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Wheat-free Gastronomicon

00:04 / 05.12.02

It seems like half the people I cook for have wheat/gluten allergies, yet I've never come across a cook book that accomodated this fact. And while I can do a fair few wheat-free dishes (curries, stir fries, and an absolutely kick arse vegie paella), I could definitely use more. So I am putting the call out to the barbelith cooking crew for advice, suggestions, etc.

What I would really, really like is a recipe for a wheat and sugar free vegan cake - or other desert - for an upcoming dinner thing; it should still be completely sweet and trashy, can you fructose, etc., just not glucose/refined sugar/etc.

Rollo Kim, on location

08:54 / 05.12.02

I'm pretty sure that I've picked up some ideas from www.celiac.com. Do a google search too as there's loads of online sweet stuff. And while there are loads of cook books out there that claim to be OK - they still end up using ingredients that are a NO NO.

09:13 / 05.12.02

Crunchy - there's a type of cake you make with ground almonds instead of flour, which might do perhaps? I expect it uses sugar, but you could substitute honey (might make it a bit gloopy). Not sure about eggs though. I'll have a look for recipes...

Rollo Kim, on location

09:16 / 05.12.02

And don't forget that your local health food store will probably have some wheat-free flour too! Always useful.

09:20 / 05.12.02

Wheat/sugar free banana and date cake

Ingredients:

8oz/250g/one and a half cups of wheat free flour (eg. Doves Farm organic and gluten free flour which is a mix of rice, maize, buckwheat and potato flours)

2 tsp baking powder

7 or 8 large dates, soaked

half a cup of water

2 very ripe bananas, mashed

1 cup of rice milk

half a cup of sunflower oil

1 tablespoon of vinegar

Mix the flour and baking powder. Liquidise the soaked dates in the half cup of water until fairly thick and smooth. Add the date mixture to the flour along with the rice milk, oil and bananas. Mix well - you may need to add a little more water or rice milk as wheat free flours do vary greatly and tend to absorb more liquid than wheat. Add the vinegar at the last minute and then pour into 9"/18cm cake tin and bake at 190C/380F for about 40 minutes or until cooked through.

I can't vouch for this - I got it off this Web site: http://www.veganfamily.co.uk. The other recipes there have sugar in but you could experiment with other sweet things, I suppose (remember that vegans don't eat honey).

09:28 / 05.12.02

You can buy vegan egg substitutes at health food shops, if necessary...

09:31 / 05.12.02

I always forget about the honey - sorry - fructose then, perhaps?

16:08 / 05.12.02

Crunchy - there's a type of cake you make with ground almonds instead of flour, which might do perhaps? I expect it uses sugar, but you could substitute honey (might make it a bit gloopy). Not sure about eggs though. I'll have a look for recipes...

Reine de Saba.

My sister stole a kick-ass recipe from a former employer (a French baker).
I'm highly skeptical of the ability to make it with fructose, though. Maybe with sucralose.

Ooo - and without eggs, I can't see how to stick it together. a search for vegan reine de saba turns up nuthin'.

The best sugar-free desserts I've had have all involved a blender and frozen fruit. Fresh papaya with lime. Mmm.
Oh, and strawberries romanov involves fat strawberries, sour cream and dark brown sugar. It seems quite likely you can dodge the brown sugar somehow (Sorghum molasses tastes pretty similar, although now that I think of it, that's probably sucrose too.... I've tasted a rice syrup sweetener that could pass, but have no idea what its chemical composition might be.)

16:16 / 05.12.02

For cakes, there may be egg-dodges over here, at vegan-desserts.com.

Gotta love that internet...

edited to include the following:
Bastard! Bastard! Bastard! There aren't recipes on that site! It's all for *sale*!
this site might be a better bet, as might this one (has good tips).

Anyway, if you do make a sucralose vegan reine de saba, you'll quite possibly be making culinary history and should definitely post the recipe.

17:32 / 05.12.02

That is not bread which can eternal rye...

...oh, gastronomicon, I see

10:29 / 22.07.07

Aware that I am breaking a trend towards the vegan in this thread, but here's a new recipe. Highly nutritious, though not even vegetarian, possibly results from repeated hypnotic suggestions.

Purple fishcakes

2/3 cooked/peeled beetroot
smoked mackerel fillet
1 free range egg
1 clove of garlic
2 handfuls of soft greens: spinach, watercress, mixed herbs
Black pepper, cayenne, coriander, to taste
Tablespoon of oil for frying

Aim at similar volume of mashed beet and fish. 3 small beet and one largish fillet makes 7/8 cakes, to serve 2/3 people. Uncooked mixture keeps fine overnight in fridge if you're on your own.

Blend beetroot, egg, garlic, greens.
Remove skin and mash fish into small bits, mix in, add seasoning.

Heat skillet, add oil, turn to low heat.

Put a tablespoonful of the purple mixture onto the skillet, leave for 4 min or until cooked on one side. Turn over fishcake with appropriate implement, allow to cook through. (Can also be grilled/ baked for a different texture, takes a bit longer.)

The fillets I get tend to be salted and hot-smoked, so no extra salt needed. I like the balance of sweet and salt flavour between the beet and fish.

Eat!

10:54 / 23.07.07

That is not bread which can eternal rye...

...oh, gastronomicon, I see

You're terrible like a terrible dread thing.

In his house at R'lyeh Head Cook Tulu tries creaming.

11:29 / 23.07.07

Thanks very much for the recipe, apt plutology. We are always getting beetroot in our box, and I never know quite what to do with them, so they sit in the veg drawer getting wrinkled.

12:33 / 23.07.07

I know what you mean about not knowing what to do with them.

To cook the beet I cut the leaves and the tail off the root and put the beet in the steamer for ~45min until cooked. Then into the fridge ready to be used in other recipes over the next few days. I don't like the taste of them raw. Skin comes off easily once cooked.

Also good for beet: grate cooked beetroot and raw carrots, add finely chopped spring onions and parsley/other herbs, serve as salad with lemon juice or balsamic vinegar.