Cherie Lyden - Gluten-Free Baking Made Simple

Since opening its first location in Sydneys Waverley in 2016, Wholegreen has been the go-to gluten free bakery for restaurants and supermarkets across the city and beyond. Founder Cherie Lyden has been buoyed by unwavering loyalty from people with coeliac disease and the many who choose a gluten-free diet. Invariably, her customers are stoked to find fresh, delicious, additive-free food that they can trust is safe to eat. She has continued to strive to refine her product range and icing on the metaphorical cake was her accreditation from Coeliac Australia in 2020, for whom she is now an Ambassador. Then in 2021 and 2022, Wholegreen was awarded overall Champion for pastry at the Fine Food Awards, up against a host of glutinous entries. Wholegreen HQ now operates out of a site in Alexandria, where Cherie has plans to share her knowledge further through a gluten-free cooking school. Expansion brings its own satisfaction, but her greatest thrill continues to be customers who discover deliciousness they believed had been lost to them. Every person who picks up and cooks from GLUTEN-FREE BAKING MADE SIMPLE is an extension of that joy. This cookbook is a rare gift for anyone requiring a gluten-free diet.
Delicious, additive- and gluten-free baked goods. Cherie is a genius. FIONA CROCKETT, CEO COELIAC AUSTRALIA From the humming kitchen of Wholegreen Bakery and the heart of its founder Cherie Lyden, GLUTEN-FREE BAKING MADE SIMPLE is your playbook for creating her magical recipes at home. Enjoy 80-plus sweet and savoury bakes that Cherie has developed and cooked over the years for her family, as well as at her renowned Sydney bakery. Each recipe includes the tips and know-how that Cherie has mastered to achieve truly remarkable gluten-free results at home for breads, pastries, cakes and sweets. As well, she shares her best flour blends, pantry essentials and the secret to the perfect crumb. If youre ready to give gluten-free baking a go, make it easy with these simple, beautiful, approachable recipes where everything not only looks delicious but tastes delicious, too.

INTRODUCTION

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

Hippocrates

Im so pleased that you have picked up this book. The pages that follow are the result of years of hard work and dedication to create delicious gluten-free baked goods for those who suffer from coeliac disease or need to eat a gluten-free diet for whatever reason, and they are something of which Im extremely proud.

But the beginnings of this book and the development of my business, the Wholegreen Bakery are also the result of a personal health journey. A few years ago, both my youngest daughter Lucia and I were diagnosed with coeliac disease (mine not full-blown, only latent), while I was also diagnosed with hypothyroidism and Lucia with a similar condition called Hashimotos disease. Autoimmune conditions run on both sides of my family, so we were bound to get something somewhere along the way! While my husband and eldest daughter Holly do not have any autoimmune conditions (well, at least not for the moment) both Lucia and I now eat a strict gluten-free diet, as this is the only treatment for coeliac disease.

On receiving Lucias diagnosis, I wanted to ensure that she had access to healthy and delicious gluten-free food such as good bread and pastries, as well as the occasional sweet treat. This was, in part, due to my background as a trained nutritionist (which had given me a good understanding of the importance of diet in contributing to health) but also a result of my upbringing. Growing up in New Zealand as a child to Tongan and Dutch parents, a love of food was imprinted on me in early childhood; my mothers family always came together over a feast and all my early happy memories revolve around food the eating of it, for sure, but also the preparation, whether through the everyday baking of things like banana bread to use up the bananas that were going black, the making of coconut milk from scratch or the preparing of dinner for the many aunties, uncles and cousins who inevitably turned up every night at my grandparents house expecting to be fed! Cooking in our house was a way to share love, and I wanted to make sure Lucia didnt miss out on these experiences just because her diet was, necessarily, more limited.

So I began to dip my toes into the world of gluten-free baking which should come as little surprise, I suppose, as baking runs in the family. My grandfather was a baker and wooed my grandmother with fresh loaves of bread! What did surprise me, though, was what exactly this brave new world looked like. Gluten-free products were hard to find, and the quality of those that did exist was lacking when it came to the most important things: taste and deliciousness. And how can you make anyone happy without those?

The gluten-free recipes out there that I could find were also, to my mind, pretty hit and miss, so I experimented, tested and trialled various options until I had developed food that I was happy with and proud to have cooked, and it was at this point that I saw the opportunity to open the Wholegreen Bakery and spread that message into the wider community. (After all, if my daughter and I were facing this challenge to find delicious gluten-free baking, then surely others were too?) In the years since, it has been such a joy to see the business grow and thrive and the word spread, and to be a part of bringing the pleasure of eating back for so many people who thought that certain foods like a good croissant, a decent loaf of bread or a delicious savoury (or sweet) tart were no longer options for them. Its an extremely humbling and rewarding experience to hear that youve changed someones life by giving them back the food they love to eat.

I hope the tried-and-well-tested recipes contained within the pages that follow will arm you with the confidence you need to get into the kitchen and create for yourselves the baked goods that you might otherwise miss out on. They are filled with the knowledge I have picked up over my years of gluten-free baking, including all the tips and techniques you need to achieve excellent results. More than that, though, they are a collection of foods youll want to eat and share with everyone you love, regardless of whether they have intolerances or dietary restrictions, simply because they are first and foremost delicious. And, really, thats what good food is all about, isnt it?

Happy baking!

MY KITCHEN ESSENTIALS

Having the right tools in the kitchen makes baking so much easier. I prefer to see the following tools as a baking investment rather than an expense. Sure, you could possibly do without some of them, at a pinch, but do you really want to compromise your gluten-free baking journey before youve even started?

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