The holiday season is the biggest time of the year for baking. Even people who don’t bake so much as a chocolate chip cookie the rest of the year will try their hand at a batch of gingerbread cookies or a homemade pie sometime around Thanksgiving or Christmas. The baking season can be quite difficult if you are gluten free – or are baking some gluten free goodies for friends and family members with dietary restrictions – because most books and recipes are geared towards traditional bakers. Fortunately, Gluten-Free Baking for the Holidays: 60 Recipes for Traditional Festive Treats is designed with gluten free baking in mind and is filled with holiday recipes that you won’t have to create your own modifications for to make them gluten free.
One of the most important recipes in the book is for the homemade gluten free flour mixture found near the start of the book. This is the base for all of the recipes in the book, and although you can buy commercially made gluten free flour mixes, this will get you the best results with these recipes. You can make it in small quantities for small batches or a large quantity if you want to keep it on hand for other baking. The recipes include cookies, cakes, pies, breads and deep fried treats. From a complete gingerbread house to homemade panettone, there is something for every holiday occasion in here.
The book is beautifully put together, with lovely pictures throughout to illustrate the recipes and very clean layouts that are easy to read. Although there are only 60 recipes in the book, it is a good sized volume and there is a lot of additional information in here, starting with a primer on gluten free baking at the beginning to the details of every recipe. The recipes in here don’t need to be relegated just to holiday baking, but you will find a lot of inspiration in here and probably a few favorites that might start some new holiday traditions.
What do you think?