Gluten Free Product Reviews

The Free From Food Awards – The Winners

Written on April 19, 2012 by Gluten Free Mrs D in Gluten Free Goods, News

On Tuesday night I was very lucky to attend the annual Free From Awards party where this year’s winners were finally announced. The Free From Food Awards are now in their fifth very successful year. The Awards shortlist included a very impressive 300 products in 17 different categories which are all free from gluten, wheat, dairy (cow’s milk) and in addition some entries are also free from other major allergens including nuts and eggs. I was delighted to have been invited to join the judging panel this year and you can read my post on being a judge for the awards here. The prizes were presented by chef Anthony Worrall Thompson who has supported the Free From Food Awards from the start.

The invitation only awards ceremony was held in the Museum of London in the Docklands. This year we only had the DLR to contend with, unlike last year when a fatality on the over ground train line to the awards party location in Kew meant I was stuck at Clapham Junction until Caroline Aherne of Sugargrain (who’d I’d never met before!) very kindly came to my rescue!

Gluten free beer! I tried the Cornish Stinger’s Nettle Beer. (Verdict? Would be great with ice and mint on a summer’s evening)

The Awards ceremony/party gave me the opportunity to meet with many people I’ve chatted to via Twitter and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting up with old friends and new. When I started writing this blog, I really had no idea of the friendly gluten free community I would become part of and I think it’s amazing.

A winning trio! Mairead Maher of Lavida Foods, Caroline Aherne of Sugargrain and Stevan Taylor of the Foodamentalists.

In particular I was looking forward to finally meeting, Stevan Taylor who owns Yorkshire based Foodamentalists. I was so pleased for him that his gluten, wheat and dairy free frangipane mince pies won the dairy/gluten free Christmas foods category. Sadly I won’t be able to eat these amazing mince this year due to my almond allergy. However Stevan very generously developed some gluten, wheat, dairy and nut free chocolate brownies which he gave to me on the night. In addition to winning the Christmas foods category, Stevan also won a Highly Commended and two Commended awards for his fantastic products.

I was really pleased that Fria won the gluten free bread and bread mixes category with their very tasty Grova sliced loaf and also won a Highly Commended for their Grov minibaguettes. This Swedish bread company produces fantastic gluten free and dairy free bread with interesting flavours and a lower fat / higher fibre content to many of the gluten free breads on the market. They also sell some mighty sweet treats such as the Kanelbulle I’d tried in Stockholm and the seriously delicious Kladdkaka which proved such a hit at last year’s allergy show and which won a Commended this year in the gluten free cakes FFF Awards category. I hope that by winning awards in both the Bread and Cake categories, the profile of Fria’s products will be raised and attract the interest of UK major supermarkets in stocking Fria’s fantastic quality products thus making them more widely available.

The evening gave the attendees a fantastic opportunity to network and chat with both large and small scale producers, such as the lovely Russ and Yvette who are the husband and wife team behind Incognito Cakes. Incognito Cakes won a Highly Commended for their Choc Fudge Cake in the very competitive cakes and cake mixes category. The evening provided a great example that if you have the desire and passion to do something you love (whatever the size of your operation) then you can be successful.

Russ and Yvette, Incognito Cakes

One of the interesting products that I tried as part of the judging panel were gluten free spring rolls from Butterfly Snacks. Gluten free Chinese food is extremely difficult to find due to the abundance of soya and other gluten containing sauces in most dishes and this is one world cuisine which is almost exclusively necessary to cook from scratch at home. Unfortunately this product didn’t win an award this year but I’m glad Butterfly Snacks are producing spring rolls which certainly fill a gap in the gluten free market.

A full list of the winners of the Free From Food Awards 2012 is here. Please do take a few minutes to read through the full list. I found lots of interesting sounding products which I’d like to try and had not been aware of before, as well as many of my favourites.

A few picks from the winners from me:

· Gluten-free pasta and pizza bases/mixes: Winner - Farabella Acini di Pepe/Pasta Grains A new product for me which I’m keen to try as a substitute for couscous as the summer salad months approach.
· Gluten-free savoury biscuits and snacks Winner – Darling Spuds Tomato, Green Olive and Oregano crisps and Highly Commended Sour Cream with a hint of Mexican Chilli Coeliacs rejoice! Finally, a truly gluten free crisp. The packets even carry the crossed grain symbol. I’ve bought these from Ocado and the flavours are fantastic. The owners of Darling Spuds couldn’t attend the Awards ceremony as they were hosting two children from Chernobyl, which makes me love this company even more.
· Free From Ingredients Joint Winner – Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour I really like the mix of beans in this flour mix and use it for baking cakes, including the recent Orange & Polenta cake. It’s more expensive than other gluten free flours but it gives an interesting texture and great flavour to cakes.
· Pies, Flans, pizzas, one pot meals Highly Commended – Dietary Specials Bonta d’Italia Marherita Pizza This pizza was genuinely fantastic. I liked the fact you could add your own toppings to this thin crispy pizza if you wanted to. I hope DS get this stocked more widely than at Asda, where I’m not a customer.
· Raw Food Winner – InSpiral’s Raw Dehydrated Kale Chips Cheesie Purple Corn Lots of rave reviews amongst those who’ve tried these kale chips mean they are a must try. I’m interested to find out how cheesie they taste when they are vegan don’t contain any cheese.

