Friday, August 22, 2008

Gluten Free Goodness: Party Time

When I found out I had Celiac Disease, one of the things that bummed me out the most was feeling like I'd miss out on celebrating with friends. No birthday cake, no pumpkin pie, no wedding cake when the time was right. Sure, there are naturally gluten free (GF) options -- lots of ice creams are GF, and you could always go the healthy fruit salad route. But there's something about your best friend bringing you a carrot cupcake with cream cheese frosting for your birthday that's just tough to beat. Lucky for Celiac folk, we can still partake in these sugary little rituals. Here are my favorites.

Namaste makes amazing cake mixes (I find mine at Whole Foods). The Spice Cake is my favorite, but the others are pretty great too. I often add shredded carrots to the Spice Cake mix to make carrot cake instead.

If you're not in the mood to bake your own -- or if you want to surprise one of your Celiac friends with dessert and don't know where to start -- I highly recommend paying a visit to Mr. Ritt's. I'm fortunate to live in the same city as what could easily be the best GF bakery in the country, but those of you who live farther away don't have to miss out. The have a collection of products that ship well, and they're well worth it. My roommates in college surprised me with a cake from Mr. Ritt's for my first Celiac birthday, and it made all the difference. They also do amazing wedding cakes; the price for some is even lower than your standard gluten-full wedding cakes, and most of them taste at least as good, if not better. Just to hammer home the point: Mr. Ritt's is amazing.

Whole Foods also has a great GF bakehouse. You can find muffins and breads, but you can also find some killer chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies. I live about a five minute walk from Whole Foods, but I never buy the cookies. Why? They're so tasty, all ten or so would be gone by my front door.

Trader Joe's didn't miss out on the GF market, either. If you want a little treat, I'd highly recommend these GF Ginger Snaps. Warning: don't think for a second you'll only eat one or two.

If ginger snaps aren't your thing, you can always go for their tiramisu, found in the freezer section. I assume just about everyone like tiramisu, so it's my last suggestion for this post. Seriously. Gluten free tiramisu, and it's delicious.

If you have any other GF party favorites, post them in the comments section -- I'd love to hear about them. Enjoy!

1 comment:

DD said...

I propose a Gluten Free Dinner...and then post the recipes to all the deliciousness that was made!