The Gluten Free Blog

Previous Great British Bake Off contestant Howard Middleton has shared some of his top tips on creating tasty gluten-free dishes with Newburn Bakehouse. Howard is ambassador for the Newburn Bakehouse #Lunchoff campaign, which challenges gluten-free eaters to liven up their lunchtimes and excite their taste buds with fresh new lunch ideas.

Q&A with GBBO’s Howard Middleton

What’s your favourite gluten-free dish?
I’m a sucker for anything cheesy, so I’ve become addicted to Newburn Bakehouse sweet chilli cracker thins served as nachos with cheese, salsa and jalapenos! I also love using whisked egg white and rice flour to make a tempura style batter, which is great on fish served with creamy mashed potato and a green pea shoot salad. Yummy!

What’s your favourite flavour combination?
It’s got to be cheese again! I love the contrast of creamy, salty cheese with the fresh sharpness of fruit, whether it’s a classic cheese board with apples, figs, pears or grapes or a dish like my seeded fattoush with feta and pomegranate recipe – which you can find on the Newburn Bakehouse website.

What inspired your Seeded Feta Fattoush recipe?
I made a fattoush for friends last summer while on holiday in France. It’s traditionally made with charred pitta bread, but I found Newburn Bakehouse’s seeded sandwich thins to be a great gluten-free alternative. I love the extra crunch of the toasted seeds, and that freshness you get from lime and mint. Read the rest of this entry »

Gut Feeling Week

As I’m sure you know, this week is Coeliac Awareness Week 2013 and runs until this Sunday, May 19th. Coeliac UK have named it Gut Feeling Week and are focusing on the proper diagnosis of coeliac disease by encouraging more people to check their symptoms.

Their website has lots of useful information about the work they will be doing this week.

Check out some of the links below.

• Awareness Week 2013 – Gut Feeling Week
• Gut Feeling – how you can get involved
• Download your Gut Feeling toolkit
• Awareness Week special offers Read the rest of this entry »

Just got back from the Allergy & Gluten Free show at London’s Olympia. And as usual it was a packed show full of good ideas and tasty foods.

Kent & Fraser

Our regular favourite brands such as Doves Farm, Hale & Hearty, and Orgran all had stands. But as usual we tried to hunt down some less well-known names and products. We chatted to the lovely Danny at Kent & Fraser who make scrumptious gluten free cookies, biscuits and shortbread, and whose packaging is eye-catching and contemporary. I can highly recommend the award-winning Stilton and walnut biscuits. Imagine these with a wedge of cheese and a glass of red on a warm summer’s night. Mmmm.

We said hello to the Rude Health girls. I’ve never come across this brand before. But it’s available in Waitrose and Sainsbury’s and numerous health food stores across the UK. They do gluten free honey puffed oats, puffed rice and honey rice flakes. In fact, we came away with a whole box of honey rice flakes, so we’ll do a taste test on those next week. Again, great packaging and a quirky website. Check it out.

Continuing to tickle the savoury tastebuds were Amisa’s organic gluten paprika and chilli crackers. These were crispy and flavoursome. Definitely recommended. Amisa is available at health food stores throughout the UK.

M&S chocolate and cherry cake

Good to see M&S have a stand this year. Marks has been rolling out its gluten free brand with its distinctive green packaging for a while now and we’ve already written about their orange and polenta cake and gluten free sandwiches. It was a good opportunity to chat to Helen, M&S’s nutritionist, and I asked her why M&S gluten free products were so expensive. She told us that gluten free products contain lots more ingredients than ‘regular products’ and some of those ingredients such as almond flour, are costly. The gluten free sandwiches had come down in price a bit apparently – so that’s good news.

Whilst I was chatting to Helen I took the opportunity to scoff two bits of M&S gluten free chocolate and cherry cake. Oooh this is a winner. And only £2.99.

We couldn’t leave without having a quick chat to our friends at Genius bread. Julie was on the stand (follow her on Twitter @geniusfoods) and we chatted about the latest addition to the Genius family: the sliced multi-seed loaf, which is available from May 16th 2011 in Tesco. Tasty, springy and substantial. Just what you’d expect from Genius.

