Thank you for your cookbooks, they are absolute classic baking references. I have been a professional chef for 10 years, specializing in baking, chocolate and pastry and I felt exactly as you do about substitutions. If you're on a diet just don't eat icecream for a while, sugar/fat-free icecream is not icecream. Since my mother, sister and I were diagnosed with coeliac disease a year ago, my view changed a little. Threat of a life-time with no bread ever again will do that. My mother and I have been developing GF recipes and STILL reference your books for the methods and sound scientific reasoning. My GF bread is near perfect (I live in Peru and have access to many great GF flours) but anytime you want to start working on the elusive GF croissant dough, I'll sign up!

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I second all of the earlier dreams of a Rose-class gluten-free baking book. Another good GF resource is Jules Shepard, the founder of Nearly Normal Cooking. Her flour substitute is the best and her recipes work. I know you once dismissed GF baking in your blog, but we celiac patients need your chemistry training and your baking genius.

Having said that, Rose, your new book arrived today. I'm only at page 1, but I'm already eager to start baking, with or without flour! It's a beautiful book and probably the only one that could supplant The Cake Bible on our shelf. My husband gave it to me "a generation ago," as you noted, when we were dating and it's the only cake book I've used since then.

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I too am hoping that Rose will take up the challenge of writing a book specifically for GF baking. I am a dyed-in-the-wool admirer...have all your cookbooks...and would love to learn how to convert the recipes in them to Gluten Free baking. Please Rose? Please consider taking up the mantle of this project.
Gratefully,
K.Phelps

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I too am hoping that Rose will take up the challenge of writing a book specifically for GF baking. I am a dyed-in-the-wool admirer...have all your cookbooks...and would love to learn how to convert the recipes in them to Gluten Free baking. Please Rose? Please consider taking up the mantle of this project.
Gratefully,
K.Phelps

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I learned in August, 2008 that wheat consumption just about kills me. It took a month to feel better. I went out and bought three of Bette Hagman's books and they are good books. But I do not like any of the bread I have made from her recipes. She uses bean flour in most of them and to me bean flour is bitter and the bread still was not what I would call good. Her french bread recipe on the other hand is very good. I would recommend anyone who has trouble with wheat just type in the recipe they are looking for on the Search section of their computer. You will come up with all kinds of recipes.
And I came up with a new one (to me) that used Expandex Modified Tapioca Starch which is supposed to increase the volume, etc of a loaf of yeast bread. Only use 1 to 3 tablespoons of this ingred. in a bread recipe. For baking powder and soda recipes, use your old favorites, just change the flour to gluten free flours and add your xanthan gum or guar gum. The two gums combined give a better finished product than just one alone. I have had excellent results with my old recipes doing this. Use a scant teaspoon gum to one cup flour in your cake recipes. One half tsp for cookies. Hope this helps those with gluten problems. And for those who miss their wheat items, I miss fried chicken at KFC and being able to eat a good hamburger at a drive in.

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Hello Robaire Viloria ,

I make a lot of tortillas. I've been working on my tortillas recipe for quite a awhile and have finally developed a recipe for making tortillas using And old Amish Traditional starter called Herman. I also used a Basic sourdough liquid starter in making tortillas too.

I like using the Traditional Amish starter (Herman) the best. The tortilla are sweet and delicious. They are very soft and flexible. They do not crack or turn into a rubber disc.

I adapted the old Amish starter (Herman) so it can be used right away and not have to wait 10 days to use the starter. It can be used and fed just like any other liquid starter.

I feed my Herman Starter once a week. But when I'm making tortillas he's fed more often.

My favorite tortillas are made from whole wheat, rye flour and all-purpose unbleached flour with flakes of hot dried red chili peppers and dehydrated dried tomatoes, which are kneaded into the dough. You can add just about anything to season and flavor the dough.

To enrich my tortillas I also add ground flax seeds, organic coconut granules finely ground, Spectrum's vegetable shortening and use a Chia seed gel,

I ferment the dough 8 to 10 hours overnight. Then roll out the tortillas the next day.

The tortillas are very easy to roll out. Letting the dough ferment over night really adds and awesome flavor to the dough.

If you would like a copy of my recipe just let me know. I'll be happy to help your Mother produce the best tortillas she has ever made.

Chaconey, The Grand Tortilla Maker

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this week i volunteered to make a cake for my six year old daughters basketball group. they are a bit young to be a team. one of the girls has william beurens syndrome and can not eat gluten or phospates. my kids and i (i have four of them) decided to try and make her a carrot cake. we live in france so this is always a wonderful surprise...well let us hope that this cake is well recieved. i used a mixture of chesnut flour and cornstarch..her mother told me to use 50/50. and i had to a special (levure chimique) without gluten or phospates. i remembered your chestnut sand cake from my very worn out cake bible and decided to type your name into google to see what you were up to. so happy to find you on the web. and i look forward to your non flour chapter. the past few days have been mind boggling. and my cake looks a bit funny but the taste is excellent and my six year old daughter was very happy to create something so her friend could stay in the room while everyone enjoys a bit of cake. in france the man at the health store also suggested farine de lupin??? but i will have to see what i can do with this. if anyone can find the secret to an excellent cake without gluten i think it is you. the cake godess!!!!!

