SC - Coeliac Foods & a recipe

[Drake & Meliora]

Hi all,

Back on the list after a long absence.  Lee-Gwen,  Min - why didn't you talk
to me about this at Midwinter .... my mum is intensely gluten-intolerant.
We've been cooking gluten-free foods for years - which is why Drake was able
to concoct those yummy wafers for your Baroness on the fly so to speak.

Coeliacs cannot ingest the following grains/substances:
wheat, rye, oats, barley, triticale, malt, sorghum or the American maize
(labelled corn).

Please note: these are for the most intensely-intolerant. Until Miriam is
more sure of what she *personally* can and can tolerate, I would avoid ALL
of the above.

Rice and rice flours, potato flour, real cornflour are all OK.  If you look
in Purity or Roelf Vos or whatever your major supermarket chain, most
cornflours will have "gluten-free" written on the packet, or it will have a
symbol which is a sheaf of wheat with a line through it.

There are also a few different commercial "gluten-free" flour mixes
available which are really good substitutes.  Contact me privately for info
on the Australian-available products.

>From memory Miriam should love the following biscuit recipe from Elinor
Fettiplace - please note I have not substituted any ingredients - it is as
the original.

To make French Bisket Bread (macaroons)
Take one pound of almonds blanched in cold water, beat them verie smale, put
in some rose water to them, in the beating, wherein some musk hath lien,
then take one pound of sugar beaten and searced and beat with your almonds,
then take the whites of fowre eggs beaten and put to the sugar & almonds,
then beat it well altogether, then heat the oven as hot as you doe for other
bisket bread, then take a paper, & strawe some sugar upon it, & lay two
spoonfulls of the stuf in a place, then lay the paper upon a board full of
holes, & put them into the oven as fast as you can, & so bake them, when
they begin to looke somewhat browne they are baked inough.
Spurling, Hilary (1986) Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt Book, Penguin Books
ISBN: 0-14-046956-7

100g ground blanched almonds (almond meal)
100g castor or icing sugar (NOT icing mixture)
1 beaten egg white
a little rosewater

Mix together almonds, sugar and egg white. If mixture is a little dry add a
little rosewater.  Place in balls on a baking tray and bake at 180oC for
about 10 minutes or until they turn golden.  I tend to make balls about the
size of a 50 cent piece for the purposes of feasts but the larger ones are
also chewy and yummy.