River Cottage Gluten Free

Recommended to me by my daughter-in-lsw, This wonderful book has provided recipes that fill the empty spots in our families cookbook. Yorkshire pudding and sourdough bread are just two of those empty spots.

Just the best gluten free cookbook I own. Love it

Great Book for a Gluten Free cook/baker who is taking a holistic approach to health. Not only are the recipes yummy but they incorporate fermented cultures and unprocessed real ingredients as often as possible. The GF sourdough bread section provides a great basis for relearning bread baking if you are used to wheat bread baking. Only downside is that chestnut flour is used in several recipes and it's difficult to find a good source in the US for this. Breakfast section has great ideas.

Great content!

Very impressed with this book. There's a huge range of recipes, lots of lovely colored pictures of the end results that you can expect - although my cooking never looks *quite* like any glossy image it's something to aspire to, and the information about all the different ingredients is really amazing. I've been cooking gluten free for a number of years and I did not know some of the information that is presented in the first chapters. I know quite a lot so I'm always impressed when there's a quality resource that can teach me some more.I learned that adding live yogurt to recipes can break down some of the anti-nutrients that can make food hard to digest and that goat butter melts at a lower temperature to cow's butter and that you can make your own pectin - something I've never thought of - among many other new snippets of useful information.I was glad to see that Ms Devlin included the issue of vegetable gums being a problem for some people - for the longest time no one was acknowledging this fact and a dietician once told me she hadn't heard of them being an issue. I know from personal experience that they can be a horrendous issue as even the smallest amount can cause suffering. And she also mentions the issue of cross contamination - another big issue for me. When companies don't have to put on their labels ingredients that only are present in small quantities that's a big problem if you are sensitive to the things they don't mention.Another reviewer mentioned an issue with this book with coconut flour as in recipes it's used as an alternative to almond flour as though the two flours have a one to one correspondence. I think this might be because Ms Devlin makes her own coconut flour from desiccated coconut and a lot of the commercial coconut flours seem to be made after some or all of the coconut oil has been extracted. Maybe you can use 1 cup of homemade coconut flour made from desiccated coconut to 1 cup of almond flour and the recipe will work but for those of us who use commercial coconut flours the ratio should be more 1/4 cup of coconut flour to every 1 cup of almond flour for a successful outcome.I really enjoyed reading and using this book. For those of us on restricted diets this book opens up the world of food just that little bit more. Highly recommended.

Dislikes: I bought this book, but the first recipe I tried was a complete disaster. I have recently started gluten free baking and have been learning along the way. I attempted the carrot and clemintine muffins. It said to use 350g of almond flour or coconut flour. I used coconut flour and learned the hard way that this volume for this receipe is far too much. Based on previous baking experience, I add at least an additional 2 cups of liquid to get the texture to look even close to what she described and even then they were too dry. This of course made the yield 3-4 times more than stated.I would caution on any recipe that says use almond or coconut flour without changing the amount of coconut flour used. (there are a handful of them). My best guess is that this receipe was not tested with coconut flour. Which has not left me with much confidence when looking at the rest of the book.I wish she had included how to manage flour blends or more information about substitutions or coconut flour's liquid soaking up qualities.Likes: I do like the layout of the recipies and the details on what the texture should be.I like that there is a notation for if you can freeze the product and which ones are dairy free.I was quite disappointed that the first try was such a flop, but am hoping that the rest is much better.

I feel dreadful giving such a low star score for this book. There are loads of good recipes in it, well written and easy to follow with good illustrations. The reason I have scored it so low is the fact that there are far too many different flour types in the recipes. It is not easy to buy the bags of individual flour and, because of the variety, there are many to store. I find it difficult buying the different types of flour as the supermarkets just do not sell all this variety. In the beginning of the book it does suggest you can convert a recipe to GF but 'you need to know what qualities you are looking for in the flour mix, and to understand how the recipe works, before you can make a good substitution'. It then advises you to stick to reliable GF recipes at first. In other GF recipe books I have, they require only the use of plain or self raising flour mixes and I find these to be fine. This book gives information on approximately 18 different types of flour and starches. It is extremely informative about them and says what they are good for. It doesn't suggest you buy them all, of course, to be able to use this book and I'm not suggesting it does. It is good to know about them and what they can be used for but after looking at the recipes, I find the majority of them use different kinds of flour/starch in the same recipe and I for one don't really want to go buying many different types of flour/starch just to be able to tackle a recipe, even if I knew where to buy them.I feel really sorry I've been critical about this book as it does have many good recipes inside but, the fact of buying the different types of flour/starch etc really has put me off using it. As mentioned before, I have other books which are much more straightforward and yet still have really good and tasty recipes within them. I'm afraid this is one book which will be going to a charity shop and I really hope someone who buys it has the energy to traipse around all the supermarkets to buy the GF flours/starches, as they are NOT available in just the one shop. This is such a shame as it's a really lovely book with interesting remedies. If someone could help me with substituting the quantities of specialist flours with the GF mixes that are available in most supermarkets, I would be delighted.

From my family’s perspective, this is just not practical. I would need to order in the vast majority of the ingredients as they are not readily available, have a kitchen the size of a cavern to store everything and dedicate all day, every day to cooking. Every recipe would require advance planning, ordering and the patience of a saint. For gluten free foodies with time to explore recipes, this may be a great choice. For young, busy families with tweens or teenagers who just want to be normal, this is not an option.

I love this book so much! I have been living on a gluten free diet since last summer and my attempts at baking (or buying) gluten free bread had left me feeling really down. I've had the book for about 6 weeks now and have baked most of the amazing breads including the baguette, lovely muffins and very good pastry. Not a day goes by that I don't consult the book. Anybody who has coeliac disease or wants to eat gluten free should buy this book. Even friends and family who can eat gluten, love everything I bake. It has totally changed my opinion about living gluten free for the rest of my life. Thank You!!

Have bought 3 copies (2 for friends). Everyone delighted. Have already tried the sticky maple pudding with great results. Good, easy recipes for everyone even if you are not gluten intolerant, but a lifesaver for those who are! Brilliant.

My youngest has been GF for about 6 months and as an avid collector of cookbooks and a lifelong home baker, I do have to admit that since my daughter went gluten free, I have certainly lost my baking mojo! After months of dithering over this book, I just received it today have greedily read it cover to cover. I've yet to cook from it, but brioche tomorrow...I really don't know why I waited so long to buy this as it's a bargain for such a beautiful and charming hardback, that I know will become a daily go-to for the whole family. What's not to love? There are the lovely photos, it reads well, has a very friendly and approachable tone, a clean layout, none of the recipes appear intimidating and the styling is gorgeous without being too prissy.I'm genuinely excited about working through River Cottage Gluten Free.