I hope the weather is warming, and the strawberries are flowing where you live. The best thing about this gluten free roasted strawberry cake? If your strawberries are not at their peak (like mine), this is the cake for you! Let’s make the most of those less-than-perfect, early strawberries in this gluten free cake that stays moist and like-new on the counter for days—if it lasts that long.

Maybe you have a batch of my make-your-own gluten-free vanilla cake mix from page 193 of Gluten-Free on a Shoestring Quick & Easy in your pantry? Use that in place of the dry ingredients in the recipe below (flour, xanthan gum, salt, baking powder, baking soda and sugar). It’ll work just fine! You could even make this dairy-free if you use the dairy-free vanilla cake mix on page 195, and replace the butter with an equal amount of melted and cooled vegetable shortening. So many options!

Want even more options? Make this a simple gluten free strawberry cake, and 86 the strawberry-roasting. Just eliminate that step in the directions, and bake the cake for about an hour instead of 40 minutes, as the fresh, unroasted strawberries will hold more juice than the roasted ones do.

Before you make that decision, though, just look at what happens when you roast the strawberries first. They release much of their juice and it caramelizes in the oven, turning even the wimpiest strawberries into sticky, bright red delights, with the deep flavor to match.

Then just nest them, cut side down, on top of the smooth, gluten free vanilla cake batter, and bake away.

The cake will really be so moist that it keeps for days, just sitting there on the counter, loosely covered (if you have a cloche that fits over a cake plate, that’s perfect, but some plastic wrap will do just fine). The tricks for success are: (1) cover the cake in the oven if it starts to brown too quickly, (2) bake it in a light-colored metal pan or it will bake too quickly on the outside, and (3) bake only until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean, not clean-as-a-whistle, as the top layer should have a bit of a custard-like texture. 

Even though we already covered the perfect Gluten Free Mother’s Day Brunch Menu, I’ve got a last minute addition. Gluten free pasta salad with mayonnaise is not my thing. If it’s your thing, I love you still. (I never loved you for your salad tastes anyway.) This gluten free pasta salad is mostly about the roasted shallot vinaigrette, but it stands squarely on the shoulders of properly boiled gluten free pasta. Make your gluten free pasta the right way, and you’re free to enjoy it in a cold salad. It’s all in the technique, baby.

Add some cubed salami and a few olives, it’s an Italian gluten free pasta salad. Just like that. Amazing! Serve it over some lettuce, maybe, and double up on the dressing, why don’t you?

The vinaigrette is a simple mustard vinaigrette, but its real depth of flavor comes from the slowly roasted shallots.

You can saute the shallots in a skillet instead of roasting them in the oven, but you are much more likely to burn them that way before they get soft and sweet enough. And good news! The shallots can easily be roasted ahead of time.

Unlike gluten free baking, gluten free cooking means you can play with the ingredients. Don’t like bell peppers? Leave them out! Prefer cilantro to parsley? Sub it right in. You get the idea. Oh, and one tip: You can make any homemade vinaigrette dressing you like with a simple ratio of 3 to 1, oil to acid (like vinegar or lemon juice). Never buy dressing again!

Mom has a day, and its name is Mother’s Day. A special day calls for a special menu, particularly a Gluten Free Mother’s Day Menu. Mom is sweet – and she’s savory. Maybe your family kicks you out of the kitchen on Mother’s Day, and you love it. If so, please forward this post to your gifter and I’ll be honored to speak directly to the source.* If you’re the Dad, or the daughter or son, then let’s get to work. The first menu is for sweets, since life is too short to wait to plan your sweets. But they’re beautiful gluten free brunch sweets, so we’re not talking about gluten free cookies and brownies. The second menu is for savories, since savory feeds our souls and accompanies our coffee.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know the drill with the clickable collage, but just in case—hover over each photo for the recipe title, then click the picture to open a new window with that post and the entire recipe:

Here’s the 10¢ tour of your Gluten-Free Mother’s Day Sweets Menu (remember – the links are all above):

Gluten Free Miniature Apple Tarts: Mini tarts make brunch special, since they take a little extra work. This time of year, try making them with bartlett pears.

Gluten Free Yeast-Raised Donuts: These are the real deal – yeasted and deep-fried. Don’t worry. You won’t be giving Mom a heart-attack. Properly deep-fried foods don’t absorb oil. The hot oil seals the outside of the donut and then gently cooks the inside with the heat of the oil.

Gluten Free Yeast Free Cinnamon Buns: This recipe is a special preview recipe from Gluten-Free on a Shoestring Quick & Easy. This is how I make something super-impressive like cinnamon buns super quick and easy, ready in less than 40 minutes, start to finish. Make these for Mom if you haven’t planned ahead. Or make them the night before, refrigerate the shaped buns and then bake them right before brunch. Boom!

Gluten Free Morning Glory Muffins: These gluten free muffins are a bit sweet, but still have lots of nutrition Moms need. Delicious health food.

Gluten Free Pancakes: No xanthan gum and just a basic 3 gluten free flour blend in these easy, light and fluffy pancakes. Perfect.

Gluten Free Waffles: Ready in minutes just like pancakes, these waffles have secret weapons that make them crispy. Click through the picture to learn all about it. Plus, they’re a great make-ahead option since you can freeze them and just defrost them in the toaster from frozen.

