I’ve been reading Betty Bake blog for a few months and have always found the recipes and pictures ravishing. I only picked up recently that Betty, aka Bernice Griffiths, is a mom, and that she sticks to a gluten-free diet at home. I was interested in how she gets past gluten, and her tips for dealing with a gluten-intolerant child. Bernice has also allowed me to feature a divine gluten-free chocolate cake from her blog.

“I started Betty Bake blog in August 2009. It was a platform for me to talk about whatever daily food my family was eating and the food I decided to try out and make. I had no clear idea where it would go and I posted recipes on a whim – if I felt like it I wrote and if I didn’t feel like it then I didn’t. I was in the beginning phases of my daughter’s gluten intolerance and was still learning what had gluten in it and was experimenting with baking regarding gluten-free flours etc.

I only realised after quite a while that not only was my daughter gluten intolereant but she had a corn intolerance too! Most sweets have glucose syrup in them. This made having sweet treats and going to parties a whole other ball game as glucose syrup can be made from most starches (corn, potato or rice etc) more often than not it is made from corn – also known as corn syrup.

But most sweet labeling will just say glucose syrup and not state which starch it is made from. So when out at a party my child couldn’t eat much except potato crisps and plain chocolate. I realised with parties laden with NikNaks (made from corn), marshmallows (has glucose syrup aka corn) and any other kind of jelly sweet – more glucose syrup that I was going to have to be a label reader and search out as much as possible to make parties easier for my kid.

I now bake gluten-free cakes and treats weekly and make sure I take plain chocolate to kiddies parties with me as there is usually not much plain chocolate at parties (mushy filled centers of chocolate contain glucose syrup or gluten thickeners) and Smarties have a wheat/gluten shell.

I don’t view this as an inconvenience as much I as see it as an opportunity to keep my child healthy and happy = with the yummy home made treats and assurance taht l know that what she is eating isn’t filled with preservatives that are bad for her health.

Being gluten-free doesn’t have to be an inconvenience – it’s more a change in how you think when you shop.

We buy rice cakes instead of regular wheat biscuits. same goes for pasta – we buy rice pasta instead. We eat lots of fresh and fruit, vegetables and salad and make our own yummy custard and ice cream. (shop ice cream has … yes glucose syrup) We regularly have the simplest of frozen banana ice cream in our freezer (which is frozen banana blended in a blender) a little chocolate chopped up is added as a extra treat or we eat it plain and we know it is healthy and sweet. Life isn’t about sacrifices but actually about a happy attitude and healthy alternatives.

I am happy with the outcome of a healthier family that isn’t running around on a sugar high. we love sweet things but try to choose wisely.but I do love a gluten-free chocolate sweet potato cake every now and then! See Bernice’s recipe for a gluten-free baked sweet potato chocolate cake here