Gluten free help - any ideas on how to satisfy bread/pastry cravings?

[FourForYouGlenCocoYouGoGlenCoco]

Sorry not an AIBU but posting for traffic - hope that’s okay.

I’ve recently stopped eating gluten, and so far it’s going okay - feeling good after meals, and have found lots of nice recipes to cook.

The main thing I’m really missing though is bread and pastries!! I love bread and any kind of sweet pastry with all my heart. Any ideas on how I can satisfy that craving? Are there any good gluten free pastries or baguette-type breads out there? Or, failing that, is there anything I can have as a treat that will fool my body into thinking it’s having lots of lovely baguette/pastry?

Thanks in advance for any tips!

Waitrose sell Scharr GF frozen white crusty rolls and pain au chocolates which are nice.

Jus-Rol gluten free ready roll puff pastry is excellent. I use it for pies, tarts, etc.

Warburton’s sourdough and bloomer are the best gf loaves I’ve tried.

The Mrs Crimbles biscuits are nice.

www.mrscrimbles.com/products/type/macaroons-coconut-rings/

Gkuten free Pannini are usually good genius also does a gut buster and brioche buns (they might be gut buster brioche I can't remember) they are also soft and nice not too crumbly

Make your own pastry? Just add a small egg or an egg yolk it will hold together not break your teeth and if you want it to colour add suger just don't cook too long it never really colours like regular pastry and you end up with bricks

Thanks so much everyone!

You can order good bread from specialist bakeries online.

Me too. Tomorrow I'm planning to make some blueberry muffins and banana bread using GF flour and freeze into portions that can be defrosted.

Warburton tiger bread is the only bread my GF kid will eat and I don't mind it at all!

Thanks all! Also just wanted to ask something else in case anyone might be able to help. When I’m on holiday (e.g. in France) and eat small amounts of baguette-type bread, I don’t really get bloated and tend to feel okay. I recently went to Paris and had a baguette sandwich one day, and felt okay. Does anyone know why that might be, and has anyone had similar experiences? I’m wondering if it might be something to do with ingredients in British bread compared to ingredients in French bread. I’m pretty bad with pasta though, and get very bloated there, so will stick to gluten free pasta and noodles etc.

Wheat free direct are excellent as are voakes pies

On your France question op are you actually diagnosed coeliac or are you avoiding wheat for other reasons?
DH is a silent coeliac in that he doesn’t have a lot of nasty symptoms after eating wheat but it’s still doing the damage internally. We only found out after he lost a lot of weight and was very anemic

Allmy oh gosh, sorry to hear about your DH! I’m not a diagnosed coelic; it’s just that I tend to feel pretty rough when eating foods with flour and gluten in them like bread and pasta, so have tried cutting them out for a while and not eating them (about 6 weeks), and feel much better.

Schar pain au chocolate is labelled ‘gluten free’ but I reacted very badly to it. A closer look at the ingredients shows it contains ‘GF free wheat starch’. So if you’re intolerant to wheat this product will give you horrible pain and diarrhoea. Even if you aren’t, please read the many negative reviews of it and feel free to boycott it on behalf of those Scher’s lazy labelling had harmed.

Anyway. OP the truth is no substitute tastes as good as wheat pastries. Best GF bread is Warburtons’ Tiger loaf, try that as toast (or eggy bread) with honey. Best GF pasta is Garufalo corn/rice/quinoa range.

GF bread is never great, M&S and Waitrose have the best free from bread IMO. The Schar vitality bread is nice, Not keen on any of the rest - and not yet succeeded in a good recipe to bake it myself.

GF pastry is v easy to make for yourself - I make pies, custard slices, pain au raisin/chocolat etc and they all work out v well. The only pastry I haven't yet perfected is GF filo, that's trickier.

Have a look at Becky Excell's cookery books & blog for easy recipes: glutenfreecuppatea.co.uk/

If you're a more advanced baker, then Katarina Cermelj's book 'Baked to Perfection' is brilliant, I love her pastry recipes, she also has a blog - theloopywhisk.com/

As for your Paris question - it may be that they were sourdough baguettes, some sourdough recipes have v minimal gluten - no good for coeliacs but may work for you.

Warburtons GF crumpets are good
in general I prefer GF wraps and square thins to other varieties of bread products
M n S date and walnut crisp bread is my all time favourite - I take 2-3 packets on holiday as it’s great for lunches or to go with a starter
Kirsty’s GF sweet chilli pizza is a hit here too

@FourForYouGlenCocoYouGoGlenCoco Ah right I just didn’t want you to think that no symptoms didn’t mean no damage if you had a diagnosis.

No idea on the French question but hope you get sorted and find what works for you.

@FourForYouGlenCocoYouGoGlenCoco
european breads generally are traditionally proved.
mum bread is industrial and uses the Chorleywood process
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process

Doves farm pasta is not good particularly the spaghetti I think its made with rice flour.

I really like the edamame bean protein pasta by explore cuisine. Its high protein, very filling and doesn't fall apart.
The chickpea one is awful its like wet cardboard.

I mean the doves farm is not bad/pretty good* sorry

If you can bake OP then the recipes here are the best GF ones going.

theloopywhisk.com

Coeliac here. I like Asda's sliced brown GF bread, I find it tasty, satisfying and easy to digest. Lovely toasted with Marmite.

M&S GF sourdough is also quite nice.

Used to live in France and had the same experience. French baguettes seem to be made with flour which has slightly less gluten than british loaves. Home made pastry seems to be OK in moderation. So, if not actually coeliac, I would suggest experiment and see how it goes. Many people are not totally gluten intolerant but do find they feel bloated if they have more than a little.

I second Warburton tiger bread. And their square rolls (only available at Tesco here) are also great and don't need to be toasted.
M & S is awful and once disintegrated into sawdust in my hands.

As someone else suggested, Becky Excell and her blogs and books are your answer.

Her recipes are amazing, and she has really made gluten free baking accessible. You would be hard pushed to tell that any of her baking is gluten free, which is a compliment in itself, as some GF stuff is awful.

Her bread recipes are fab too.