Gluten-free baking: Do regular grocery stores carry what is needed?

You could try Whole Foods or any larger health food store for gluten-free flours, etc.

Some large grocery chains carry them (depends on your part of the country).

It is really difficult to get good results with gluten free baking or pastries. It is sort of like adding plaster of Paris to ordinary flour – both in taste and texture. You can eventually get competent, but I wouldn’t count on getting a good result first up. You might be better off buying commercial Gluten Free baked products and sending those.

Since gluten-free baking is tricky to get right, you might want to consider making some other confections that don’t usually require flour: chocolate truffles or fudge would be an example. You could make mini flourless chocolate tortes by using a muffin pan. Peanut brittle, homemade reeses cups, etc are all possibilities.

Good luck!

I know Whole Foods, Brookshires, and I think Wal-mart all have gluten free flours. Despite what @DarkScribe said it is possible to make a good pastry without gluten. All you need is a good recipe. http://jeenaskitchen.blogspot.com/2008/01/healthy-chocolate-carob-fudge-recipe.html This doesn’t require any flour and it looks pretty good. I hope you find what you need and that your friend likes it. As @hannahsugs said, good luck. :)

@Ailia _Despite what @DarkScribe said it is possible to make a good pastry without gluten. _

I didn’t say that at all – I said that it was difficult, particularly if you are not good with conventional pastry. It is not normally the sort of thing where you just pick up a recipe and get a perfect result first time. I make gluten-free based stuff regularly, we have to family members who have celiac disease and who love it.

Also, many Celiacs are also diabetics – that recipe that you linked to will be high in carbs. Not good for diabetics who trying to maintain good BGLs. You would need to be sure that the only problem is Celiac disease.

@DarkScribe Well I know that, but @chupacabra did not say that her friend had diabetes and if her friend did or does have diabetes I’m pretty sure that would be in the question. Besides @chupacabra doesn’t have to use the recipe, there are plenty of low carb gluten free recipes out there and I’m sure @chupacabra can figure that out.

There are plenty of gluten-free baking mixes available, including cookies. Or what I have done is just substitute a commercial GF flour mix (I like Bob’s Red Mill- link) for regular flour. I haven’t done cookies, but pumpkin bread came out really well, & pie crust was far & away better than the GF pie crust mixes. I would think cookies would work equally well that way.

I found a list of stores that sell gluten free products online. Here’s a link. I hope it helps!

If you haven’t done any gluten-free baking before, your best bet is definitely to find a GF baking mix – actually baking GF from scratch requires quite a bit of experimentation to get your recipes to come out the way you want them to. If you have a Trader Joe’s or a Whole Foods near you, both of them have very good GF brownie mixes – for some reason, it’s easier to adapt brownies to GF flour than cookies – the texture just comes out better. Betty Crocker also just started making GF mixes, which you can find at almost any grocery store at this point – I’ve tried the yellow cake, which is quite good, and I’ve heard the brownies are tasty too.

If you really do want to try something from scratch, I’d suggest buying a bag of Bob’s Red Mill GF flour and a bag of xanthan gum (Bob’s Red Mill makes that too), and making something that doesn’t count on flour for most of its substance (I’ve had very good luck with things like carrot cake and muffins, pumpkin bread and zucchini bread, since the veggies are what keep them moist and maintain their texture). Just use the GF flour, and add about ½ tsp. of xanthan gum per cup of flour (that gives it the stretchiness that you ordinarily get from gluten in regular flour). Good luck!

Many thanks to all for great answers! Lurve!

Ooh, got to this one a little late (how did I miss it??), but I’ve done a hell of a lot of GF baking in the past year so I thought I’d chime in. I’d highly recommend using a mix for best results, since it’ll be a one-time-thing and you won’t have time for experimentation. Brownies often come out better than cookies, and ship very well if packaged tightly together in a box lined with foil or something. I like Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Brownie Mix or Gluten-Free Pantry Chocolate Truffle Brownie Mix – both are great. Good luck! And make sure to check the ingredients the mix you get calls for, sometimes there are atypical things in there that you might not have on hand. Bob’s Red Mill is usually available at normal grocery stores, and GF Pantry stuff I get at a local natural foods store (it’s called “Living Earth” to give you an idea!), or at Trader Joe’s.

Good luck!! :)

Wow @fireinthepriory your timing is perfect! The brownies are the bomb! I am going to order them tonight!
Many thanks!

@chupacabra Glad I didn’t miss the train. :) Have fun baking!

I don’t think anyone has mentioned Betty Crocker Gluten Free Mixes yet. You should be able to find them in most supermarkets.

The BEST gluten free brownies are babycakes you can buy their cookbook in Barnes and Noble if you want to flip through it before you buy it. The cookbook itself is a fantastic gift for your friend. Their brownies were voted best brownies in NYC, up against all brownies, not just gluten free. They are excellent.

The absolute most wonderful gluten-free cookies are the lemon cookies in Raman Prasad’s book entitled Recipes for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. Send me a message if you want the recipe and I’ll type it out for you. I’m no longer on the diet, but I’m still making these cookies! They use almond flour, which will probably only be available at a natural foods store, unless you have amazing supermarkets where you live. Everything else is “normal”.