Freefrom food awards - my top products

This week was my first year attending the awards of the Freefrom food awards presentation and what a fantastic night it was!

The FreeFrom Food Awards are the only Industry awards for freefrom food in the UK so I was really excited to get involved, it started in 2008 and exists to encourage innovation and celebrate excellence in the freefrom food industry. The awards founder is the very lovely Michelle Berriedale-Johnson who started the awards because her family suffered with dairy intolerance and she quickly realised the lack of quality for freefrom foods, luckily through the years she has seen things move on dramatically, and I am sure she has played a part in making that happen.  

The awards have distinctive yellow badges that freefrom brands exhibit with pride, the commended brands and winners are a good sign of a standout product.   Antony Worrall Thompson is a patron as well as the guest judge awarding the winners with their certificates on the night.

I definitely chose the right year to get involved, the venue was in central London with over 200 guests, as well as the presentation, revealing the winners in each category, for the first year, all winning food was laid on for guests in a buffet style!  Getting to choose all the winning products, especially from brands I hadn't come across before was great, and means I can share with you my stand-out products from the night.

Savoury

1) Dell’Ugo Chickpea Fusilli

I had never heard of or tried the Dell'Ugo range of products before but the Chickpea Fusilii won the innovation award, its a grain free pasta and is something of a revelation! it has a lovely taste and would go very well with a rich sauce like a Ragu.  yummy and I will be tracking it down for my store cupboard. Stockists: Waitrose and Ocado

 2) The Indian Coeliac Paratha

Pretty excited to have an Indian Paratha to try by The Indian Coeliac, lovely soft texture and great spicing would be a lovely alternative to a GF Naan with a curry. Stockists: Available direct from their facebook page or blog

3) Freedom Deli Ham & Cheese Panini

A gluten free Panini!  Yes I was pretty excited, and I was actually a judge on the day this product was featured, big gap in the market, tastes good with nice fillings, can you imagine ordering one in Starbucks?!?! awesome Stockists: Ocado and Goodness direct

4) Pig & Co Lucanian Roman Sausage   

These italian sausages had a really yummy taste, I am still a massive fan of the black farmer, but frankly if these were easy to get hold of I could see myself stocking both in the freezer for those nights you need bangers n mash. Stockists: Various farmers markets

Puddings

5) Glamourpuds Hot Chocolate Fudge Pudding Pot

Glamourpuds Hot Chocolate Fudge Pudding Pot was really yummy, lovely runny fudgy sauce almost like a fondant, and great that its also dairy free. Stockists: Wholefoods and Fortnum and Mason

6) Christine's Puddings Frangipane Tart

This tart has a lovely taste and almond flavour, this was another product I was lucky enough to judge and I was truly amazed that this tart is gluten and dairy free, it was served warm at the awards night and was delicious. Stockists: Direct or Various Farmers Markets

7) The freefrom bakehouse, chocolate macaroons

These macaroons dont look like a traditional macaroon, but boy do they taste goooood, this product was a commended but rather than a winner but they are so delicious they deserve a place in my top 10. Stockists: Wholefoods and Harvey Nichols

8) Bessant & Drury Dairy Free Frozen Dessert - Lemon

This product won the overall trophy on the night and its easy to see why, its just delicious and the fact is dairy free just has no bearing on the quality, I would eat and buy it and I am not dairy intolerant at all!  Lemony, creamy really nice desert.  Stockists: Waitrose and Tesco

So there you have it, my top products on the night, all delicious, all gluten free and a lot of them dairy free too.  Ocado seem to be the best bet to get hold of most of the products, please let me know what you think of them.

Congratulations to everyone who was commended and who won on the night.

Freefromfood awards 

Review: Newburn Bakehouse GF wraps and other delights

A gluten free wrap that tastes good? It felt like one of those sad unobtainable dreams us coeliacs have about flour based products that are just out of our reach,  So honestly when I received a box full of Newburn bakehouse goodies and saw a wrap among them, I wasn’t actually that excited, because I just couldn’t let myself believe it would taste good, I am pleased to tell you it tasted very good, but more on that later.

