Customer Reviews

The 125 Best Gluten-Free Recipes

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am totally impressed with this cookbook. I have adapted recipes and cooked for my celiac husband for over 10 years and I thought I knew a lot about good gluten free baking. However, this book has given me a ton of good ideas (and recipes that work) and has rekindled my interest in baking. I particularly liked the lemon yogurt scones, shortcake, and white cake recipes.
I tried the breadmaker recipe for white bread and for the first time produced bread that looked good,was sliceable, tasted great (according to my husband) and was so easy to make. Not to mention much cheaper than buying it at a specialty bakery! Another plus is that the recipes are good enough for me (a non-celiac) too! The wealth of information about alternative flours has given me the means to adapt a lot of my own recipes successfully.

Celiac disease is a poorly understood digestive disorder that affects both children and adults. It is an auto-immune disease that affects the small intestine, and is the result of an intolerance to gluten found in wheat, rye and barley and products derived from these grains. There are no drugs or a cure for this disease. Only a diet free of foods containing gluten is effective in living with the disease and avoiding the symptoms which make celiac disease so troubling.

While there are a number of gluten-free cookbooks on the market, Donna Washburn and Heather Butt have elevated gluten-free (GF) cooking from relatively boring, excessively "healthful" recipes to delicious, easy to prepare recipes made from easily obtainable ingredients. The book is well laid out, with good, sensible information on the ingredients required for safe gluten-free eating. The illustrations are well-done and colourful, and accurately reflect how the dishes look when properly prepared. All the recipes we have tried have been successful and tasty, but several stand out as exceptional. These include ciabatta (p. 38) an excellent substitute for regular bread, without the pound-cake texture normally found in other GF breads; the batter fried fish (p. 59); and the chocolate chip cookies (p. 160).

The equipment and ingredient glossaries provide useful tips and important information for making the recipes successfully. The common sense approach to what is a serious dietary problem for many children and adults alike truly helps to demystify some of the more poorly understood aspects of this disease, and makes it less of a chore and a lot more fun to eat well without wheat and wheat-based products.

Donna Washburn and Heather Butt have a real winner on their hands here. They have taken the specialized cooking and baking required for a gluten-free diet and re-thought it from starter to dessert. For those people suffering with celiac disease this book can give them back their appetites for the foods they lovingly remember. Many of the recipes are very innovative and everyone I've tried works well and is delicious. 125 doesn't begin to account for the variations given for each recipe - what a great way to make a new favourite into three new favourites. The equipment and techniques glossaries as well as the helpful hints on each recipe make this a valuable resource book for anyone stuggling with gluten-free cooking. What a treat to salivate over the delicious pictures of pizza, battered fish and cakes. Each of the bread recipes includes detailed instructions for making with a bread machine or with a mixer, so everyone can accomplish fabulous results. This book is loaded with information about the gluten-free diet and it's ingredients and will appeal to the cook and non-cook alike. My Gluten-Free cookbook library wouldn't be complete without it!

I have celiac disease, which is essentially an allergy to wheat protein, and I've been GF for 5 years now. (Why does that sound like I'm at an AA meeting?) Bette Hagman's books are the first couple of books that I got, and they're pretty good. There are still a lot of recipes that I make out of those books.

*125 Best GF Recipes*, however, is my new favorite book. Unlike some other cookbooks that include recipes that bear astonishing similarities to Hagman's recipes, Washburn and Butt (Heather Butt is the co-author, oh Amazon person who deleted that the first time. It's not a naughty word. It's her *name.* Look at the cover.) have devised new, intriguing, useful recipes that use even *fewer* ingredients than traditional GF recipes. One of my favorites is the "Lavosh," (p16). I omit the yeast and the vinegar (there's no proofing time, anyway,) and add a 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder. Then, don't spread it as thin as a cracker, but pretty thin, and bake it at 375F. You get something between pita bread and Indian fry bread. Phenomenal! And in under 45 minutes from start to eating! This has become my staple bread recipe.

The only thing that I don't really like about the book is that it is essentially divided into fourths. The first quarter is odd-type breads, like the lavosh and scones. The second quarter is bread recipes for the bread machine. The next quarter is those same recipes for hand-mixing (thus repeating a bunch of recipes.) The last quarter is cakes and pies.

Highly recommended.

TK Kenyon
RABID, coming in 2007 from Kunati Book Publishers

This was my first Gluten free cookbook when I was diagnosed with Celiac spruce. I believed in the reviews and thought that I was getting the best GF book around. Big disappointment! When I didn't know any better, I thought I would just have to get used to crumbly bread and hard, dry, completely pale muffins. What a surprise when I borrowed Bette Hagman books from the library! There's not comparison! Hagnman's book are far superior and her knowledge of Gluten Free ingredients proves that the best GF cookbooks are written by Celiacs, not cooks who are just curious about GF cooking and experimenting with alternative flours. The good reviews for this book must have been written by the authors' friends.

There are a few good recipes in the book (brownies, pie crust), but the muffins and bread where just horrible, almost inedible. Some of the beautiful pictures in the book are misleading . The orange cranberry muffins shown are golden on top and speckled with red cranberries inside, but the recipe says to use cranberry juice. I knew that would produce totally red muffins so I used orange juice instead. Still the result was a hard block of rice flour that crumbles when you bite on it. The top never browned.

I am an experienced professional chef, and I would not recommend this book. If you are looking for good Gluten Free cookbooks look for Bette Hagman's and Carol Fenster's books.

I LOVE this book! Absolutely! The pineapple carrot cake is amazing. I made it for my boyfriends birthday... and any time I can find an excuse to make it. It is so moist and yummy... even people without celiacs say it is the best carrot cake they have had! I am always making the pizza crust too! I havn't tried many of the other recipes, but those 2 definetly make the book worth the purchase for me!

Both grandchildren have Celiac's Disease, so gluten is out. Special diet recipes can often be anywhere from so-so to just terrible. I really did my homework and read through countless reviews. I am happy to report this book's recipes live up to their promises. The standard kitchen isn't set up for gluten-free cooking, but once you find everything you need at the local health food stores, follow these recipes for great results.

This book is chocked full of fantastic recipes!!! People without gluten intolerence rave about the food I have prepared from this book. I highly recommend this book. It has been a lifesaver to me and my family.

This book is full of great recipes, and cooking tips for gluten free cooking. The recipes use a mix of rice, tapioca, and potato flours(you can get these at a local health food store). I loved the white bread recipe, it keeps well for about a week in the fridge, and freezes well to.

Up until now, I only had one gluten-free recipe for bread that was formulated to work in a bread machine. Now I have several because this book has two sections of bread recipes: one for using a bread machine and the other for creating the same items with a mixer and oven. All of the recipes I have tried thus far have been wonderful! Be sure to add this book to your cookbook collection if you are on "the diet." Good luck!