Customer Reviews

1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes (1,000 Recipes)

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I checked this book out from the library to test-drive it before giving it a place on my bookshelf. I was annoyed to see that her primary mix was not the usual rice-potato-tapioca mix, instead using sorghum-potato/corn-tapioca, but I had all the flours on-hand so I decided to mix it up and give it a try. I picked the hardest thing I could find (why waste time?): cut-out sugar cookies. I was flabbergasted. They were great. They kept their shape, and the texture and taste were wonderful: no grit! I made biscuits next (another difficult thing to make GF) and they were also great. The pizza crust recipe produces an actual DOUGH that you can pat out with your hands, not the usual batter that needs to be spread with a wet spatula. In the two weeks that I've had this book from the library, I've made seven baking recipes all with wonderful success, including the first loaf of GF bread that I've eaten plain.

It is a BIG book, and it has a bunch of non-baking recipes, which I don't think I'll use. For me, converting main-dish recipes to be GF is not difficult. The sections on baking are extensive, though, and in my opinion, that makes the book worth the price and worthy of a place on my shelf.

This cookbook has lots of interesting recipes and the ones I have tried are good. However, I wish the instructions were more clear. The author makes some statements at times that are confusing to the inexperienced
new "gluten-free" cook, although not new to baking. For example, she suggests adding extra grains when baking bread but does not say how much to add and if you need to subtract other flours when doing so. One recipe had a complete step(adding the yeast and water) left out. I hate experimenting with expensive ingredients.

What sets Carol Fenster and her 1,OOO Gluten-Free Recipes 1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes apart from others, is this: She delivers great taste, great texture, and maximum nutrition (something you already know is in short supply in most GF carbohydrates); her recipes and advice are geared to home cooking, i.e., your life and your kitchen; she makes suggestions for brand names of ingredients (this saves so much time!); she writes clearly so your dish will come out great every time (this saves time, money, and so much effort, not to mention the disappointment); her dishes please the most finicky eaters; and she notes alternative ingredients if you wish to make recipes dairy-free, vegan, etc.

Yes, there really are a thousand distinct recipes, but, no, it's not heavy. It is so all encompassing and astoundingly excellent that it'll spoil you for any other cookbook, except...Gluten-Free Quick and EasyGluten-Free Quick & Easy: From Prep to Plate Without the Fuss - 200+ Recipes for People with Food Sensitivities, Carol's 2007 cookbook that uses her unique Carol's-Flour-Blend-turned-into-mixes strategy. Both of these books are amazingly affordable and readily pay for themselves in saved time, effort and money.

I have been grateful for this book because it has so much in it, much of which is quite good. However, I have become disenchanted with it because all of her recipes use the same sorghum-tapioca flour-potato starch mix, and I don't think that it is the right mix for all of her recipes. Also, she uses SO MUCH starch in all of her recipes that they are just plain really unhealthy to eat. Thirdly, she likes to use modified tapioca starch in a lot of her recipes, which is even worse for you than all of the unmodified starch. There are chemical processes that go into modifying this starch which may have adverse health effects. I have seen in at least one blog that faithful adherents of her book don't care what they're doing to their bodies as long as they enjoy what they are eating. Maybe you feel the same way, in which case this is a great book for you. However, for those who are more interested in their health and in all of the wonderful flours available to gluten-free folks, I only recommend this book in moderation. I do have to say, though, that her pizza crust recipe is absolutely the best.

I have several of Carol Fenster's past cookbooks. This is such a complete book, it is like the Joy of Cooking for gluten-free. Some of the gluten-free cookbooks are just recycled old recipes with the gluten out. The recipes in this book are very innovative and creative. The only down side of that is you might have trouble finding some of the ingredients she uses like the modified tapioca starch and teff. But it is worth searching them out on the internet and it broadened my horizons in gluten-free cooking, and I am a dietitian who has been cooking gluten-free for 15 years.I think I was in a rut with my cooking and this inspired me to try new and healthy recipes. My family is going to be surprised at Christmas!
If my patients can only afford 1 book this is what I would recommend. It is a good value at the price Amazon sells it at.

This cookbook is truly comprehensive, but it relies far too heavily on Expandex for the baking. Oddly, many widely available whole grain flours - teff, buckwheat, millet - are used infrequently while others like Montina are used quite often. I've been baking gluten-free for 20 years and had difficulty with some of the cookie & bread recipes; oatmeal cookies were dry; Pfefferneus were flat; oatmeal bread sank. Have used several of the innovative soup recipes many times, but there are other cookbooks I use far more often.

If you can pull it off, most of the food made from the recipes in this book are reasonably delicious. However, if you follow the recipes too closely, you will burn or drown pretty much everything. (Put two tablespoons of olive oil and two sliced onions in a large skillet over medium heat. Cover and cook for 20 minutes.)