Before I launch into my thoughts, let me give you some background on Newburn bakehouse, it’s the new name for a dedicated gluten free bakery owned by Warburtons, in, well Newburn! Hence the name, from what I have heard, they are very serious about producing great gluten free products and have a lot of ambition around R&D and developing longed for products for the coeliac community, yay!

So what it is it like? Its really really good, its not technically a tortilla wrap, it’s a bit thicker and I would describe the texture as in between a tortilla and a flatbread, you can absolutely wrap stuff up with it, use it as a pizza, or fold it in half as a kind of hot sandwich, that’s what I did, in a frying pan with some cheese and cherry tomatoes and it was really delicious, Jules had some and rather than his normal ‘eurgh’ face he reserves for when I make him try my GF bread, he nodded and said it was good, praise indeed!   There has been some twitter debate about the cost of them, I'm not even going into that, because frankly they are good, and like everything else in life, I am happy to pay money for good quality products, I also believe that if NB can bring prices down through increased production and economies of scale they will do so.

So what of the other goodies, I tried a seeded loaf, it was good, on a par with the Genius one which I buy every week, some breakfast syrup muffins, delicious, I am a big big fan of all the NB muffins and these were no exception.  Any duds I hear you ask? well, I have to be honest I don’t think they are there with the baguettes, I didn’t like the texture or the taste of them and so in my humble opinion more work needs to be done to bring these up to scratch with their other products.

So there you have it, a dedicated bakery, trying to meet our needs with exciting new products, embracing social media and therefore wanting to engage with their actual customers. 

Talking of which the ‘wrap’ is a limited edition product which has a campaign running on facebook entitled #saveourwrap, they want to make sure this product will have enough demand so I urge you to check out the link and make sure it becomes a permanent fixture! 

So in summary, I love the wrap, I want it saved, I have voted and I hope you will too because I need some wraps in my life! 

Save the wrap

 www.newburnbakehouse.com

Bristol series - Lahloo pantry

So this is the start of what I will term my ‘Bristol series’ as I am from Bristol, and my parents and extended family still live there, I am headed to the south west every few months, when I am there, I like to try and check out new venues and cafes offering gluten free fare and Lahloo Pantry was somewhere I was excited to check out.

I finally got to find a slot in-between visiting family to visit Lahloo pantry. It's a tea shoppe/cafe in the Clifton village area where all the well-heeled and cool kids hang out, so I felt right at home ha!

We had been shopping nearby, so decided to swing by for an early lunch, it was a Friday, so busy but not rammed, downstairs there are 4 large tables with a glass wall letting in light one end, and French doors leading to a courtyard garden at the other, it's not a huge space but is modern and well designed, upstairs on a mezzanine floor are stools and high tables, on the ground floor is the counter with scrummy food to tempt you coming in or leaving.  We decided to head downstairs, there were two big groups in when we arrived, having what looked like 'creative' meetings, e.g. young people having casual chats with sketch pads and iPads, they weren’t too loud so we found ourselves a table in the corner.   Lahloo specialises in tea and has tons of different varieties, my husband and I tried a few the nice waitress recommended, and ordered a light lunch, our waitress explained in detail the gluten free options available for me, I went for the welsh rarebit on gluten free bread with chilli jam and leaves which was really yummy, a really good example of a pretty simple dish but with really great ingredients allowing it to sing, the chilli jam was amazing.  Jules had a bacon sarnie that also came with the more ish chilli jam, we really enjoyed our food but I did wish I could have some of the pastries or scones on offer!  After brunch we reluctantly got ready to leave but not before I got ready to choose my desert to takeaway, there were 3 gluten free cake options and so I chose the rose and lemon cake and a single macaroon which I scoffed in the car which was delicious! The cake was moist with an almond polenta type flavour, nutty taste, with cream cheese icing in the middle and with raspberries studded through it.  It was really good but I didn’t really get any of the rose flavour.  Overall I really liked Lahloo and think if I lived closer it would be a regular haunt.

Rose and almond cake – 8/10 scrumptious

www.lahloopantry.co.uk

Review - Honeyrose Bakery

Honeyrose is an organic bakery founded by a Danish chef who trained in fine patisserie in Paris.  They are home-baked cakes that use entirely organic ingredients, and are stocked in most of the big supermarkets including Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, as Sainsbury's is my local, I have bought the bite sized brownies and the carrot cake loaf, and had the opportunity to try more of the range this month.

