Lizzy’s Gluten-Free Tips

• For better results with your baked goods; pikelets, scones, biscuits, cakes, etc. try mixing several different GF flours together, i.e. half Horleys flour with half Bakels
• If you prefer to mix up your own flours try the recipe available from Bin Inn: 1 cup Maize corn flour, 2 cups rice flour, 2 cups soy flour, 3 cups potato flour
• GF flour brands and their qualities:
  • Bakels bread mix: egg free but contains dairy. Great for pikelets, muffins and cookies, not lumpy or stodgy. You can get Bakles on prescription.
  • Horleys bread mix: dairy free but contains some egg powder, soy flour, and corn flour. Good for bread, waffles, pastries.
  • Horleys flour mix: dairy free but contains some egg powder, soy flour, and corn flour. Makes lumpy pikelets on its own, better if added to other flours, great added with buckwheat for pikelets. Good for cakes.
  • Simple and Ogran mixes: free from dairy, egg, soy, nuts, pretty much everything, but produce a more dense product!
• Alter a recipe to be dairy free by using oil or Oliviano margarine instead of butter, and Rice or Soy milk and soy yoghurt instead of dairy milk. Cheese is a hard one, but there are some soy and sheep’s cheese out there.
• Most Baking powders are not GF
  Edmonds Baking powder is gluten free
• Most icing sugars are not Gluten free
  Chelsea icing sugar is gluten free
• Most Soy sauces contain gluten
  San-J organic Tamari is wheat free but costly
• Arnotts rice cookies make great biscuit crumbs for bases on cheesecakes, lemon meringue pies, and in slices, etc.
• Adding a mashed ripe banana to cakes and muffin mixtures helps to hold them together and keep them moist. (I freeze ripened bananas and defrost them for baking, or wiz them up frozen for smoothies).
• Adding 1/4 cup of glutinous rice flour (gluten free but sweet and sticky) to cakes also assists to hold them together (found in Asian food stores and some Bin Inn stores)
• Using butter milk in muffin and scone mixtures makes a lighter fluffier product
• To increase fibre, try adding ¼ cup of rice bran, buckwheat flour, or a Tablespoon or two of psyllium husk to pikelet, scone, muffin, and cake mixes. You may need to add more liquids if using psyllium husks, as this is very absorbent. Both are available from Bin Inn, Pekos or Natures Organics. Or add grated apple or crushed pinapple, you can then also reduce the amount of sugar used.
• To increase protein try adding ground almonds or some besan flour (channa flour/chick pea flour), or an extra egg. This will also assist in holding the product together.
• For those who are egg intolerant use the Orgran Egg Replacer available in stores, or use a combination of 1Tablespoon white vinegar, 1Tablespoon water, and 1 tablespoon canola oil. Pureed fruit, or yoghurt may also be used, or try adding some of the sweet sticky rice flour.
• To adapt non gluten free recipies you may need to add an extra egg or more liquids or more flour. Experiment as you go.
• For cooking fish or chicken: dip in rice flour, or potato flour, or roll in psyllium husks, then fry. They look more like nuggets when rolled in psyllium husks and add extra fibre.
• Some supermarkets are now putting blue labels on the shelves where an item is GF. There are many products that are not labelled GF but are made without Gluten. Read the labels. Products made in NZ legally have to state if they contain gluten or wheat.
• Try using some of the Zero G wholemeal bread mix in banana, carrot cake, or fruit cakes. It works well.