Gluten Free Product Finds

... we've found quite a few new (to us) products recently.  This post will cover some of them and share where they've been bought.  However, as the 'market' never stays still and buyer change the line up of suppliers and goods, seemingly randomly, some of them may suffer from 'reliability of availability' issues - a subject that drives many a tweet/rant and has been mentioned in blogs before.

We found these Genius Pains au Chocolat at Waitrose, North Walsham, Norfolk.  Unfortunately, they aren't stocked at our local store but, as they're deliciously crumbly and taste very good indeed, it's probably no bad thing we have to make the effort to find a store that stocks them - a treat for special occasions will be how we consider them. 

Also from Waitrose, we like these falafels... and often have them with our Curry Houmous as a dip.

Genius foods also sell these cupcakes - a two pack of either chocolate or lemon - which we like for days out treats.   Apparently there is quite a selection available in Tesco and Asda but we've yet to get into these stores to see if they're stocked locally.


Online, Ocado has a great range of gluten free goods on sale.  We bought these Eskal Wafer Rolls a while back and, last time we looked, they weren't available... however, Ocado's twitter feed said there's a problem with supply.  Hopefully this will be sorted in time for the summer as Sous Chef J really likes them!

Also from Eskal are these Ice Cream Party Tubs - we leave a pack in the car for days out use when Ice Cream vans don't have a Gluten Free option - a dollop of sorbet in them works wonders if the ice cream isn't gluten free. There's no reason why basic flavours of ice cream should contain gluten, but some do, and this is something we always check.

Eskal also do a range of biscuits including these Tea Biscuits and a Lemon Wafer which is very much like the Pink Panther wafers (which are our staple "take to other people's houses so everyone can eat them" food offering - we buy ours in Sainsbury's)


At ocado, Celia Organic Lager and Clive's Pies were offered as a bundle deal - so that was a good way to get B a different brand of lager to try.


Sainsbury's usually has the largest range of free from items of all our local supermarkets and Marks and Spencer has recently enlarged its range of Gluten Free (made without wheat) products which we blogged about here.

Lazy Days make a range of Gluten Free and other freefrom biscuits and snacks that we also like.  A particular favourite is the chocolate dipped ginger biscuits... yum!

We hope this post has given you a few ideas and shown there is a wide range of Gluten Free products about... even if you do have to shop around to get them.

Rhubarb fool with ginger crumble

It seems that quite a lot of the time, shop bought packets of gluten free biscuits are a mass of crumbs when we open them.  Given their cost and being of a thrifty Northern persuasion, methods to use them up are sought.  So, when we found one of our favourite packs of Lazy Days Ginger Snaps were already beginning to crumble it gave us an idea.  We'd had a bundle of rhubarb in the veg box and thought we'd try to make 'something' tasty.  Being the type of 'cooks' that opt for simple stuff with very few ingredients, it was then a question of whether to go with rhubard fool or rhubarb crumble... in the end we went for a 'combo pud' as you will see.

The ingredients were simply - rhubarb, honey, rice milk and custard powder, gluten free ginger biscuit crumbs and some double cream for decoration (for Sous Chef J)... you can leave out the cream if you want/need a dairy free pud.

Preparing the rhubarb was a matter of washing, peeling and slicing.  This was placed in a stainless steel pan together with about a tablespoon of runny honey and a dash of water.  A tight fitting lid was placed on the pan and the rhubarb was cooked over a low heat until it began to soften.  At this point, the heat was turned off and the mix was left to one side to cool.





Meanwhile, the custard was made.  We used about half a pint of rice milk and a tablespoon of custard powder.  A bit of milk was added to the custard powder to make a paste.  Then, having heated the milk to almost boiling point, the warmed milk was added to the paste, then the whole lot was put back in the pan and heated, over a moderate heat, stirring all the time until the custard thickened.  This was also set to one side to cool.





Whilst the rhubarb and custard was cooling, the ginger biscuits were turned from bits to crumbs. Sous Chef J made full use of a rolling pin to assist the crumbling process.

 Finally, it was time to assemble... so we found a few jam jars to use for our 'rustic' presentation and some smarter glasses for the 'posh' puds.

Assembly entailed layering the rhubarb in the bottom, adding some custard (carefully or else it can sink) and finally topping with the ginger biscuit crumble.

For the full 'posh' presentation in the martini glasses the crumble was topped a trio of whipped double cream "eggs".








The end result was clean crockery which is always a good sign.

The rustic presentation in jars would make a good pud for taking on picnics - although ours didn't last long enough to make it out into the sunny UK weather!  A simple free from pud that isn't chocolate or a piece of fruit.