Its great to find good gluten free treats that are made with the best ingredients in the supermarket, whilst the supermarket own brand products are getting better in both taste and quality, I still find the smaller bakery products taste nicer, but its obviously more difficult to find the stockists to buy those products so its great that Supermarkets stock some of them.  Here is what I thought of a few of the honeyrose cakes:

honeyrose banana cake

Chocolate brownies
Little individually wrapped brownies, chewy, squishy yummy chocolate taste, really delicious and I think you can taste the quality of the ingredients. 

Macaroons
Nice coconut taste, I liked the lime, its different and gives them a really nice citrus flavour, these macaroons are a bit denser than some others I have tried but thats not necessarily a bad thing as they still taste really nice.

Banana cake
This is actually more like a bread, Its got a bread like texture and is delicately sweet,  It has a subtle banana flavour which is good.  I like my cakes a bit sweeter so this wouldn’t be top of my list for a cake treat, however I did take a few slices to work to have in the afternoon and it was great with a cup of tea, my 2 year old son also loved it!  and as its not too sweet and sugary I didn’t feel like I was giving him a traditional cake to eat, Its actually a really good little desert for children but didn’t feel indulgent enough for me. 

In summary, I really like the honeyrose range of cakes, the brownies are definitely my favourite and I really appreciate being able to pick the cakes up in my local supermarket. 

Honeyrose organic chocolate brownies – 9/10 scrumptious

To check out the gluten free range – click here 

Judging at the 2013 Freefrom Food Awards

I was honoured to be one of the judges for this years free from food awards, I have followed the awards over the years and feel strongly that as an allergy sufferer myself, they are something to support.  The organisation behind the awards Foods Matter, do a great deal to increase the quality of free from products as well as being a vital platform to raise awareness for smaller producers who are making great food free of allergies and need help to come to the attention of stockists and supermarkets etc.

The categories I was down to judge were, ready meals and sweet treats, biscuits and pastries.  The other judges were a great bunch of industry professionals, intolerance sufferers and the ubiquitous laymen which on the day I was there was the very lovely Ralph!  In the morning we tasted lots of pizzas, soups and one-pot foods, the quality of these were pretty good, and good debate was had over the products that should be shortlisted.  After a short lunch break where no one was very hungry! We started on the sweet category, we certainly ate a lot of biscuits, I personally feel there is still a long way to go with GF biscuit products to bring them up to a standard where a non allergy sufferer would say they were good, there were a few products which stood out from the rest but I can reveal no more until the announcement of the shortlisted products on the 20^th February. 

Overall I had a great day, met some lovely people, and I discovered some new brands.  I am very proud to have been a part of the awards this year, and I will of course blog when the shortlist is out, so check back to see which brands made the cut.

For more information about the awards visit www.freefromfoodawards.co.uk

2012 Roundup

2012 was a big year for me personally, I went back to work part-time after a years maternity leave,  I made my first ever celebration cake for my son’s first birthday which has opened up a whole new creative hobby for me, and my interest in sugarcraft has continued to grow over the year.  I attended a gluten free Italian cooking course which opened my eyes to new flours and techniques in my cooking, and I also continued to blog and find great gluten free brands as well as wonderful cafes and restaurants that are gluten free friendly, and I have also had the pleasure of meeting other gluten free food bloggers on a few meets ups, and have felt very welcomed by the whole community.

My hero’s this year

Brands

Honeybuns
Annies Larder
Perkier

Honeybuns I love, great cakes and with their new cookery book I can now try and recreate some of them at home.  Annie’s larder is a south London baed brad started delivering gluten free lunches in London this year and I try and order a lunch delivery at least once a week, what a treat to have a gluten free baguette delivered to your office!  Perkier foods, the Rocky Road is to die for!  And one of the few gluten free treats I have to hide from my husband!  I am also a complete convert to the Perkier porridges, the best in the market in my opinion!