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I find your comment posted on December 12, 2006 9:54 PM a little insulting. I am a person with celiac disease and simply forgoing all products that traditionally contain wheat would be letting the disease control me more than it already does. There are some wonderful gluten free alternatives out there if you look. In fact, every time I bake gluten free cookies, they are so good that my mom comments that she doesn’t know why anyone would ever want or need gluten. I think you couldn’t possibly write what you wrote if you really understood what you are saying and the kinds of compromises that people with celiac disease, gluten intolerance, and food allergies have to make every day.

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Donna, this is my most requested cake. A couple of things to check.
1. The water bath needs to be very hot, 140-150 degrees. I usually, will place the water bath in the oven after I have whipped the eggs.
2. I will whip the eggs to where they are just about to soft peaks, since triple the volume maybe hard to judge.
3. The cake is done when the cake has set along the edges and the center should wobble a bit.
4. As Rose mentioned, a temperature reading at the center should be 140-150 degrees.
5. The baking time may take longer up to 18 minutes.
6. However the mot critical factor is temperature of the oven. As Rose has mentioned on her blog, the oven's temperature you set may not be what the oven is actually doing. I have to set my oven to 460, to obtain a 425 degree temperature in my oven!
Enjoy.

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Hi Rose
I am just trying your Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte for the first time. The directions say to bake for five minutes, place a buttered foil over the cake and bake for another 10 minutes. Is that correct--only 10 minutes? I know it says that it will look soft and that is as it should, but when I pulled it out, it still just looked like the batter! You referenced the water bath to make the texture of the cake like cheesecake, but of course cheesecake bakes much longer. I am a fairly experienced baker but not with flourless cakes, so I was a bit confused. Thanks for any help!

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I have a great solution for those looking for a gluten free bread.
Pao de quiejo (sp?)a brazilian cheese bread (usually served in steak houses)is traditionally made with manioc starch instead of wheat flour. it is quick and easy and you can use bob's red mill tapioca flour. this is the same as manioc.
I have no problem with gluten but I would heartily recomend this dense chewy roll

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M,
until society deals with the fact that celiac disease is the most common genetic disease in european-descent people, you're going to have to become your own expert...start with bette hagman's recipes, practice, and you'll learn the various properties and be able to make whatever you want. sometimes when i've tweaked "normal" recipes i've come up with better results than the wheat versions. i was quite the baker pre-diagnosis, and thought my baking days were over, but that was completely incorrect.

when i cook for my friends and family, it is 100% gluten free, and we have pasta, cake, and bread just as anyone else would. i'm even making a wedding cake!

good luck, and congrats on being so supportive for your family. by the way, if your husband has it, he was born with it--one cannot "get it" later in life; symptoms might not appear for decades, but it tears up your insides all the same.

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My nephew's homemade bread has done something that really puzzles me. The top half raises light and fluffy, but the bottom half is heavy. He raise it in a lukewarm oven. Is that causing the problem? I have made bread for years but nothing like this has ever happened to me.

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Rose, I came to your website because I have your cake bible and enjoy it immensely. That being said, your responses to those who are requesting assistance from you regarding baking with gluten free flour are disapointing to say the least. It might not be your area of expertise, but the "many things that are wonderful without any flour at all" does not really address the question at hand. Let's say Rose wakes up one morning and she has celiac's. This means no more baking for a living-the airborn flour contains gluten and affects the skin and lungs. Now what does Rose do? You never have a piece of cake, a cookie, a piece of pie, a wonderful slice of homemade bread again. Your favorite pizza is off limits, you cannot order anything with gravy on it when you go out to eat, and your food choices are now limited. Do we need cake to survive? Do we need bread? No. Do these things make life a little "sweeter"? Of course. For health's sake people with this disease give up the things you and I take for granted, but never take this as easily done and without mourning. If you don't want to try to make up gluten free recipies that's your choice and I respect you for it, but your glib response hurts. You don't have to make this sacrifice, but please, don't belittle those who are trying to make the best of a bad situation. Thank you.

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I've become interested in baking for celiacs since my husband's sister was diagnosed this year. Celiac runs in families, so my husband might get it at some point.

I love to cook and bake and try to convert family favorites for my beloved SIL. Breads are the hardest for her because nothing tastes good. It's tough to give up bread for good, especially when everyone around you is eating lovely bread and you can't. (Celiac is a condition where gluten eats the inside of the small intestine--eating even small amounts of gluten will eventually kill you.)

There are wheat flour substitutes, but they don't have the same weight and texture, so they don't perform the same way. It's maddening. Please, Ms. Beranbaum, we need you.

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I'm a long-time fan of your books, & I was recently diagnosed with Celiac disease. With a few tears, I passed my beloved copy of the Bread Bible on to my son, who is a rising sophomore in college & learning to bake bread.

I did keep my copies of the Pie & Cake Bibles, since I can adapt many recipes to g-f. (In fact, just tonight I'm baking your peach pie...) But bread is by far the greatest challenge.

Bette Hagman is a great resource, but I would certainly be thrilled if you turned your meticulous perfectionism to the challenges of gluten-free bread! Come on, I know you love to master a difficult art... it's a very exacting & scientific procedure involving many exotic flours... & guess what-- the NIH is just now beginning a huge pr campaign to get doctors to properly diagnose Celiac, so the timing would be great for a Gluten-Free Bible!

Thank you for many years of happy baking.

Leah

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My moms been making tortillas since she was 9yrs old. She now lives with me here in Hawaii and can't seem to make the tortillas without them coming out hard and rubbery. I told her it was probably the humidity, the water, or flour (gold medal). Please help, if we buy them here they cost 10 to 25 cents each. RSVP

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