Here’s the 10¢ tour of your Gluten-Free Mother’s Day Savories Menu (links are all above):

How To Roll Out Gluten Free Pie Crust: Recipe that is sweet or savory (your choice), and there’s a How To Video if you’re a scared-y cat. I thoroughly embarrass myself in the name of your pies and quiche. Talk about taking one for the team.

Gluten Free Crêpes: The batter for these perfectly light, perfectly pliable crêpes works best when you make it ahead of time. Plus, they even freeze well. Fill them with some prosciutto and Parmesan, maybe a few roasted asparagus spears. Mom will love you, Fancypants.

Gluten Free Spinach Balls: Instead of quiche, serve these 1970s-inspired hors d’oeuvres. Remind Mom of that fabulous decade when you were young and a tasty little thing yourself.

Gluten Free Savory French Toast: This could be the star of the brunch show.

Gluten Free Huevos Rancheros: Short on time? Make these huevos rancheros with store-bought gluten free corn tortillas.

Gluten Free Brown Butter Skillet Cornbread: Simply the best gluten free cornbread you have ever had. No matter what else you’ve ever had. I’m that confident (about the cornbread, not in general).

*Note: If I’m lucky, nobody is making any of these delicious gluten free brunch type foods for me on Mother’s Day, since what I dream of for Mother’s Day is an empty kitchen in which to work. Dreams are good. Whatever your plans, from my family to yours, I wish you each a very Happy Mother’s Day.

Love,
Me

P.S. Don’t forget your copy of Gluten-Free on a Shoestring Quick & Easy! Your support means the world to me. For real.

Get ready. I’m going to sing the praises of gluten free crêpes, and I’m going to sing them loud.   Gluten free crêpes are so, so easy to make (make the batter ahead of time, you’ll get best results). They take only a few pantry ingredients. They’re even easier to make than gluten free flour tortillas, plus they kick up an ordinary meal right to extraordinary. Drizzle them with a little lemon simple syrup and they’re dessert. Impressive, right? This time, though, no xanthan gum, okay?

Light, airy, delicate but not fragile, gluten free crêpes are simple, light, French-style pancakes that we have made before around here, a long, long time ago. We made them with xanthan gum, because I did not yet know as much as I do now about gluten free flour blends. A little embarrassing (kind of like the photo in that post)? Perhaps…. Real life, circa 2+ years ago? Indeed. But I learned. Sometimes, xanthan gum needs to be left on the shelf. It’s okay. Like for perfecto gluten free pancakes, leave the xanthan gum out. Now we know, because we learned. It happens.

I made lemon simple syrup, and it was so easy that I haven’t published a recipe for it anywhere. I can do a post on general principles of cooking sugar, but I figure maybe you just want your gluten free cherry licorice and then maybe you’re done cooking sugar. If I’m wrong, tell me in the comments, okay?

You can even make these crêpes up to a couple hours ahead of time, cover them, and then serve them at room temperature. They’ll still be soft and pliable and delicious. Feel like freezing them? You can do that, too. But of course they’re at their absolute best when they’re fresh.

The consistency of the batter should be like half and half: thicker than whole milk, thinner than heavy cream. Swirl the batter around. You get good at it—fast. The first pancake is always for the cook. Enjoy it in all its ugliness.

Make them tonight. I bet you have all the ingredients right now. And don’t forget to tell me in the comments if you’re into recipes for things like lemon simple syrup and other sugar-cooking basics! Love you lots.

It’s really a matter of great importance that you have a go-to recipe for gluten free pudding, particularly of the chocolate. That’s why I’m here for you. Today we’re going to switch it up a bit, though. Most of the time, pudding is thickened with cornstarch. It makes a nice, basic chocolate pudding. And there’s no shame in that. But we can make it even better by thickening with a combination of egg yolks and xanthan gum-free gluten free flour. I’ll tell you allllllll about it.

Plus, look out because we’re going to add in some chopped chocolate right at the end instead of adding butter. The better the chocolate you use, the better the pudding. But I think there’s room for almost all chocolate. I say almost because the cheapest chocolate, the stuff that tastes like moth balls and peanut butter, there’s no room for that. Luckily, I haven’t had that kind of chocolate in at least 20 years.

Cornstarch is a really effective thickener for puddings and for sauces. I would like to personally thank cornstarch for my Gluten Free Baked Sesame Chicken sauce. But when cornstarch cools, it has a bit of a harder time holding onto its liquid, so it can leak. If you have ever refrigerated a sauce or pudding thickened with cornstarch, you probably know just what I mean. In something like sesame chicken sauce (or the sauce in this Gluten Free Lemon Chicken from way, way back, a version of which is on page 167 of my First Cookbook), which is served warm, it works great. No complaints at all.

But if you stick with a xanthan-gum free gluten free flour blend for something you serve cool (and thicken with egg yolks, too, like a custard), your gluten free pudding will be incredibly stable whether you serve it warm, cool or anything in between.

I used Ghirardelli 70% cacao, and I’m glad I did. That’s what I consider the “good stuff,” since it’s more expensive and better, but when I’m recipe testing? That would be when I stick with something like Baker’s chocolate. I’m a cheapskate that way.

See how smooth? That’s when it’s already chilled. 

Ready in minutes with just a few basic pantry ingredients, a great recipe for gluten free chocolate pudding needs to be in your repertoire. Here’s that recipe, friend: