Living Life Gluten Free: By Chef Oonagh Williams of RoyalTemptations.com
What’s the problem?
For most people, when they are finally diagnosed gluten intolerant, or more seriously with Celiacs disease, it can come as a relief after a very long time of feeling totally out of sorts with their body and very few doctors knowing what the problem is.
Current research says that it takes 9 months to be diagnosed gluten intolerant in Europe and up to 9 years in America. The top Celiac Doctor, Peter Green of www.celiacdiseasecenter.columbia.edu in NYC says this is because it can only be treated with following a lifelong gluten free diet, and therefore there is no financial return for medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies.
Gluten is a substance found naturally in wheat, rye and barley. Oats and corn are often cross-contaminated by wheat. Gluten is the glue that holds baked goods together, unfortunately for gluten intolerant people, their bodies are unable to digest gluten. The most common reaction is stomach problems.
I normally explain it by saying if a wheat crouton or bread roll only touches a meal for someone who is gluten intolerant, they can suffer symptoms the same as the worse case of food poisoning. Non-gluten intolerant people can understand and empathize with this. But there are almost 300 other illnesses that mimic gluten intolerance so getting an accurate diagnosis is very difficult. Blood tests frequently come back negative for gluten intolerance but many people find a range of symptoms disappear when they go gluten free.
When you consider that wheat is found in many products, including lipstick, body creams, toothpaste, vitamins, hair spray, shampoo and not just food, it becomes a minefield and a maze for people trying to live gluten free. Barley is used as the sweetening in cereals, chocolates and other products. Annoyingly, the FDA allergen labeling laws only list wheat as an allergen and not rye and barley. Few companies like to actually state gluten free on labels. Many food company web sites still don’t state if their products contain gluten. Telephone calls to food companies are often very frustrating.
We all have stories to tell of the stupidity of food companies and the lack of information provided to the Customer Service agents. Some companies are wonderful, but they are few and far between. You can’t rely on the answer but have to contact the companies on at least an annual basis to check, as product formulations can change.
There’s hope!
Once you get over the initial shock, there are plenty of options. Shopping on the outside aisles of the supermarket is simple. All meats, fish, vegetables, fruits etc are naturally gluten free unless they have been processed in some way. Potatoes and rice are still safe. There are gluten free baked products, packet mixes and alternate flours to do your own baking. And there’s the problem. Gluten Free baking differs from regular flour baking.
Many home baked recipes taste just as good made gluten free, if you know how to adapt them. Store bought is still problematic. Pamela’s Products tend to be consistently good, they carry an all purpose, gluten free, baking mix, various GF packet mixes and GF baked goods. Their web site has many recipes. The owner of Pamela’s Products is able to eat wheat so she creates gluten free recipes as I do that mimic regular flour. Trader Joe’s list all the gluten free products in the store.
Whole Foods in Bedford Ma, carries many gluten free products as does A Market in Manchester. Regular grocery stores are starting to carry and clearly display gluten free products. It is significantly cheaper, sometimes half the price, to buy gluten free flours in Asian markets. Most books and web sites recommend this. I buy most of my alternate flours at Lanna Asian Market, on RT101A Nashua. Many Asian stores carry potato starch, sweet rice/glutinous rice flour and tapioca starch. I buy Bob’s Red Mill for the other flours. They are expensive but easily available. And your own home baked will taste better. Viewers frequently watch me prepare gluten free dishes on WMUR’s Cooks Corner. I made packet mix corn bread last year that was like a brick whereas my homemade gluten free corn bread is moist, tender and tasty.
Oonagh’s Gluten Free flour mix
I use for one cup of Gluten Free mix.
½ cup potato starch from Lanna Asian market, 101A, Nashua.
2 tbsp sweet rice/glutinous rice from Lanna Asian
2 tbsp tapioca starch from Lanna Asian or Goya or Yoki brand in supermarkets. With Yoki brand check that it sounds squeaky through the bag, they also have tapioca flour which is gritty through the bag.
2 tbsp amaranth flour or millet flour. Bob’s Red Mill - cheapest in Market Basket so far (millet is roughly one third the price of amaranth, is not so nutritious, but is more readily available.)
2 tbsp sorghum flour Bob’s Red Mill - cheapest in Market Basket so far
GLUTEN FREE TRES LECHE CAKE with regular flour variation on my web site.When my son Charles was in 6th grade he had to do a ‘country’ project and he chose Nicaragua. We got coins, notes, postcards etc through a friend of our hairdresser. She also gave us her recipe for Tres Leche cake. I found her version far too sweet for me. So this is a variation based on the cake I soak in a variety of alcohol laced syrups .The syrup is adapted from the version of this cake I tasted at Milford High Schools Culinary Arts Department restaurant. Their cake recipe and syrup comes from the Adobo Grill in Chicago, published in Gourmet Magazine as a readers request in June 2002. I add far more rum. What a history!
Tres Leche means three milks that are meant to be mixed together and poured over the warm cake to saturate. The regular flour version, with a coffee/kahlua syrup, is on my web site at this page: http://royaltemptations.com/recipes/r-kahlua-cake.html. At the same page you can watch me making it on YouTube.
To make regular flour tres leche, omit coffee in the kahlua cake and substitute milk syrup mix for coffee syrup mix. Make Gluten Free coffee version using Kahlua if you can drink it or use rum or brandy with coffee syrup. The regular flour recipe on my web site puts all cake ingredients together in a bowl and beats until well blended. The Gluten Free version needs to be made the traditional way as shown below. In England we used to make this for weddings in a 16 inch square cake pan using a complete bottle of sherry or brandy until the cake was literally sitting in a puddle of alcohol laced syrup.
Cake:
1 ½ sticks butter (6oz) softened
¾ c sugar
3 extra large eggs or 4 large eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract (Costco make gluten free vanilla extract, about $8 for 1 pint bottle)
1 + 1/3 c my gluten free flour mix1 tbsp Gluten Free baking powder - Rumfords is Gluten Free.
pinch of salt
3/4 tsp xanthan gum Syrup:
1 x 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk¾ cup well stirred, can of unsweetened coconut milk (not Coco Lopez or Roland that are used for Pina Colada, these are much too sweet. Look in Mexican or Asian aisle for coconut milk with almost no sugar - I use Chaokoh brand)
½ cup heavy cream
¼-1/3 cup rum (white or dark) - you can really taste 1/3 cup of rum.
1. Preheat oven to 350* and grease and Gluten Free flour a 10” across the top bundt pan with Gluten Free cooking spray. Market Basket’s is Gluten Free. I haven’t checked Pam.
2. Place softened butter and sugar in mixing bowl and beat with electric mixer until soft, fluffy and creamy - about 2 minutes. Don’t skimp on this first beating or when adding eggs. Mix will look whiter as air is beaten in.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating very well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl. Mix will look broken up and curdled each time you add an egg, but goes smooth with beating. Beat in vanilla.
4. Add flour, baking powder, salt and xanthan gum and mix well together, scrape down sides of bowl and beat for one minute.
5. Spoon batter into prepared bundt pan, (it only roughly half fills pan) smooth top and bake in preheated oven for approx. 40 minutes until cake is well risen, deep golden brown and deeper brown around the edges. It might have a crack in the middle but this will be hidden when you invert the cake.
6. Remove from oven and leave to cool in pan for 10 minutes. Then use a spatula or thin knife to release all edges of cake.
7. Turn cake out of pan onto plate. There is no need to let cake cool further.
8. Mix syrup ingredients together in a small non stick pan or microwave safe bowl and heat slightly until well blended. 7. Pour half of prepared syrup into bundt pan and return cake to bundt pan. (no need to wash pan first). Pour remaining syrup over cake and leave in pan for about 20 minutes until cake has absorbed all milk syrup. The cake will look as if it is swimming in syrup initially. Because the gluten free version doesn’t rise as high as regular flour, it might not absorb all the syrup. Pour off excess and drizzle over slices of cake on serving.
9. Turn out onto serving plate and leave to finish cooling. Then chill. 9. Garnish slices of cake with sweetened whipped cream (whip together 1 cup whipping or heavy cream, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 2 tablespoons powdered sugar - perhaps add 1-2 tbsp rum to cream) plus canned mandarin oranges or fresh oranges with all skin removed, sliced strawberries, and kiwi fruit. Fresh mango slices or cubes would also go well.
We decided at one class that three very thin slices of the cake with cream piped on them and garnished with fruit would look very attractive on individual plates.
Chef Oonagh Williams is an award winning British Chef/Instructor based in Merrimack, NH with a gluten and lactose intolerant adult son. Chef Oonagh has always cooked from scratch with all real ingredients so cooking gluten free meals is not a problem. Chef Oonagh focuses on gluten free baked goods, that have to replicate the taste of her regular flour baked goods, since muffins, bread, pizza, cakes etc made from wheat are what people miss the most.
Visit Chef Oonagh’s web site www.RoyalTemptations.com for recent gluten free recipes and her appearances on WMUR’s Cooks Corner. Chef Oonagh teaches gluten free baking classes, offers a months worth of baked goods, gives presentations and provides a consultancy service to help ease the transition to gluten free living.
