Vegan MoFo: Gluten Free Humpday. xGFx

So, I’m not going to pretend I know what I’m doing with gluten free baking, I’ve made at most three or four gluten free baked products in my life. But I’ve been curious, and I have friends with serious gluten issues; it would be nice to be able to accommodate their needs.

I also have a bit of a fear of gluten free products, and sure, that phobia has been mitigated slightly since trying amazing baked goods from at Bunner’s Bakery in Toronto, or Burlington, ON’s Kindfood, and Sweet Freedom in Philadelphia, PA, but whenever I hear those two words combined… gluten free… I still get a bit nervous. In my past food adventures I’ve had some really not so great gluten free products, with unpleasant flavours, weird textures, and a whole lot of bleh. But the same goes for some vegan items from long long ago, and things have improved! A lot! In any case, I wanted to challenge myself to start working on my gluten free baking skills.

Conveniently soon after I decided to work on these skills, Laurie Sadowski (author of the Allergy Free Cook Bakes Bread) had posted about needing recipe testers for a new gluten free vegan cookbook. I was sold. And I was ready, and up to facing the unknown head on. I am the recipe tester version for dummies.

Today I made her Olive Oil Orange Cake. Freshly squeezed orange juice, homemade apple sauce from freshly picked apples, and mysterious flours I hadn’t worked with before. The hunt for Sorghum flour turned into a fun trip to Bulk Barn, a bulk food store I’ve only seen in Ontario, which I’ve been to before, but never explored as much as I did that day.

Combining colourful flours

The end result – flavourful orange cake, spongy, and no gluten free aftertaste. It was so easy, a gluten free newbie like me can do it! I realize now, that I should have used a smaller pan, but I’ll know better for next time.

I’ll work on making it prettier next time!
So first gluten free experiment was a success. If you want gluten free recipes I suggest heading over to the awesome Vegan Mofo Gluten Free RSS feed package!

Tomorrow is a day I’ve really been looking forward to. I’ll be sharing my Things I Love Thursday list on here! Happy MoFo!