Recently, I gifted an afternoon tea to a group of ladies. Always a delightful experience but one that requires a lot of planning and preparation. One of my standard questions when hosting any event is “Are their food allergies or food preferences?” Though I have had few requests for gluten free items, nowadays you need to have that available. This time around, I did have requests for a gluten free menu. So this post will focus on Gluten Free Teatime Treats and what I did to make the menu work for these guests.
Menu Adjustments
Here is the menu that was developed and those items that I chose to recreate using a gluten free approach. I wanted my guests to feel like they were having the same experience with the tea, so I tried to mirror the menu as much as possible.
Some items were made to be completely gluten free for all guests and others were made in duplicate with both gluten containing items and gluten free versions.
- Savories
- Blue Cheese Tart with Cranberry Chutney ** Adjusted tart crust for all guests.
- Spinach Ball with Marinara Sauce ** Adjusted bread crumb ingredient. Served both gluten free and gluten containing options.
- Caprese Skewer with Balsamic Reduction – No adjustment necessary
- English Sausage Roll in Puff Pastry ** Reworked to be a Sausage Handpie. Guests had the traditional puff pastry roll.
- Cucumber Sandwich ** Used gluten free bread for all guests
- Scones
- Toffee Scone ** Adjusted recipe and presented both gluten free and gluten containing.
- Currant Scone ** Adjusted recipe and presented both gluten free and gluten containing.
- Sweets
- Gran Marnier Brownie ** Adjusted recipe for all guests.
- Earl Grey Rooibos Shortbread ** Adjusted recipe and presented both gluten free and gluten containing.
- Peppermint Bark – No adjustment necessary
- Eggnog Mouse with Ginger Snap Crumbles – No adjustment necessary. Ensured that the pudding in the recipe was gluten free and omitted the Ginger Snap Crumbles.
Product used
I chose to go with Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour. This product allows for 1:1 substitution. It has all the ingredients that I would need to adjust the recipes for my gluten free clients. And because this was my first foray into gluten free preparation, I wanted to make this straightforward as well. I learned of the gluten free request late in the planning and also felt that I needed to be able to expedite my timeline for preparation.
I have published some of these recipes as gluten containing, so will reference both of them as a comparison. But here’s how things turned out, with lessons learned!
Blue Cheese Tart with Cranberry Chutney
This is one of the savories that I served for the Christmas tea. It is a delicious little quiche-like bite topped with a cranberry chutney and a sprig of rosemary. I use cranberry relish for the chutney – an easy holiday standard. It starts with making a butter crust. So instead of using all purpose flour I substituted Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour. Just straight across.
Lesson Learned: The crust is moister than a traditional crust that is flakey – blind baking was a little tough. So I just removed the foil and beans and let the crust bake and dry out a little. Then layered the blue cheese and the custard as I would normally. It worked out beautifully and I would make this again.
Spinach Balls with Marinara Sauce
I have posted this recipe before Spinach Balls – A Savory Treat. These little morsels call for bread stuffing to be used in the recipe. I had already made the batch for gluten containing recipe and decided to make another version for my GF guests. Instead of the bread stuffing, I used ground up corn chips. They turned out great and would as well serve these again.
English Sausage Roll vs. Handpie
This was one of the more challenging recipes to adjust. This recipe for Puff Pastry Sausage Rolls calls for the use of Puff Pastry. I couldn’t find a substitute so went a different route. Using the Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour pie dough recipe, I created a hand pie. After making the pie crust, I rolled it out and cut a 3 inch circle. The dough was easy to make and easy to work with. I placed a rounded teaspoon of sausage in the center, closed over the circle into a semi-circle and sealed the edges with a fork. I did use an egg wash on the top. Poking holes to release the steam as the sausage cooked, I baked on a parchment lined sheet at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until lightly brown. I found that the gluten free recipe didn’t brown as readily as the puff pastry, so I used an egg wash to help brown the hand pie. These too turned out amazing. They had a nice crunch to them and were served with the honey mustard sauce that I did with the sausage rolls.
Cucumber Sandwich
This was the easiest of all. I just replaced the bread I normally use with gluten free bread. And voila – gluten free alternative cucumber sandwich.
Toffee Scone / Currant Scone
With this adjustment, I made completely separate scones for my gluten free guests. However, I took my traditional Toffee Scone Recipe Sweet Scone recipe, omitted the toffee chips and made it as usual, divided in two. Then added the currants to one batch and toffee chips to the other half.
Lesson Learned: These scones looked amazing but my first bake, I kept thinking that they would brown up. They do not. And I ended up overbaking them, not burning them but overbaking. Once overbaked they are crunchy like a cookie and definitely not a scone texture. I opted to redo them and but a milk wash to facilitate browning. And most importantly – underbaked them. When I thought they weren’t done – I took them out. So they were baked at 350 degrees for 13-15 minutes and I watched them intensely.
These scones were okay – not my favorite. So will have to work on them but I think they were acceptable for the tea. But will be striving to improve.
Gran Marnier Brownie Bites
I have not posted these before but have used them several times for my afternoon teas and they are decadent. Little bites of dense and intense chocolate brownie with an amazing chocolate ganache….all flavored with orange and Gran Marnier. For this recipe, Gran Marnier Brown Bites, I just substituted the flour for Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour and they were superb. Tasted the very same as the all purpose flour ones. So all my guests received this treat and I will top these brownies will a little orange zest for that extra punch of citrus and also letting my guests know of the flavor profile. I would definitely make these again.
Earl Grey Rooibos Shortbread
I recently posted on these Earl Grey Rooibos Shortbread. So I did the same switch as I have with several other of these recipes – just interchanged the all purpose flour for the Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour. They turned out beautifully but the baked texture is a little more crumbly and dry. The dough is great to work with and very similar to the original recipe. Again, though I had learned from my over-baking previously, I think I could have underbaked a little more. These will not brown like their all purpose counterparts but still have the great Earl Grey and buttery shortbread taste. I glazed them like the others and they were a treasure. I would make these again with the caution of the bake time.
Final Thoughts
I was very pleased to be able to offer these very delicious gluten free alternatives. I share this with my readers as many of you have asked whether or not these recipes can be made gluten free. And I am here to tell you YES they can! I would make many of these again and enjoy them just the same. Always some learnings but some successes as well. Gluten Free Teatime treats is a great option for your guests.
Oh and author’s note – No I am not currently being paid for endorsing Bob’s Red Mill products. Just felt it was the more readily available option at the time!