About

About this site

This is a blog with recipes and pictures I have taken. All of the recipes are gluten-free; some are also egg-free, soy-free and dairy-free.

Who I am

My name is Emilia, I live in Finland and I keep this blog because I like to bake (a lot), cook and take photos of food and other things; I really enjoy keeping this blog, at the moment anyway. I hope that this website and the recipes might be useful for other people who also avoid gluten; it can sometimes seem difficult.

How I bake gluten-free

I try to use only whole flours when I bake and I mainly use quinoa flour, although I am now trying to learn how to use coconut flour. Buckwheat, nut flours and potato flour are also flours I use sometimes, depending on the situation.

Xanthan gum is something I avoid and I either don’t use a binder – muffins, cupcakes and cakes don’t need a binder in my opinion- or I use psyllium husk powder. You can find it on Amazon for a fairly good prize. It gives a different texture than xanthan gum; much more like the texture gluten provides in baked goods.

For one cup of fluids in a recipe you should use half a tablespoon of psyllium husk powder. It is usually placed in the fluid and then left to sit for ten minutes, after that you use the fluid as you would in regular baking. I sometimes place it in the flour, but this depends much on the recipe; the basic rule is to mix it into the fluids first.

Milk products are something that many celiacs have a problem with and I try think of an alternative to dairy in my recipes whenever possible. I have found that if soy is not a problem then the possibilities are endless; there so many soy products that you can use as you would use a dairy product. I like using almond milk, almond cream instead of dairy, but my favourite substitute is coconut milk and cream, whenever I don’t use dairy. If you need help with dairy-free and egg-free baking, I suggest you take a look at vegan food blogs and sites; vegans do not use any animal derived products and they have come up with great substitutes for eggs and dairy in baking.

Sugar is my choice for a sweetener, although sometimes I use honey or stevia. I prefer using muscovado, especially in chocolate desserts, and unrefined sugar is also something I am fond of because of the taste.

How I feel about being celiac

I don´t feel like being celiac is a big part of how I view myself and I don´t think of myself as having a problem because I am celiac. After I left gluten out my life has not changed much, although my health improved. My attitude towards being celiac might come from the fact that I live in a country where food intolerances are very common and where people view being celiac for example as something that is not much out of the ordinary.

All celiacs seem to have different levels of tolerance for gluten, and I for example can eat anything fermented, be it blue cheese, whiskey or soy sauce. On the other hand I can’t eat certified gluten-free oats or syrups made from grains. I also take risks sometimes with eating because I just love some foods so much – I for example eat escargots even though they are cleansed with flour, I haven’t gotten sick yet, but you never know.

All recipes here depend on the use of gluten-free ingredients and I trust that everyone knows what they can tolerate. Some for example can’t have whiskey and if a recipe uses whiskey you should replace it with something you can have without health problems.

What I do if I accidentally eat gluten

I always know when I have eaten gluten because I get at first a strange empty feeling in my stomach, after that I start having pains.

My general strategy is to take L-Glutamine powder one tablespoon every four hours or so, this helps the stomach to heel and it really helps with the pain. I also take some turmeric and DL-Phenylalanine; the turmeric helps with the healing and because I get depressed from gluten I take the DL-Phenylalanine which helps to elevate my mood.

B-vitamins are also important if you ingest gluten because it eats away the B-vitamins, the body needs them to process gluten and sugar, and this might also be behind the reason of the so called gluten depression.

My general food philosophy

I don’t believe in bad foods or forbidden foods if they are natural foods, I have a problem with unnatural sweeteners, trans fats and things like that. Taste is also one of the biggest reasons why I don’t want to eat foods that have many chemicals added to them.

This is the only guideline I have with foods; as whole as possible and maybe then comes the inclination to use organic and local produce etc.