paste from a company called Solo for our GF recipe baking.

Solo Foods offers this nice gluten-free "pure Almond Paste" product (which has been GF for quite some time now, and although their company produces other products that are not GF, they have not had any issues with cross-contamination). I also inquired about the ability to purchase direct from them, which you can since they are one of the few manufacturers that will sell directly to the consumer as a benefit to persons that can not locate the product close to them. Moreover, if you call their customer service number (800-328-7656) you can order a 6-pack of 8-ounce cans on the phone with your Visa, and with shipping included in the price, it is only $22.50! ([Note: 2006 price; call them to get current rates] at $3.75/can, this is much cheaper than we were buying from our local store before - they were over $5/can there), and direct to your door!

I tend to stock a dozen or more cans at a time for friends and family that need a quick source for Almond Paste when they are doing their glutenless recipe baking, especially if they do not want to order 6 cans at a time.  Perhaps you can find a few fellow bakers that want to split an order.  I have to believe this stuff will last "forever" (years?) in the unopened cans. We use a can per month or more, but then again we do a lot of baking.

I plan to put eventually place a link to this article and to the Solo Foods site from our cookbook website. Although I would love to simply allow people to purchase a can of Almond Paste along with my recipe book, shipping makes that impossible, so it is best to get it in the supermarket or direct from Solo Foods. I know we use it in our wonderful Pecan Pie / Tart, and a few other tasty gluten free dessert recipes. It really adds a nice flavor to so many recipes.

Continue to read this Gluten-Free Blog for all sorts of gluten-free recipes, product-reviews, and related information. In addition, visit my Gluten-Free Recipes Site where many of the recipes I have featured on this blog are available.

What do 3 TONS of cookbooks look like?

Better yet, what does your body feel like after moving 3 tons of recipe books to your basement? From (very recent) first hand experience, I can tell you: not good! I do not even want to know what I will feel like tomorrow. Thankfully, the work was spread between three of us - me, my wife, and our daughter. We had a decent system for moving the cookbooks from the garage to the basement worked out, and created a rudimentary "slide" to quickly get cartons down the steps. So, one person at the top, another placing them on the slide, and another loading a hand-truck at the bottom to transport to the storage racks. Then, getting them from the hand-truck onto the racks. Oh, what a workout! What have I gotten us into?

The next thing is knowing that we'll have to move some of these same boxes out shortly to take to, or mail to, our retailers, and to everyone on our pre-orders list that is waiting for their gluten-free desserts book to arrive just in time to make some delicious treats for Christmas and the holidays. But, at least the cookbooks are out of the way, and we can get an automobile back in the garage.

After being nearly 2.5 weeks late from the shipping company (arghh!), I feel a huge sense of relief and satisfaction knowing that the cookbooks are now in our hands, and the glutenfree/celiac population that is eagerly awaiting them will soon also feel some gratification when they get their hands on one. I apologize to anyone that has found the waiting as tough as I have -- when/if we reprint another batch, I'll allow more time for delivery issues (and, hire some teenagers to move the books).

So, it seems we have a seriously busy week ahead of us getting these things out to everyone. I think the post-office will love me, though anyone behind me in line at the post-office waiting to send holiday gifts is going to absolutely hate me (as I take a long time in front of them)! :)

For those of you overseas that have asked about ordering online -- give me a couple more days to get the international shipping rates updated and implemented. The only international destination ready to go right now is Australia for quantity-one shipments only (that was my "test case" where a very patient Australian has helped me work through the process). I'll soon be ready for Canada, UK/Great-Britain, Germany and a few others. Just need to figure out how much the rates to each location will be; of course the "flat rate" package the post-office had for international would not quite fit the book!

As I type this gluten free blog entry, I think that tomorrow may well be a good day to do some "desk work"... anything non-physical, as I already feel the exertion really taking hold in my knees, lower back, and elbows. I know what will help, at least for a few minutes: a nice gluten-free dessert/snack; perhaps even going overboard and eating some celebratory Haagen Dasz ice cream!

