The title says it all.  King Arthur Flour has introduced a line of gluten free baking products.  As a big fan of the rest of their line I am glad to see this addition.  Baking was once one of my mainstays but I have not had a lot of success so far with gluten-free mixes or from scratch recipes.

King Arthur’s Gluten Free Line

After reading a New England Journal of Medicine article that looked at oat consumption among celiac patients (available here) and researching for pure sources, I started to reintroduce oats into my diet.  The only brand of locally available gluten free oats that I have been able to find are those by Bob’s Redmill which are grown in dedicated oat fields and rigorously tested to be gluten free.

http://www.bobsredmill.com/gluten-free-rolled-oats.html

It has been made into crumb topping for a wide variety of fruit cobblers and crisps or cooked up over the stove top for a hot bowl of oatmeal.  Though it is only an anecdote from my own experiences, none of these foods have caused any problems for me to speak of, even though cross contamination has caused some of my worst reactions since going on a gluten-free.

As always, exercise caution as even the purest of oats can cause a reaction in some people due to a reaction to avenin. The risk appears to be 1 patient in 165, so check with your doctor before adding oats to your diet.

If you want more information about the R5 ELISA test used to check for gluten in Bob’s GF oats, the following link is helpful:

http://www.medwire-news.md/news/article.aspx?k=41&id=39126

Knowing that corn is gluten free, I have been using Maseca brand Masa Harina as my go-to flour when baking or making a roux.  There was no mention on the label of it being milled in a plant that also processes wheat products, so I figured I was safe.  After a recent issue with finding safe corn meal, I realized that I needed to investigate whether or not it was really safe.  That lead me to their website and this statement:

For instance, corn is naturally gluten-free, and when choosing a type of tortilla, select tortillas made with MASECA® (which is 100% selected corn) and your tortillas will be gluten-free.