Gluten Free Baking Classics Review

Kayleigh here, rounding off our series of cookbook reviews with some talk about Gluten Free Baking Classics, by Annalise G. Roberts. Focusing largely on quickbreads and desserts, this book is a fantastic addition to any gluten-free household due to its easy-to-follow instructions and helpful tips following many of the recipes. Roberts was even thoughtful enough to provide alternate toppings, fillings, and techniques for her more versatile dishes, to allow for even more personal creations in your kitchen!

From my first readthrough, I quickly ran out of post-its to bookmark interesting recipes. Should I try the Hazelnut cake or Chocolate Ricotta muffin recipe first? Or give the basic pie crust a shot? Really, the best part about her recipes is that almost all of them contain the same basic flour blend, which she details at the beginning of the cookbook. Since I did not need to special order anything exotic to start trying the recipes, I was able to jump right in- how exciting!

In the end, we tried her basic Buttermilk Biscuit recipe first. Crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside, with a rich buttery taste- a perfect clone of the standard box biscuit mix. In fact, they turned out so well, we baked them to go along with Christmas dinner! Not stopping there, we used the Old-Fashioned Buttermilk Doughnut recipe to try out some new Puff Pancake pans. As someone who grew up in the Northeast, I have been hankering for a good Dunkin Donuts run for a long time, and found these to be a near dead-ringer for the old-fashioned cake donuts. Boy, did they go perfectly with a hot cup of coffee!

Jason here. We were super happy to try out our new Puff Pancake pans. They worked out great, although it took us a little too long to add the fillings and flip the donut holes. Admittedly this caused them to have a slieght burnt taste on one side. Next time we will cook them a bit longer, but on less heat.

My favorite part was figuring out what all of the toppings, and filling we wanted. Kayleigh of course went with the peanut butter. I tried making a powdered sugar topping, and a cinnamon brown sugar topping. For my fillings we ran out of peanut butter, so I added some Nutella, and chocolate to another hole. When we took the donuts out, I fairly quickly rolled them in my toppings, but alas nothing stuck. We eventually opted to quickly spray some cooking spray and then reroll them. Even then the toppings barely took. We will have to figure out a better method for next time. Speaking of next time, I will definitely be trying chocolate donuts, with chocolate filling.

If you are still are not sold on this book, check out Robert's blog here. She updates fairly regularly with new recipes, mostly baking-centric, but with a fair share of delicious savory entrees mixed throughout. If you find yourself making two, three, or more recipes from there, then I would definitely recommend picking up one of her books!