Rebecca Reilly: Gluten-Free Baker

I just bought a copy of Rebecca Reilly's "Gluten-Free Baking" (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2002) and am delighted with it. Baking has never been my strength, even in the days before gluten became our nemesis, so I having several gluten-free cookbooks for my baking library is essential. Reilly is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef, former restaurant owner and caterer and is gluten-intolerant herself, so she is obviously an expert Gluten-Free Baker.

My daughter and I went a little wild at the grocery store in buying up seasonal fruit and couldn't eat up all the blueberries, nectarines and plums we had overbought so I thought I'd make up a dessert and freeze some extras. The cookbook had a lovely photo of a Plum Coffee Cake (recipe on page 62) and after reminding myself to follow the recipe exactly, it came out beautifully. Best of all, Reilly's recipe made two cakes, so we devoured one and I smuggled out the other to frozen for later consumption.



I'm not going to share the recipe for this excellent edible without the author's permission, but I can recommend her cookbook highly. The recipes are very detailed, but don't have overwhelming, difficult bakery tricks to master, so I found this plum project easy enough. There are also many unusual recipes, like Fresh Nectarine Almond Cake, Crostata di Riso, six kinds of biscotti and Raisin Cream Scones, mixed in with more common recipes, to make the cookbook a worthwhile purchase.

I can, however, pass along the link to four of Reilly's recipes which are posted online at this site. She is going to be a presenter at a Gluten-Free Cooking Expo - what fun! -- in Oakbrook, Illinois on Sept. 12-13,2008. Click on the above link to get her gluten-free recipes for: Moroccan Quinoa, Cream of Vidalia Soup, Brownie Cheesecake and Caldo Verde.