This is our first gluten-free recipe post, and it certainly won’t be our last. Just because you can’t have gluten, doesn’t mean you can’t make your pie and eat it too! A good friend of mine has celiac disease and she requested that I bake her some kind of fruit-filled pie that she could take to a party. Initially, I planned on making the pie crust 100% from scratch; I even wanted to purchase all the different types of flours typically used to make a gluten-free crust just so I could create my own gluten-free flour blend. I soon realized that wouldn’t be such an easy task, especially since it would require me to collect a variety of flours and special thickeners, some of which I couldn’t find on local grocery store shelves. I finally decided on a pie crust mix that I wouldn’t have to feel guilty using; it only has the necessary ingredients that make-up gluten-free flour, without any additives or artificial flavor enhancers. Here are a few tips: The box says that it will make 4 crusts (2 bottom crusts and 2 shells), but I discovered that I needed to use the entire box because the flour was a bit crumbly and difficult to roll out. Also, this pie crust works well for people like me who have a hard time sticking to recipes! You can easily sneak in a few extra spices when putting the mix together! I thought it was a mighty tasty pie, and I didn’t even miss the gluten-loaded, all-purpose flour I typically use to make pie crusts; anyone will enjoy this classic dessert!

If some cruel beast were torturing me and I had to live off of bread and water alone, I’d definitely choose the tastiest breads. I’d probably also try to convince whoever was inflicting that kind of torture on me to be a little more liberal with his definition of “bread”. There are just too many bread-based recipes on Key Ingredient that I wouldn’t mind living off of. Take txsred’s Fruit Bread Pudding, for instance. It has a little bit of everything wonderful in it, from vanilla and cinnamon to nuts and apples. And just maybe I could convince the aforementioned cruel beast to be my friend by bribing him with a slice of Carla’s Evil Banana Bread. What makes this recipe different from standard banana breads is that it calls for baked bananas. I can imagine the baking process gives them a candy-like taste that contributes to the bread’s delicious evilness. But if I had to live off of bread alone, I’d want it to be hearty, like Russian Black Bread; the recipe Kat shares is from a friend who knows what it means to make a filling and flavorful carbohydrate masterpiece. Of course, I’d also need to satisfy my untamed sweet tooth, and for that I’d want Eliorakiah’s Apple-Cinnamon Bread Pudding with Ginger Ale Sauce, I’d definitely forget about my troubles with that kind of dessert!