The winners line up with Anthony Worral Thompson and Michelle Berriedale-Johnson

A huge congratulations to all of the winners in this year’s awards. Many thanks to Cresssida and Michelle for inviting me to join the judging panel and for all their hard work in making the awards the success it is.

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When Life Gets Complicated…Bake Cake

Written on March 12, 2012 by Gluten Free Mrs D in Almond Allergy, Gluten Free Goods

When I was diagnosed a couple of weeks ago with an allergy to almonds, hazelnuts and chestnuts I was not – to put it politely – very happy. Life has suddenly become a lot more complicated.

I’ve suffered a couple of allergic reactions to almonds (one far more severe than the other) and went to see an allergy specialist to be properly diagnosed. The more serious allergic reaction had happened after I’d eaten fresh almonds on one of the tiny Aeolian islands off the coast of Sicily last year. Within a short time of eating them my whole body was covered in big itchy hives, I had a thick scarlet welt around my neck and shortness of breath with dizzyness. Although I was in a village, it was quite remote with limited / no emergency medical care. However, I think the situation would have been far more terrifying had I been half way up a mountain eating a nut bar or trekking somewhere remote when I suffered the allergic reaction.

I’m still coming to terms with how allergies to these nuts will impact my life (particularly when travelling and eating out) so I shall save a longer blog post on this until I’ve fully articulated my thoughts.

When Caleigh asked whether I’d be interested in taking part in a Spring recipe challenge, I was really keen to participate. This isn’t a recipe blog, mainly because I usually cook straight from recipe books. I’m starting to think that perhaps this will have to change, though, given the prevalence of ground almonds in gluten free baking recipes. The Spring recipe challenge is using oranges as the theme since they are in season at the moment. The challenge is to create a dish which uses oranges, is free from gluten and dairy as well as being free from almonds, hazelnuts and chestnuts.

Thanks to the great gluten free community on Twitter, I learnt that polenta can be used in recipes as a substitution for ground almonds. Who knew? Not me! One of my favourite cakes is this Clementine Cake by Nigella. I’ve adapted the original recipe to remove the ground almonds. The cake is amazingly easy to make. Boiling the clementines for 2 hours will make your house smell absolutely heavenly, even before you pop the cake in the oven.

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(A Not Very Complicated) Orange Polenta Cake (gluten free, dairy free, almond free)

Ingredients

- 4 to 5 seedless clementines (weighing approximately 375 g)

- 6 eggs

- 225 g caster sugar

- 175 g gluten free polenta

- 75 g gluten free plain flour (I use Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Flour, I love the mix of beans in the flour but Dove’s would work too)

- 1 heaped teaspoon of gluten free baking powder

Method

1. Put the clementines in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil. Cook for 2 hours. Drain and allow to cool. (If you’ve used clementines with seeds in you will need to cut them in half when cool enough to handle and remove seeds at this stage). Take the whole fruit (including skin, pith fruit etc) and blitz it in a food processor/blender to make it smoother. Before I had a blender I mashed it up a bit with a potato masher (!!) and it worked just fine.

2. Preheat oven to 190 C. Grease and line a springform tin. Either a 21 or 23cm tin will work. I used a 23 cm tin.

3. If you’ve blitzed the clementines in a food processor/blender then add all the other ingredients and mix. If you’re not using a food processor, beat the eggs by hand and add the sugar, polenta, gluten free flour and baking powder and mix well, adding in the pulped clementines last.

3. Pour the mixture into the cake tin. Bake for one hour. Check the cake after 40 minutes. I cover in foil at this point to prevent the top of the cake from burning.

4. The cake is done when a skewer inserted to the cake comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.

The cake tastes delicious as it is but I add a syrup:

Ingredients

125 ml fresh orange juice

125 g golden caster sugar

Zest of 2 clementines

Method

1. Put the sugar and orange into a small saucepan

2. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes until the syrup thickens and then sugar is fully dissolved

3. Allow the syrup to cool

4. Poke holes on the top of the cold cake and poor over the cooled syrup

5. Sprinkle the zest of the clementines over the cake

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This full on orange fest of a cake will keep for up to 5 days in an airtight tin. It tastes even better the day after you make it, meaning it’s the perfect bake ahead cake.

A huge thank you to Caleigh for organising this Spring recipe challenge. You will find a round up of everyone’s recipes on Caleigh’s blog this afternoon. I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else has created, all of which will be safe for me to eat!

