On a gluten free diet what treats can you eat?

[lavenderbongo]

I have been on a gluten free diet for a few weeks now. Its good in that I now have no more stomache aches or cramps but I am really missing my cakes and biscuits. Can anyone who has been on this diet for longer tell me how they cope without toast and jam for breakfast or cakes and biscuits?

I have a very sweet tooth and miss my home made cakes which I can no longer eat. I have tried rice flour but it doesn't work very well. I am also having real trouble finding things for breakfast as I am not a fan of yogurt. Any tips would be gratfully recieved.

Get some Doves Farm Gluten Free flour and make cakes as normal with that - I make them for my friend who has coeliac disease and they can be just as good as the wheat variety.

Ice cream etc. is still okay too.

My friend eats porridge for breakfast but not all coeliacs can tolerate oats.

Thanks mrsgboring. I should have said I'm in New Zealand - but they must have something like Doves Farm flour here. I'll just have to keep looking.

breakfast - rice cakes with boiled egg, hash browns with english breakfast, scrambled egg and smoked salmon, quinoa flakes with dried fruit. You may be OK with porridge as oats are gluten free. Coeliacs don't usually risk it as they are often contaminated with other grains. You may also be Ok with rice based cereals.

Doves gluten free flour is great but I still add some extra xanthum gum to it when making cakes as they rise better. You can buy that at tescos, its the miracle ingredient for gluten free cookery. Doves bread flour makes an acceptable loaf even if it's not quite like other bread. Make a large one and on the second day slice and freeze anything you won't use quickly. Then remove from freezer and toast when needed. Mine tends to crumble a bit when defrosted and dry out a little but it's toast .

When you can't be bothered to bake Mrs Crimble's chocolate chip brownies (which I get from a health food store) are great. There is also a stem ginger loaf cake that is very gingery. Sainsburys do gluten free jaffa cakes which are definitely inferior to the real thing but good for serving to children so they are having something like their friends.

Oh dear - shows how slow a typist I am. Hope they have xanthum gum in New Zealand.

You can make porridge out of gluten free grains like millet or quinoa, in UK you can buy bags of flaked millet and quinoa which makes more of a porridge-like consistency.

Try this website which is based in New Zealand and has good gluten free recipes (but not all gluten free so be careful!)

www.wildhealthfood.com/recipes

There are some good gluten free recipe books available - do a search on Amazon to see what's around, Barbara Cousins does a couple of good books that I have and while not exclusively gluten-free most of the recipes are. Also What to Eat When You Can't Eat Anything has a good selection of gluten free recipes I think it's by someone Sweetman or something.

Oats do have gluten by the way......

You just get used to it...

If you're diagnosed as being coeliac you can get gluten free food on prescription - basic stuff but it means there's always bread for toast available.

I've been gluten free for 3 years now and still miss the treat-y stuff like croissants and bagels, but gluten free flour is good for making things like pancake mixture so you can have lovely pancakes and scotch pancakes which is good.

Gluten free flour makes not bad cakes - they don't rise as well and you have to eat them fresh I find - even the next day the cake is very dry and crumbly.

I don't know - you just don't have stuff as much and it takes a while to adjust!

My favourite breakfast is Doves Farm gluten free cornflakes, which I love more than the normal ones and have had for breakfast every day for about the past 3 years - take them everywhere with me, including hotels, holidays etc.

Try this recipe blog, which has fab recipes and is a good read as well Pig in the Kitchen

I [heart] the Pig

have you tried orgran www.orgran.com/ products, they are fine, and I find their flour for cakes is good too, never had a problem with dry cakes or not rising.....that being said they don't last long in our house

Join gluten free friends on yahoo. Millions of recipes there, and support (it's an NZ site)

You need Healtheries flour - Orgran is too expensive.

Start by making the recipes on the back of the packet and you'll get the hang of changing things.

If you get a recipe for peppermint slice and just use rice flour for the base in place of normal flour it will be fine.

Which town in NZ - then I can help you with premade things.

Wow - thanks for all the replies.

Thanks Hoochie will try different blends of flour and let you know how it goes. JulesJules that website looks good and whoever writes it is very good - i got drawn into reading loads of it.

Dottydot and Tatt you have both made me very hungry - you are right croissants and pastries are one of the things I have been really missing and I forgot i could still have an english breakfast - yum!

Thanks again for all your replies - I am really surprised at how common this problem is.

For a choclate hit Green&Blacks website shows that all their products avail in NZ are GF. I know my MIL eats their stuff and she is a celiac (?sp)

You can get gluten free croissants in Christchurch.

don't know how I could forget pancakes. today of all days . I have to make buckwheat ones (GF despite the name) every Sunday for the family (who aren't up yet)!

Xanthum gum definitely available in NZ because I found thiswww.trademe.co.nz/Crafts/Other/auction-218769542.htm

You'll be even hungrier now

Healthy Gluten Free Eating by Darina Allen has loads of yummy recipes including cakes.
Lemon polenta cake is delish and there are loads of recipes for it on the web.
Also those cakes which use almonds instead of flour, where you beat the egg whites to make it rise - Nigella Lawson does a clementine cake and there are lots of choc cake recipes.

oh god Hoochie I made that the other week too and it was amazing..!!

lavenderbongo - I have bene GF/LF for about 8-10 weeks now and missed cakes, biscuits, bread at first but really hardly miss them at all now. The 2 week stage is the hardest part. I used to actually salivate when I smelled bread.

I see you are in NZ so not much use in telling you where I buy GF/LF cakes and biscuits in the UK but there must be health food stores that do similar in NZ. For example, I get Crimbles cakes and biscuits from Holland & Barret in the UK. They have a nice range and as they are a treat and not something I now want to eat a lot of it is not expensive.

I am planning to cook my own GF bread, cakes and biscuits soon as I have bought a bread maker. The thing I am really struggling with is a wider ranege of deserts. I get the Swedish Glace ice cream vanilla is good but chocolate not so good, sorbets and fruit are of course naturally GF/LF. I can make a sort of Eton Mess by ading meringue.

I have bought several cook books and when we have moved house next month plan to really sit down and work out a wider range of GF/LF menu items.

Hoochie - unfortunately, yes - and discovering it also co-incided with me starting at Weightwatchers... Have only made it once though (so far!)

If you google "gluten free New Zealand", lots of hits come up for coeliac societies and on line retailers.

hopefully that will give you somewhere to start.

and I assume there will be a NZ equivalent of coeliac UK, the UK charity that promotes gluten free eating and helps sufferers?

It is a bit of lifestyle change, but you do get used to it, and once you learn to unjangle labelese, it isn't as bleak as it first seems, although I've yet to find something that evem remotely resembles fresh bread.