Cooking & Baking

Matilda

(6,384 posts) Sat Oct 27, 2012, 12:19 AM Oct 2012

Help please! Gluten-free Christmas pudding.

My daughter has been advised to avoid gluten, and I'm wondering what to do about the Christmas pudding. I have a great recipe for a boiled pudding that I've used forever, but I don't know whether it's possible to substitute gluten-free flour for the regular plain flour and have it hold together as it should, and whether it would change the taste.

Has anybody tried a pudding or cake with gluten-free flour? - I've looked at some cooking tips, and it seems the quinoa works well with cakes, so that might be the way to go, but I don't know whether I need to add anything to make up for the changed consistency, or whether I should use more or less flour than I would normally.

I'd appreciate any advice from people who've tried cooking with gluten-free alternatives.

2 replies

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Help please! Gluten-free Christmas pudding. (Original Post) Matilda Oct 2012 OP

Simple alternative for the pudding - blanc mange. watrwefitinfor Oct 2012 #1

Thanks for the reply. Matilda Oct 2012 #2

watrwefitinfor

(1,400 posts)

1. Simple alternative for the pudding - blanc mange.

Reply to Matilda (Original post)

Sat Oct 27, 2012, 05:45 AM

Oct 2012

I have no experience with the flours so can't say anything intelligent about those.

This is delicious and simple. I made it often for my children when they were growing up. I like it better than the custard type pudding made with flour.

Blanc Mange (Cornstarch Pudding)
1/3 C cornswtarch
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 C sugar
3-1/2 C milk
2 Tbsp firm butter
1 tsp vanilla
Blend dry ingr. in a bowl. Stir in 1 cup of the cold milk till smoth. Scald rest of milk, add the cornstarch mixture, stir constantly over direct heat until it boils & thickens. Place over boiling water, cover & cook 10 min longer, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, stir in butter & vanilla, pour into large bowl or individual molds to cool.

From my 1959 reprint of Meta Given's two volume set of "Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking" that my mom gave me as when my first child was born.

And it's versatile. Cookbook suggests variations from chocolate, cinnamon, and caramel, to rhubarb, cherry, lemon cream, and mincemeat, so you can do lots with it. There are probably many more recipes online.

Wat

Matilda

(6,384 posts)

2. Thanks for the reply.

Reply to watrwefitinfor (Reply #1)

Mon Oct 29, 2012, 01:15 AM

Oct 2012

It seems that gluten-free cooking is largely a matter of trial and error -often lots of errors before you figure it out properly. So I decided to go ahead and make my regular pudding, but I've also found a couple of websites for companies that bake gluten-free goodies for coeliacs, and one of them does fairly small Christmas puddings, so I'll order one for my daughter. The only thing it won't have is the coins I put in, but maybe I can find a way to slip one in for her.

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