What could be better than Almond Milk?

Blue Diamond Almond Breeze Gluten-Free Chocolate Almond Milk : Yum!

Chocolate Almond Milk (whether sweetened or unsweetened variety), of course, what a great idea! I have used Blue Diamond's gluten-free regular or vanilla Almond Milk (Almond Breeze line of products) for some time on cereal in the morning, and I find it just as tasty as Soymilk for this type of thing. In fact, I overwhelmingly prefer Soy or Almond Milk to regular milk when it comes to my cereal. I find the nutty flavor of either one really complements the flavor of whatever grains are in the cereal.

Chocolate Almond Milk Product Review

I just tried this gluten-free Blue Diamond Almond Breeze Chocolate Almond Milk a few hours ago, and, I must say, I really like it! I happened to see it for sale at Trader Joe's right alongside the other flavor I normally get, and I though - sure, why not give it a try. I am glad I did. The chocolate flavor and almond essence really come together for an overall great flavor. I can actually enjoy drinking it just for something different - and, it is another way to get a bit more calcium in the diet (or whatever other excuse I can find to get more chocolate into my diet) :)

I don't plan to start pouring the chocolate variety over my morning cereal, but I will keep it around for something to drink when I just do not want water or juice. And, for anyone allergic to Soy and dairy, this may be exactly what you are looking for in a milk-replacement. As an added bonus, it is gluten free!

Continue to read this Gluten-Free Blog for all sorts of gluten-free recipes, product-reviews, and related information. In addition, visit my Gluten-Free Recipes Site where many of the recipes I have featured on this blog are available.

Glutino Sans Gluten Sesame Bagel Review

Glutino brand gluten-free sesame bagels, toasted, with almond butter

Glutino Gluten-Free Sesame Bagel Review

I am celebrating today with a wonderful Glutino Sans Gluten Sesame Bagel, or what they ended up calling Glutino Gluten Free Premium Sesame Bagels (in some year after I originally wrote this review).  I toasted this bagel up, as pictured above, with some Roasted-Almond Butter as a topping. I definitely recommend these bagels. I prefer them toasted (like many GF products), but the textures and such is really pretty decent when toasted. It's not a Panera Bread fresh bagel by any means, but it really isn't that much different than a normal frozen bagel. These glutenfree bagels hold up rather well in the fridge too — in fact, I have had this one in there for at least 4 or 5 weeks, and it was fine toasted.

What am I celebrating with this lovely toasted GF bagel today?

GOOD NEWS: My printed gluten-free recipe cookbooks have arrived at the nearby Cleveland warehouse — they are delivering the books to me on Monday. Funny thing is they are literally a block away from a friend's house that I am going to visit today. I could walk from my friend's house to pick them up, but I have no vehicle capable of handling 3 tons of books. I tried to get the shipping company to allow me to pick up a few boxes today, but as expected, they won't let me take a partial load.

So, the time frame for getting the cookbooks and being able to send them out to customers is now a definite one. From here on I am to deal with local shipping contacts (no more LA contacts), and, I expect that will make life a bit easier! Snow if forecast for Monday, which will make moving the books more fun — and, of course, the entire week last week that the books were supposed to be here the weather was wonderful (sunny and 60's)!

Next, I have been contemplating a book-launch party for sometime in the next couple weeks. We have quite a few friends, family, neighbors, and acquaintances that were involved in our recipe trials and such, that is just seems appropriate to have some kind of celebration and get-together. I have a feeling this is going to be a challenge when competing against all the company Christmas parties and the like. Worst case is I can push it off until January I guess.

Continue to read this Gluten-Free Blog for all sorts of gluten-free recipes, product-reviews, and related information. In addition, visit my Gluten-Free Recipes Site where many of the recipes I have featured on this blog are available.