"GlutenFree" news and stories

Gluten-free product family. Photo: Betty Crocker

The gluten-free community has been in the limelight in recent months, and now they have a new celebrity of sorts backing them.

Betty Crocker now offers a line of gluten-free classic dessert mixes -- Gluten Free Yellow Cake Mix, Gluten Free Devil's Food Cake Mix, Gluten Free Brownie Mix and Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix.

Among the ingredients in the mix is rice flour, a grain allowed on a gluten-free diet.

While the price point is a little higher than the normal cake mixes (the retail price is usually around $4.49), it saves a trip to the health-food store for your next gluten-free brownie craving. Plus, other comparable gluten-free mixes usually run a price point of $6 and up.

"There was always a premium paid for a product that was considered gluten-free," Elaine Monarch, executive director of the Celiac Disease Foundation, tells Slashfood. "Now that General Mills has brought that into the mainstream for a much lower price, it's fabulous."

The Betty Crocker Baking Team says they came up with the mixes after witnessing firsthand through two staff members how the disease can affect day-to-day living.

While I love bread, and feel so lucky to be pretty much allergy free, I know it can be tough on those who do have a serious food allergy. I once had a friend with coeliac disease. I remember how careful she had to be with what she ate and all the questions she asked at restaurants before ordering. I made a gluten free cake for her, but now I can't remember what kind of flour I used (of course).

It shouldn't be too hard for my friend to find good gluten free goodies now, though. According to the Orlando Sentinel there's such a demand now that it would be foolish for producers to ignore it. Apparently most health experts thought of coeliac as a European disease, but after a 2003 study by the University of Maryland which found that 1 in 133 Americans suffered from it coeliac disease jumped into the spotlight.

It used to be that there were only a few products at health food stores, but now you can find gluten free products anywhere.

Love, loss, adventure and blueberry pie? Those are all themes that run throughout the new movie My Blueberry Nights, which opens nationwide today. The movie stars singer Norah Jones, in her debut acting role. She crisscrossing the country in an attempt to find herself and in the process, frequents classic diners and eats a lot of pie. Blueberry pie to be exact.

The famous vegan, gluten-free and refined sugar-free New York City bakery, Babycakes NYC supplied all the pies used on the set of the film. They've offered us a rough "recipe" (it's actually a list of ingredients, but I'm sure the intrepid bakers among you might be able to craft it into a pie) for the blueberry pie that Norah Jones is about to take a bite of in the picture above.

Check out the film and, if any of you make this pie, let us know!

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Shauna, the Gluten-free Girl has been living with Celiac disease her entire life, but has only been eating gluten free for just over a year and a half. In that time, she has felt better than she ever did before and she has definitely learned more about gluten-free cooking and baking than she ever thought she would know. By her own admission, she does not make gluten free baked goods all that often, in large part because it is more complicated than a standard muffin and the pre-made mixes are usually just as good. This particular batch of Gluten Free Blueberry Muffins, however, she made completely from scratch. In her post, Shauna explains how she developed a feel for using gluten free flours - sweet white sorghum flour, white rice flour and tapioca flour in this case - to achieve the familiar consistency of a muffin made with wheat. To the inexperienced, gluten free baking sounds like a challenge, but as with anything else, familiarity makes things easier and Shauna's successful muffins prove that point.

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Even more impressive and far healthier than the recreations of Girl Scout cookies are Gluten Free Girl's nostalgic attempt at making the Fig Newtons she loved so much as a little girl. While she admits that Fig Newtons weren't really that good, she still misses them in her new gluten-free lifestyle. She couldn't find a recipe, so she made one up. Her fig spread, which includes port, pomegranate juice, and Meyer lemon juice, couldn't be lusher. Her dough is a butter cookie base with white rice flour, millet flour, cornstarch and teff flour. And lots and lots of nutmeg. It sounds wonderful! And hypo-allergenic. Who'da thunk it.

[thanks for the tip Larissa!]

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