Mike, a coeliac, shares his experience baking for his wife

 Last week we had a phone call from a coeliac who was trying to bake a cake and needed help. He had baked one with another brands flour mix and was having trouble, the sponges were too flat as they hadn’t rose.

So Mike got hold of our Glutafin Select Multipurpose White mix and with the guidance and recipe from our Glutafin customer care line he writes about his experience baking a gluten free cake below:

Looking through the oven glass door and seeing the cakes rising above the rim of the tins was an exciting moment! Seeing them reaching towards the roof of the oven was quite scary. Was it 90% air and the pyramid going to collapse?

Baking time over I prised open the oven door a jar for a few minutes (a great tip from Jayne on Glutafin’s customer care line) and the cakes were still looking like volcanoes. More minutes passed and they were still holding. A slight dab confirmed it was 100% cake under the now firm crust so they were removed for cooling.



By now it was I who was walking on air! The cake was then creamed, jammed, iced and hidden, yes hidden, together with all traces of any baking having taken place.



Later my wife came home from work. There was no ‘‘Hello Darling it’s good to see you, have you had a good day?’’ Instead her first words on entering the house were ‘‘You’ve been baking’’! which of course I completely denied!

But Dash, I’d forgotten to switch on the cooker extractor fan. My wife can detect a gas leak from 500m!

The look on her face when the Birthday Cake was presented to her at tea time on Friday was worth its weight in Gluten free flour! As far as I can recall the number of times my wife has had a Birthday cake can be counted on one finger. This was my second attempt at cooking. I can just about do good Beans on Toast.



She only works 2 half days a week and my first attempt was last Monday and on seeing the two ‘pizza bases shaped sponges’ that was created you can imagine my fear of making a further attempt in the limited time left. But thanks to Glutafin I could make a fantastic cake. The cake has nearly all gone and there are only two of us at home!

I’ve been banned from baking until mid-January 2012 at the earliest. Next year for our Sunday evening teas we will be eating home-made éclairs, custard squares covered in thick icing, mince pies, Swiss rolls and Viennese whirls. There’s no stopping me now!

Again many thanks Glutafin for your encouragement without which we would have had ‘flat shaped sponges’ as birthday cakes!

If you would like tips on baking gluten free then visit our Baking with Flour mixes section and for more recipes visit our gluten free recipes section with over 200 recipes. Please send us in your experience like Mike, and if you need any more help phone us free on 0800 988 2470.