Gluten free mince pies

[Utka]

We have good friends coming this weekend for tea. Husband is newly gluten intolerant. I have invested in some gluten free flour for cooking stuff for him, but would appreciate advice on making mince pies. Is there anything different I need to do?!

OH - just thought, presumably mincmeat has gluten in it, because of the suet?!

Any advice gratefully received!

I don't think suet has gluten in, does it - suet's just fat.

I'm quite prepared to be proved wrong but I think the only thing in mince pies that has gluten in is the pastry, and you've already dealt with that with the gluten free flour.

Suet is from meat, I think? Not wheat?

I think Village Bakery does a gluten-free mince tarts.

... just checked, they do. Our local health food store stocks them.

If you're not really good with pastry, I probably wouldn't try making them yourself. But then, I'm not really comfortable working with non-puff pastry ...

suet is beef fat. gluten is found in varying amounts in wheat, barley, rye and - although there is some controversy over this - oats

I think commercial mince meat is vegetarian, though. I just checked, and the Village Bakery ones have vegetarian suet, which is made of unhydrogenated palm oil and rice flour.

Some vegetarian suets might have other kinds of flour in them? A quick web search seems to confirm that some vegetarian suet has gluten.

Thanks for this. Am a bit over cautious because I managed to serve them couscous last time they came to dinner. Had decanted it into a plastic tub, so no labels to check. Checked the polenta bag and it was gluten free so assumed couscous was, and of course it isn't. Friend doesn't like fuss being made, hence why I thought I'd make them for all of us, but thanks for the recommendation of ready made ones!

I am a coeliac. Tesco's Free From mince pies are great. DS eats them as readily as the non-gluten free variety.

Do you want to make your own mincemeat? I think the Tesco brand mincemeat is gluten free - you do need to check, it appears.

You're obviously about a million times more confident with pastry than I am!

(NB: couscous is essentially funny-shaped pasta. Polenta is made from sweetcorn.)