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.