Does anyone have any suggestions for a good cookbook for gluten free baking? My mom would like one for Christmas. Cookbooks can be such a crapshoot, so I’m hoping one of our GF dopers can help me out.
Thanks!
I’ve had good luck with Elana Amsterdam’s stuff. You can check out some of her recipes at elanaspantry.com. I don’t own her cookbooks, but her website recipes have been good.
My experience with gluten free cookbooks in general is that they want you to custom mix a variety of flour or flour replacement products. I don’t want to keep potato starch, tapioca, white and brown rice flour, etc. around.
What I’ve found that works is “The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten-Free”. The starting point of these recipes is a gluten free cake mix and you “doctor” it up.
If you aren’t opposed to the various mixtures, the Celiac website give good reviews to the cookbooks by Bette Hagman.
Might be fun to make a little GF baking gift basket for her, with a sampling of flours and stuff to bake with!
My wife highly recommends Gluten-Free Baking Classics by Annalise Roberts.
I have a hold at our local library for, The Joy of Gluten Free, Sugar-Free Baking, by Peter Reinhart and Denene Wallace. Obviously I haven’t read it yet, but I am a big fan of his other bread baking books. 36 reviewers at Amazon have given it an average rating of 4.4/5 stars, FWIW.
My mum has a cookbook by Gluten Free Girl that she really likes - notice on her site that she has a Thanksgiving baking book out now too.
Thanks for all the feedback! I ordered Gluten Free Baking Classics from our bookstore today, and I will do some research on the others. I also ordered some GF flour mixes for her to try, ZipperJJ! (And an almond flour for me to test, too.)
She has been enjoying baking again lately, but my sister-in-law is gluten free and Mom wants to be able to share. I like the idea of the no-sugar for them, so I’ll check out Gray Ghost’s suggestion, too.
Thanks again.
I baked GF pumpkin cupcakes (with a maple cream cheese frosting) for Thanksgiving this year, as someone with celiac disease was attending, and they were a big hit with everyone. I used Bob’s Red Mill’s gluten-free version of their Vanilla Cake Mix as the base.
Sounds like you have a great gift basket in the making! I’d suggest a nice gluten free vanilla extract* as an addition. Nothing more annoying than having all the right “flours” and gums for gluten free baking and finding yourself with contamino-vanilla.
*Which, in the US, simply means making sure it’s PURE vanilla extract. McCormick et al, are fine, if a little boring. Vanilla flavored extract may have caramel or malt color, which can have gluten. But pure vanilla extract cannot. Is pure vanilla extract gluten free? | Free Range Cookies
Good point, WhyNot! I’ll pick up some vanilla, too, and see what else I can think of.