Becky Excell - How to Bake Anything Gluten-Free: Over 100 Recipes for Everything from Cakes to Cookies, Doughnuts to Desserts, Bread to Festive Bakes

Best of all, nobody would ever know that any of your bakes were gluten-free.

Hands up if youve ever:

According to a recent study I just completely made up, 100% of you have experienced one or more of those situations at some point. If thats the case, then I can wholeheartedly say that this book was written for you!

Id love to sit here and pretend that my passion for gluten-free baking always came from a place of pure joy and happiness. But in reality, it was the sheer frustration with all of those scenarios that became my infinite well of inspiration. However, that all changed for me when I first stumbled upon an entirely gluten-free bakery* on my travels many, many years ago.

*yes, they do exist!

The walls were adorned with fresh bread, proudly on show like trophies everything from freshly baked French baguettes to a bounty of beautiful boules, alongside a mountainous display of crusty bread rolls.

The counters were crammed with constellations of pastries, cookies, tarts and a seemingly endless amount of fresh desserts that you would happily sell your left arm, leg and any remaining limbs for. And though it was painfully clear that there wasnt a single crumb of gluten on the premises, it still didnt stop me asking, is this gluten-free? a billion times I just couldnt quite believe my eyes or tastebuds! Nothing looked or tasted gluten-free at all and, up until that point, I thought that was impossible.

My boyfriend Mark and I shared a slice of cake for the first time in years and, not surprisingly, I went back every day without ever eating the same thing twice.

I immediately wanted to bottle that exact feeling and share it with you, so you could experience it whenever you liked just like muggles* do, every single day.

*people who can eat gluten

And it was that simple sentiment that inspired me to start writing my second book, How to Bake Anything Gluten Free. After all, what better way to share that feeling than by showing you exactly how to transform your kitchen into your own personal gluten-free bakery at home ?

Before I even wrote a single word, first I had to break down that game-changing gluten-free experience.

I instantly realized that the beginning of that magical experience started with the overwhelming feeling of choice. Unfortunately, choice usually goes out of the window* when you embark upon a gluten-free diet. Our choices in bakeries often boil down to one of two options: either the one, token gluten-free option or, even worse nothing at all . So I absolutely had to recreate the excitement that comes with tremendous variety and choice.

*along with gluten

But while choice is always great, it would all be for nothing if everything tasted blatantly gluten-free, right? Thats when I realized that at the heart of my joyous experience was the fact that nothing in that bakery tasted or looked gluten-free. But wait, isnt that impossible?! Well, thats exactly what I thought before I graced the doors of that gluten-free bakery for the first time. Eating is believing, trust me! So naturally, every single bake in this book had to be utterly indistinguishable from its gluten-containing counterpart, with none of the dry, crumbly or dense textures that so often give gluten-free baking a bad name. Fortunately, thats what Ive always strived for anyway!

And if I could nail all the above in this book, it would automatically make one important thing possible again: the ability to share a slice of cake with the people you care about most. After all, if nothing tastes or looks gluten-free, muggles have no reason to turn their noses up at it, right? Its definitely something I took for granted until I wasnt able to do it anymore and I never realized how much I truly missed it. So naturally, all the recipes in this book had to reach the point where, if you didnt tell someone that your bake was gluten-free, theyd never even notice.

Now that I understood what that experience loosely translated to in recipe book form, all that was left to do was make it a reality.

And after months and months of baking across multiple lockdowns* with a LOT of taste-testing , thanks to my muggle friends and family, Im pleased to say that I finally did it. I can honestly put my feet up and say that Ive successfully captured the experience that I felt walking into that gluten-free bakery, right here, bottled within the pages of this book.

*what else was there to do all day when COVID-19 was on the rampage and we all had to stay indoors?

I proudly present to you an eclectic choice of over 100 recipes, including game-changing fresh bread, an entire chapter dedicated to doughnuts, tons of celebration cakes, cookies and show-stopping desserts. And of course, because youd never know anything was gluten-free, you can share everything with your muggle friends and family as you wish.* This book is packed cover to cover with all the things that gluten-free people could only dream of buying from your average bakery.

*should they be so lucky to get a slice!

I managed to do it without using tons of strange, unobtainable ingredients or a top-secret flour blend I actually used a simple, commercial gluten-free flour blend from the supermarket for almost every single recipe.

So, needless to say, as you flick through this book, I hope youre filled with the same disbelief and excitement that I felt whenever I walked into that gluten-free bakery, while also feeling confident in the knowledge that you can recreate the simple joy of feeling normal whenever you like.

Oh and as my boyfriend Mark is lactose-intolerant, Ill let you know whenever a recipe is (or can be made) lactose-free or dairy-free. Plus, Ive done the same for veggie, vegan and low FODMAP options throughout this book, too, so that hopefully nobody misses out on a bite of that magical feeling I experienced.

So if youve become a spectator whenever cake appears, please join me in saying:

Here I am, awkwardly introducing myself again youd think Id be used to this by now, right? Im Becky Excell, Ive been gluten-free for over a decade and I share recipes on my blog and social media that youd never know were gluten-free. Is it frivolous and self-explanatory to say that Im a cookbook author when youre reading this in my actual cookbook? Oh well, Ive done it now. I should probably mention that there are over 350,000 of you lovely people following me online. Something that Im eternally grateful for and constantly flabbergasted by!