Genius multi-seed bread

And last but not least, we have to mention the Warbutons stand which included a sushi-style conveyor belt! Great stuff.

The Allergy and Gluten Free show is at London’s Olympia until Sunday May 8th.

Did you go to the show this year? What did you think of it? Did you discover any new products? Let us know in the comments.

We’ve noticed quite a few people in the blogosphere and Twittersphere this week complaining about Warbutons gluten free bread. Warbutons’ own Facebook page is full of complaints about the slices crumbling and falling to pieces.

Breaking up is not so hard to do. Warbutons gluten free bread

As you know, we went to the Warbutons gluten free launch the other week. And the two loaves we were given to try were delicious.

But the loaf I bought in Asda last week was really dry after two days, the crusts were falling off and the slices were breaking in half. It meant I lost the last third of the loaf. Boo. I put it down to the fact I hadn’t stored the loaf in a cool, dark place like a bread bin; I’d simply left it on the side in my kitchen.

But then Mum picked up a white loaf in Sainsbury’s and as you can see from the picture, the entire loaf fell to pieces as soon as she opened it! I think we rescued two slices from the back of the packet for a bit of toast.

Now, fair play to Warbutons. Mum called them and explained what had happened and they kindly put £5 of vouchers in

Money off vouchers from Warbutons

the post the same day. She was also told that Warbutons had received a number of complaints about the slices falling to pieces and were looking into it.

I really hope they do. When you actually get a good slice it’s pretty tasty. Even the white loaf is nutty and flavoursome. But who will pay a premium of £2.69 for small loaf when you’re not guaranteed even one round of sarnies out of it?

Have you tried Warbutons gluten free bread yet? How was it? Let us know in the comments.

Hot on the heels of Genius, Warbutons, the UK’s leading independent baker, have launched their own gluten free bread. And Gluten Free Blog was lucky enough to be invited along to the recent launch breakfast, at London’s Covent Garden Hotel, hosted by the celebrity chef and gluten free expert Phil Vickery.

Warbutons Gluten Free range

What did we eat? Well, it was an early start. So we tucked into tiny slices of toast topped with salmon and egg, bacon butties, sausage sarnies and toasted teacakes. And, as you’d expect, it was all quite delicious.

Warbutons decided to build their first gluten free and wheat free bakery in March 2010, in response to customers’ requests for a tasty, gluten free range. “We’ve thrown ourselves into this project with the same passion and care we show for all our products” says Jonathan Warbuton, Chairman of the family-run company. “The whole team is really pleased with the results and it’s our hope that you will be too!”

Phil Vickery is working with Warbutons to launch the new range and as you know, we’re fans of Mr V here at Gluten Free Blog. So it was great to meet the man himself and talk all things gluten free cooking. We also chatted about salad cream and crisp sandwiches, which both of us used to enjoy as kids!

Our goodie bag included Phil’s latest book, Seriously Good! Gluten-Free Baking, which we can’t wait to tuck into. And our bag also had a white loaf, brown loaf and a packet of tea cakes which were tested on the guys as soon as we got back to the office. And all got a thumbs-up.

Warbutons Gluten Free Bread

So what’s in the Warbutons gluten free range? So far sliced white and sliced brown in 400g and 600g sizes; sub rolls in white and brown; crumpets; and fruity teacakes which are all available in all UK grocery stores.

One of the gripes, I guess, is the price. The 600g loaf retails at £2.89, the sub rolls at £1.99 and the crumpets and teacakes at £2.19. At the time of writing the small loaf (400g) is on special offer in Asda for £2 although it normally retails for £2.49. And yet the same size loaf of ‘normal’ Warburtons bread costs a measly 67p. Hmmmmm. If Warbutons really want those with coeliac disease not to “miss out on this tasty daily staple” we’d really like to see their prices come down a bit.

Read the follow up post here. Warbutons gluten free bread – falling apart?