Eating out

WAGfree bakery
Carluccios
Leon restaurants


I continue to support WAG free bakery in Brixton Village, who continue to provide great gluten free food.  Leon is still a favourite, for healthy fast food with great labelling on the menu.  I have loved the gluten free pizza base explosion this year!  Pizza hut, deliveries from Dominos have all brought conveinience at last when a craving for a pizza comes on, I have been very impressed with Carluccios GF menu and have eaten there regularly this year.

So the best cake of 2012?  It’s the WAGFree mini Victoria sponge!  I absolutely love this cake and cant go anywhere near WAGF without buying and eating one, making a great gluten free sponge is a challenge for anyone so the fact that this cake has such a light sponge which is so delicious is testament to their baking skills. 

WAGFree mini Victoria sponge is Gfcakelovers best gluten free cake of 2012!

Looking forward to 2013

What does 2013 hold?  Well I am very honoured to be chosen as one of the judges for the Freefrom food awards this year which I am really excited about, I am looking forward to continuing with sugar crafting and blogging, and of course seeking out great places to eat out that are safe for people who are gluten intolerant.  I also look forward to continuing to share these finds with you,  please keep commenting and letting me know how I am doing and I hope you continue to find the blog useful.

My gluten free Christmas

Having been on a gluten free diet for over 20 years,  it's not daunting for me to think about food over the festive period; be prepared is my motto and if I am invited anywhere I often bring my own snacks and treats.  Christmas will be in Bristol this year with my family and my in-laws, who are great at catering for me.  There are still some staples that they, and I, will be buying and I thought I would share these festive items with you.


Savoury

Most of the traditional Christmas dinner tends to be naturally gluten free, turkey, and lots of yummy veg, to compliment this though, I also buy the following products which the whole family love, even if they are gluten free!

Stuffing: Marks & Spencer's pork and caramelised chestnut stuffing, its absolutely delicious, but sells out quickly

Bread: I take a load of Sainsburys free from ciabattas for sandwiches and a Genius seeded loaf to get me through the Christmas week

Pigs in blankets: It's got to be 'The black farmers daughters chipolatas', wrapped in streaky bacon, yummy!

Montezuma advent 

Yorkshires: I like DS gluten free yorkshire puddings for convenience, nom

Sweet things

Now on to my favourite bit

To make sure I will be scoffing cake throughout the whole Xmas period I actually offer to do all the deserts! A combination of shop bought and things I make myself  

Advent Calendar:

My two favourites are Hotel Chocolat & Montezuma, my hubby bought me the Montezuma Calendar this year, yummy!

To nibble on and to take visiting:  

I am a big fan of hotel chocolat chocolates so will have a box of them to nibble on throughout Christmas; I have also become 

Perkier Rocky Road

a big fan of new brand Perkier, and will have a pack of the Rocky road to take home, you can get these products in Whole Foods.  Another good option is a 
tin of Honeybuns cakes, you get a great selection, they are all individually wrapped and so I have found these a great thing to have with you to take visiting. For the family, it can be tricky to have chocolates for everyone, as none of the popular tins of Roses or Quality street state gluten free on their packaging I will have a few boxes of Thornton's caramel melts this year to share around whilst watching tv, delish and I dont think the family will complain!

Prewetts Chocolate Bourbons

Biscuits:

in my opinion Prewetts make the best gluten free biscuits so I have a stash of chocolate bourbons that will be accompanying me to Bristol.  The other biscuits I like are the Byron bay packs, both are available in most supermarkets in the free from aisle.

Christmas day deserts:

I hate Xmas pudding so won't have that at all this Xmas, I will however be indulging in...

A chocolate log from Annie's Larder this year, it looks delicious and will be sure to please my chocolate loving family

I have made a gluten free Xmas cake to have in the afternoon with a nice cup of tea, I am using the recipe in Darina Allen and Rosemary kearneys healthy gluten free recipe book

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without mince pies - I tried them all last year and Genius ran away with the prize, they were the best tasting gluten free mince pie and I will be armed with two boxes to take me through the festive period, another mention though goes to Annies larder, for her delicious mince pies, I have been enjoying some of these in December and you can order them as part of a gluten free Christmas hamper.


I  hope you found this post useful, and maybe even found a few new products to try, have a wonderful gluten free Christmas, stay safe and have fun, I would love to know your favourites?

Kelly