What's Cooking?

Gluten Free Dairy Free Banana Cream Pie

Happy Holidays!

The title should read "Gluten free, dairy free, refined sugar free, banana cream pie", but that just seemed a little over the top long.

It was a good Christmas, with a nice brunch at my mom's -- where she made some delicious gluten free goodies for Mark.  We skipped dinner here, but did have a great banana cream pie. 

All right. I'll be honest - we didn't actually skip skip dinner. We ate bacon. And then banana cream pie. In a roundabout sort of way, we got at least a few food groups in.

The banana cream pie was a trial run for a lunch on Monday, as one of my friends is wheat intolerant as well.  So between the three of us we have two people who can't have wheat (one with no gluten either), and one dairy free person.  This pie has a custard made from light coconut milk, corn starch as thickener, maple syrup as sweetener, and meringue for the topping.

The crumb base is made from a crumbled cake I made using a recipe from the book "Babycakes: Vegan, mostly gluten free, mostly sugar free recipes from New York's most talked about bakery". I really, really wanted to like this cookbook, but have not had much luck with the recipes.

The recipe is after the jump, along with a mini-review of the book.

Gluten free Blueberry Oatmeal muffins

Well, that's been a long hiatus!  

I decided to post this recipe because I've noticed how hard it is to find simple Gluten-Free recipes!  My significant other is undergoing some investigation for Gluten intolerance and/or Celiac disease, so I have started experimenting with wheat free cooking.  It's a challenge, that's for sure!  Bread will be the next big thing I attempt, since both of us really used to enjoy those grainy artisan breads from the bakery.  

Mark (my significant other) wants me to make gluten-free beer, but I think I'll stick to baking. This recipe calls for ingredients that should be easy to find. 

Just a note about ingredients:  I've used oatmeal in these, and oatmeal is generally considered safe for Celiac and wheat-free diets (and here is another link from Health Canada).  However, the 'generally' is there because there is some fear of cross-contamination of the grain. If you are incredibly sensitive to gluten, or deathly allergic to wheat, please use caution with the oatmeal!  If in any doubt at all, don't make these, and if only a little worried, then make sure to use certified gluten and wheat free oats. If you are newly diagnosed, then tuck this recipe away, and make it when you are reintroducing potentially problematic foods!