No gluten? No problem.

In my years as a pastry chef and chocolatier, I would never go out of my way to include gluten in my baking and pastry creations, but I certainly didn’t avoid it either. If you’ve been working in a professional kitchen or bakeshop for the past few years, you've undoubtedly noticed a growing population of people who are avoiding gluten.

My sister happens to be gluten-sensitive. She’s had bad migraines all her life, and she believes minimizing gluten in her diet has helped keep them at bay. Of course, this sensitivity is very different from celiac disease, which can result in a severe and sometimes life-threatening reaction to gluten. Though her situation is not nearly that dire, my sister is a lover of good food and a hater of gluten, and people like her are not going to stop dining out and buying baked goods any time soon.

Lucky for the food service industry, this creates a whole new segment of products to sell to a discerning and hungry demographic. And they’re willing to pay for quality gluten-free products! 

Gluten-free : Crystallized flower nougat

Flour-less chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and chocolate cremeux

Though these above desserts are naturally gluten-free, they are not made with certified gluten-free products.

We all know it’s not hard to make a delicious dessert without gluten. Take a meringue-based classic like a pavlova or a floating island, for example; they were gluten-free long before it was fashionable. Flour-less chocolate cake very fortunately came into vogue about a decade before the gluten-free boom. And I don’t think I need to tell you how awesome nougat is.

But, the gluten-free folk need cupcakes, too.  They need brownies, and cookies, and for the love of humanity they need wedding cakes. The last wedding cake I made was for an old family friend who wanted a gluten-free cake. With all of 5 days of notice before the big day, I was charged with whipping up a chocolate and peanut butter wedding cake—hold the gluten.

Gluten-free funfetti cupcakes made from a certified gluten-free cake mix

There are lots of really great gluten-free mixes on the market, but when I’m talking about a wedding cake for an old friend of the family, I like to start from scratch. I wish I could say that I was able to pull all kinds of gluten-free baking knowledge out of my back pocket. But, I hadn’t made a gluten-free cake since our brief review of “alternative baking” at culinary school 10 years earlier. Good thing I work in an office where I’m surrounded by incredibly talented food scientists and pastry chefs!

With the help of our great corporate pastry chef, Amanda Haba, I modified my standard foolproof chocolate cake recipe to include a blend of gluten-free starches (I traded out the AP flour 1:1) and xanthan gum (about ¼ tsp per cup of flour or .003%). Xanthan gum is the secret ingredient that gives gluten-free baked goods the structure that they’re missing without gluten. 

The batter did not taste great. But, with so much sugar and fine cocoa powder in the recipe, the off flavors were totally undetectable once the cake came out of the oven. The results were a seriously moist, tender, and chocolatey gluten-free cake.  Complete with some action figures of Han Solo and Princess Leia (only one of the greatest couples in all of space and time) it was a rustic, romantic, and delicious cake that never even missed the gluten. Maybe actively avoiding gluten isn’t ideal, but it doesn’t have to mean the end of pastries we can be proud of.

Nothing completes a gluten-free wedding cake like an action figure cake topper!

Blog post complements of Carolyn Crow, AUI Event Manager & Pastry Chef.

We invite comments and questions to pastryteam@auifinefoods.com.