Most of the recipes are for things that would be gluten free anyway. Although there are fun recipes for entertaining, there aren't really the basic comfort-food type things I would want. There are recipes for the foods I crave but can't have any more. I want a recipe for a bun bread or pasta noodles, not tilapia filets with goat cheese mashed potatoes or swordfish with mango chutney.

The types of foods the recipes call for are most often expensive, and when a recipe does call for something that would otherwise have gluten, it calls for a gluten free version. No, I cannot find gluten free cream of mushroom soup or soy sauce. I would like to have a recipe for a replacement that doesn't require a whole chicken (stock) or yet another specialty gluten free food (worchestire sauce).

Carol's sorghum blend is also pretty obnoxious. I know it seems silly, but unless you follow that recipe exactly at a time when you aren't making anything else, it's too complicated. Many of the recipes call for the sorghum blend plus another flour or two, so you make three cups of a blend you need 1/2 cup of and then add 1/4 cup of one of the flours you used in the blend.

Finally, none of the breads have worked for me. I've tried them all.

While I'm extremely glad I bought this book and would highly recommend it, I feel there are a few "buts". Some of the recipes are missing steps. For example, the Polenta Cake recipe instructs you to mix corn meal and four other items, but then never tells you what to do with the mixture. I kept rereading the recipe thinking I was just missing something. Also, the index is badly organized. For example there's a pumpkin cheesecake recipe but you can't find it under pumpkin and if you look under cheesecakes it's not listed under pumpkin there, but under praline. So I found it by accident after I gave up on making a pumpkin cheesecake. I did eventually try it and would NOT recommend it -- it isn't sweet enough. The recipe called for less sugar than similar recipes in the book. I'm sure with so many recipes indexing was a challenge, but it was very poorly done. Also, she counts the recipes for yellow cake and yellow cupcakes as two recipes, when they call for the exact same ingredients prepared the same way, with the exeption of the baking pans. I feel that she's giving one recipe and to call it two is lacking in integrity. She does the same thing for the white cake and cupcakes and for cream puffs and eclairs. I didn't purchase the book hoping for quantity, but for quality. I'd have been happy with 100 really good, well written recipes. That said, some of the recipes are FANTASTIC. The Devil's Food Layer Cake with Fudge Frosting is my famly's favorite cake and none of them are wheat or gluten free. Yet it's the cake they always request. I would have felt the price of the book was worth it if only for the Fudge Frosting recipe. I can't even begin to tell you how good it is. I think it's the best frosting I've ever had. I think her flour blend -- Carol's Sorghum Blend --is amazing. It's the only flour I use now. Her basic muffin recipe is great and I've tried it with lots of differint add-ins -- blueberries, nuts, white chocolate chips, dried cherries. I used one of the banana muffin recipes with good results. The gougeres recipe was also a big success with the gluten-free and wheat eaters alike. So I would heartily recommend the book -- I'd just caution you about what you'll have to put up with to access the great recipes!

I got the book a few weeks ago as my granddaughter can't have gluten.
I made the Carrot Layer Cake, made sure I had all listed ingredients, then as I was making it in step 3 it calls for yogurt ..huh..I din't have any and carried on making it without..it tuened out really well but I was worried that it wouldn't.
Then I made the German Chocolate Cupcakes, which bubbled over the tops of the pans, there was no xanthan gum in the resipe, could this have been why.
Then today I am making the Cinnamon Raisin Bread and though it tells you to sprinkle the yeast on the milk and leave for 5 mins to foam it doesn't tell you when to add it to the dough!!
I am almost afraid to try any more recipes.

I was glad to get this book as a gift as I am GF and a doctor who prescribes this diet all the time. I was also glad to see that the author used sorghum flour. However, she only uses 1/3 flour and the rest of the "flour" is starch--corn,tapioca, potato. This seemed excessive to me as I've made waffles with brown rice flour (much more grainy than sorghum) with less starch added. But I thought I'd try the first 2 recipes in the book--her GF flour mix (60% starch) and chocolate cake. I made the cake into cupcakes. What a disappointment! The texture was rubbery--which was not a surprise to me considering all the starch and xanthan gum she called for. They did not taste cake-y whatsoever. because they are chocolate they still tasted good even though they fell once out of the oven and were the consistency of jello almost. Since all of her flour based recipes use this 60% starch mix, i don't think I can use any of the recipes, but I'm about the try the pretzels anyway (eventhough it calls even more starch!) People think of breads as nutritious, but with all the starch, I have to count most of these recipes as junk food unfortunately. too bad. Unlike other people, I do like the non-flour GF recipes because I think most Americans don't know how to cook anymore. When they hear "eat gluten free" all they think is "eat gluten free bread and pasta substitutes". Nice to remind people there are other foods out there beside bread, pasta and crackers.