Fiasco. I am entertaining some new friends. She is gluten and dairy free (eye roll emoji). This actually is not so much a problem for the main parts of a meal except as regards dessert (although it takes bread off the table and that’s problematic in a not-such-a-huge-problem way). In googling dairy and gluten free desserts I found an amazing panoply of stupor-inducing fruits rolled in coconut, unappealingly dry and/or greasy cookie-like things and winter-unfriendly frozen icy-sugary fruit things. So I decided to take things into my own hands. I found a dairy free sticky toffee pudding recipe based on one by Gordon Ramseyand made it gluten free too. The main ingredients are dates and eggs so it seems I could replace the flour with gluten free flour.
No problem. I made the recipe exaclty as written except for the flour substitution. I do not at all like the smell of gluten free flour. Ugh. When it bakes, the smell is degoutante. A French word that we don’t really have…unpleasant and distasteful. But when it is baked it loses that smell. I followed the instructions to the letter and it looked fine when I drizzled some of the family’s fine rum on it. Waited for it to soak in and then unmolded it. Jesus H Christ it was completely raw inside and the batter poured out like a loose stool onto the plate and from there, with dramatic flourish, visually and aurally, onto the floor.
After I said something along the lines of Gosh darn it anyway, I slopped what was left of it all (I’m only feeding 4 so despite what was lost to the floor, there was still plenty) into a casserole and rebaked it. It looks fine. We’ll see how it turns out. I haven’t cut into it yet. It’s gluten and dairy free so who the hell cares. Plus I am going to flood it with gluten and dairy free caramel sauce and dairy free whipped cream. Jesus. Just writing that makes my eyes twitch.
