Wheat Allergies

For our family, an allergy to wheat was one of the toughest to manage. Unable to buy bread, pretzels, many cereals, cookies, crackers make meal planning a challenge with eating out and travel even more difficult. As awareness of celiac disease (an intolerance to gluten) has increased, so too has the availability of wheat free options in grocery stores and wheat free mixes for breads, pretzels and other wheat-based foods. Check out The Gluten Free Mall at http://www.glutenfreemall.com for many options for those with wheat allergies.

It is still possible to bake your favorite recipes by substituting wheat flour for a mixture of non-wheat flours. You may have to experiment and tweak it a bit, but I often used a recipe of: 2 cups white rice flour, 2/3 cup potato starch flour, 1/3 cup tapioca flour in my cookie and cake recipes. Mix up a batch and then measure out the amount required by the recipe. You'll need to add at least a teaspoon of guar gum or xantham gum (available in most grocery stores) to keep your baked goods from falling apart. Happy baking!