Coeliac baking: episode 1

It's been about two months now since my oldest daughter was diagnosed with coeliac disease and we've been on a very steep learning curve.  Regular meals and cooking at home haven't been too much of a problem.  We usually cook from, so we've just swapped out some of our usual ingredients - stock cubes, the flours used for sauces, using gluten free pasta etc.

Baking is a little different.

When you take away the gluten, you change the structure, rise and crumb of your baking.  You can't just swap normal self raising flour for gluten free flour.  You have to learn about ingredients like xanthan gum and potato flour.

To complicate things even further, my daughter can't eat oats for at least 6 months either.  Some coeliacs are sensitive to a chemical in oats and so she has to exclude them and then reintroduce them in a control test.  Oats are a big ingredient in one of her favourite cookies, so my first baking experiment was all about replacing the oats without losing all the lovely oaty texture.

They're not the prettiest cookies in the world, and they're very fragile when they first come out of the oven, but as they cool they firm up and all three children gave them the thumbs up.  Recipes below for both original and coeliac versions.  Apologies for the quantities being in ounces - it's what I've always used, except for the chocolate, which is 2 x 100g bars.

Coeliac cookies

9oz butter or margarine

5.5oz soft brown sugar/caster sugar

1tsp vanilla

8oz gluten free self raising flour

5oz gluten free rice crispies

1oz desiccated coconut (note: I will add less rice crispies and more coconut next time, but this is all the coconut I had)

200g milk chocolate, chopped into small chunks

Beat butter and sugar together.  Add vanilla and beat briefly to mix in.  Add remaining ingredients and mix well.

Use lined baking trays, drop large tablespoons of mix, leaving a bit of space between cookies, flatten slightly and push mix together - it will bind in the oven.  Bake at 180 for about 12 minutes, until golden brown.  Allow to cool on tray as they fall apart when first out of the oven.

Original oaty chocolate chunk cookies

9oz butter or margarine

5.5oz soft brown sugar/caster sugar

1tsp vanilla

8oz wholemeal self raising flour

6oz oats (not instant)

200g milk chocolate, chopped into small chunks

Method is the same as for gluten free cookies.  You can replace up to 2oz of the oats with desiccated coconut.  Add cinnamon and replace chocolate with a couple of handfuls of raisins.  Swap milk chocolate for white chocolate and cranberries.

Happy baking!