Gluten free and allergy friendly baking

Pippa Kendrick, The Intolerant Gourmet, talks you through her tips and tricks for perfect free-from baking

As little as five years ago, allergy-friendly baking was only of interest to health nuts and chronic sufferers. Due to increasing numbers of food sensitivities, it's slowly and steadily becoming more mainstream. This has led to greater demand and availability of high quality, allergy-free food.

In the ten years that I have been cooking for food intolerances, I've found that with a simple understanding of how ingredients work together, it is more than possible to cook gorgeous cakes, breads, pastries and biscuits that taste just as good as the 'real thing'.

Gluten-free flour

If you've recently been diagnosed with gluten sensitivity, then I'd recommend buying a pre-mixed gluten-free flour. Over time, and with experience, you can learn to mix your own, but being able to buy a bag of flour straight off the shelf and knowing it's safe and brilliant to use is worth its weight in gold. Doves Farm really does have the monopoly on this - their products being both reliable and ethical, I highly recommend their gluten-free flour mixes.

Xanthum gum

Widely used in the food industry, xanthan gum is truly the holy grail of gluten-free baking. If you suffer from multiple food intolerances and need to leave out dairy, eggs and yeast as well, then nothing is as reliable as this friendly gum. It's a natural binder and thickener produced by fermenting glucose or sucrose with the bacteria xanthomonas campestris, then drying and grinding it. The effects of xanthan gum on gluten-free baking are immense; it improves the crumb structure, reduces crumbling and aids binding in gluten-free breads, bakes and not to forget short-crust pastry.

Butter replacers

If you've long held a passion for baking, you'll know that eggs, butter and flour are considered kitchen essentials. The allergy-friendly alternatives are no less successful but far more inventive. Replacing butter in your baking can be done in various ways: you can use a dairy-free margarine - these vary in quality and results, some are oilier than others, but my absolute favourite is Pure Sunflower Spread. It works in a like-for-like way to butter and produces a great texture and flavour. Alternatively, you can replace butter by using an oil of your choice (rape seed or sunflower work well), simply reduce the weight of butter required by a third and replace it with the oil.

Egg replacers

If you need to replace eggs in your baking there are a number of methods open to you. You can use a 'conventional' egg replacer, available in health food stores, and made from a mix of natural starches. An egg replacer is a good way to start and my recommendation would go to Orgran No Egg Replacer. Alternatively, unsweetened apple purée works well as a binder in fruity puddings, but my personal favourite is ground flax seeds. Available in supermarkets and health food shops, ground flax binds your baking together just as an egg would (although it cannot help it rise) while adding a lovely, subtle malty flavour and nutritional content to your food. It is especially good when used to make chocolaty baked goods.

Finally...

For those new to this world of allergy-free baking I recommend you experiment by adapting recipes that you already know and love, using the new ingredients and products suggested here. That way, you will be familiar with the method of making them, learn how they react and will be able to tell from experience when you have got the consistency just right. Often cooking for food sensitivities can seem daunting, but with a little bit of experience and help from those in the know, you can create a whole host of lovely treats that taste delicious.