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Free From Food Awards 2012: The Shortlist

Written on February 21, 2012 by Gluten Free Mrs D in Gluten Free Goods

The shortlist has been published today for the annual Free From Food Awards which are are now in their 5th year. A very impressive 300 free from products were entered into 17 different categories which ranged from breakfast cereals, breads, cakes to gluten free beer and even a new category of raw and superfood.

logo 12 revovles Free From Food Awards 2012: The Shortlist

I was really thrilled to be invited to join the judging panel. My fellow judges included journalists, nutritionists, food manufacturers, supermarket recipe development consultants, foodies as well as other Coeliacs and gluten free bloggers. The judging panel included people who do not need to eat gluten free foods and I thought this approach was good because it also meant the products were judged against their regular, gluten containing counterparts. As a consumer of gluten free food, it was fascinating for me to hear the views of the products being tasted by people who do not ordinarily need to eat them.

What surprised me about the judging was how animated the debates became as judges argued passionately (both for and against) about the merits of some of the products being tasted. Michelle did a tremendous job in chairing the discussions and encouraging the judging panel to reach a decision. I was also amazed at the level of organisation which is required just to hold the judging sessions. Cressida managed wonderfully with preparing the products to be tasted and within the allotted judging session time.

The shortlist has many companies and products that I’m familiar with as well as others which are new to me and that I look forward to trying soon. I encourage you to click on this link to view the full shortlist and see the wonderfully diverse range of products entered into the awards this year. Some highlights for me from the shortlist are:

Bob’s Red Mill – Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour which I use to bake with. It’s more expensive than Dove’s gluten free plain flour but I really like the texture and taste of the bean flours in this mix. I made a fantastic gluten free banana bread with dark chocolate chunks using this flour.

Crazy Bakers – Half Pipes Swedish Crispbreads: I brought a packet of these back with me from Sweden. They’re huge!

Darling Spuds – Fire Roasted Jalapeno Crisps / Sour Cream with a hint of Mexican Chilli / Tomato, Olive & Oregano: I recently tried and really enjoyed these crisps which are labelled ‘suitable for Coeliacs’ with interesting flavours. Since the change in EU gluten free labelling law change last month, great tasting flavoured crisps suitable for Coeliacs are hard to find.

Foodamentalists – Frangipane Mince Pies which were a big hit in the D household before Christmas. Fantastic to see Foodamentalists have a number of other products short listed this year.

Fria – Shortlisted in the bread category for their tasty Grova dark sliced loaf and Grova mini baguettes which are perfect for lunch boxes. Fria have also been short listed in the cake category for their Kladdkaka Chocolate Brownie Cake. I’m hungry for this rich chocolate Swedish brownie cake even typing the word ‘kladdkaka’.

A huge congratulations and well done to all the short listed companies!

The Free From Food Awards ceremony will be held on 17^th April where the winners will be announced.

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Stockholm: Gluten Free Supermarket Shopping

Written on January 13, 2012 by Gluten Free Mrs D in Gluten Free Shopping

One of the things I love about travel overseas is exploring foreign supermarkets. Wherever in the world you are, there’s always something very exciting to be found.

Here’s what I discovered in Stockholm.

ALL of the supermarkets I visited in Central Stockholm carried gluten free goods. I found the excellent Swedish produced Fria gluten free bread in the freezer in every shop I visited, along with other gluten free treats.

I found these in a COOP the size of a small Tesco Local store in Gamla Stan:

We found many products from the Finnish brand Semper on sale in this supermarket as well as the other supermarkets we visited.
This was the freezer section in an ICA in Sodermalm:

And THIS is the gluten free section in the basement (lowest level) of the Åhléns City department store. Feast on this, people!:

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This is a really big food hall in the Åhléns City department store. At the time I visited the gluten free section was located near aisle number 1 but ask staff if you can’t find, although the ‘Glutenfritt‘ sign was clearly visible from some way distance! From the photos you can see they have an amazing and extensive selection of gluten free goods. These included breads, bread mixes (which are in handy for storage tetra-pack type cartons in the photo above), sweet and savoury biscuits, traditional Swedish crispbreads and interesting looking flours. The freezer contained a large selection of gluten free breads, bread rolls, cinnamon buns (kanelbulle), apple muffins, chocolate brownie cake (kladdkaka), pizza bases and more. Many of these were from the Fria gluten free range.

Somewhat hilariously as I was standing there taking photos, a Swedish couple approached the section and let out the same whelp of delight at the extensive gluten free goods as I had 5 minutes before them. I think the shriek of excitement sounded better in Swedish though!

Essential details:

Details for the stores I visited and found a great selection of gluten free goods.

Åhléns City: Department store located at Klarabergsgatan 50, 111 21 Stockholm. Closest station, T-Centralen

Coop: Branches all over Sweden. Photo above taken in Coop Järntorget 80, 11129 Stockholm. Nearest station, Gamla Stan.

ICA supermarkets. Nationwide chain selling many gluten free lines including Fria gluten free bread.

Finally, no trip to Sweden would be complete without a couple of Plopps:

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Have you visited Sweden? Are there any supermarkets or stores you can recommend for a good selection of gluten free goods?

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