• Pamsy on January 26, 2025

  This book is a game changer for me. Five years ago I discovered I was gluten, egg and dairy intolerant (plus another 4) and baking as I knew it came to an end! Without doubt, being egg free, especially in baking, is the most difficult substitute to make. I've lost count of the number of loaves I've made and binned immediately along with scones and cakes. I've never even attempted pastry as I know it would be a disaster and along the way my confidence hit rock bottom. However, this book is giving me back my baking mojo. Kat is a scientist/chemist and that's what makes the difference, she explains the science behind baking and why things work/don't work. She also says that the gluten-free vegan option is the most difficult to pull off which puts my previous failures into perspective! This book would be good for anyone who bakes, not necessarily for avoiders, because the science of baking is explained. Thank you Kat.

• breakthroughc on January 15, 2025

  What an amazing book! If you bake for anyone including yourself that is Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Egg Free or Vegan you must read this book. The author is a chemist and she really explains the science of baking and why straight substitutions don’t always work. I have gone dairy free and struggled with spreading cookies, cakes with fragile structures, tough, heavy biscuits. It is not only about substitutions it is about the method. For example the reverse creaming method will give you better structure with certain types of cakes and cookies when using dairy substitutes. The book is worth every penny.

• FJT on October 29, 2024

  This is a fantastic book! I've been baking gluten free since my coeliac diagnosis in 2005 and I have baked up some frightful bricks masquerading as bread and had loads of disasters with pastry. I have replaced flour in cakes with an equal weight of GF flour and, although this has worked fairly well, it's never been perfect. I bought this book after making some GF bread recipes from Kat's website with fantastic results. After reading Kat's rules for recipe conversions in the book I made an old favourite last night (from Domestic Goddess) and it worked so much better with less flour; today I tried the scone recipe in the book and my husband (who can eat gluten) was amazed with how light and airy they were, and they tasted great too (they didn't last long!). I really like the explanations of how to convert recipes to be free from gluten / dairy / eggs and how to make things vegan. This book will be much-used!

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Homemade vegan buttermilk

  • breakthroughc on February 07, 2025

    This recipe is a game changer for someone who is diary free or vegan. Most cookbooks tell you to sub non diary milk plus lemon juice for vegan buttermilk. My cooking instincts knew that wasn’t a good substitution as non dairy milk plus lemon juice is a thin liquid that doesn’t resemble the consistency of buttermilk whatsoever. The combination of non diary yogurt and non dairy milk plus lemon juice gives you the right consistency. I will use this substitution in all of my cooking, not just the recipes in this book.

• Buttery vanilla cake: gluten-free

  • Beth891 on November 30, 2025

    Made for my son's birthday - really delicious buttery sponge with a gorgeous crumb- hard to tell that it's gluten free! Double quantities worked perfectly cooked in 6x 6" tins. Sturdy enough to stack but still soft and delicate. I coloured the batter with gel colours and it worked great. Definitely one to make again.

• Buttery vanilla cake: vegan

  • anna_66imxn on May 19, 2026

    Slightly more crumbly than non-vegan alternative but instructions on how to make any similar cake vegan are invaluable.

  • anna_66imxn on May 28, 2026

    Used as the base for an earl grey and lemon cake and turned out really well

• Chocolate cake: gluten-free

  • Beth891 on November 30, 2025

    I made double quantities as cupcakes and it made 24. They needed 15 mins at some temp as cake. Delicious, very moist and a good dark chocolate taste. They worked nicely as cupcakes. I topped with royal icing and it added a bit of a sugary contrast to the dark chocolate.

• Chocolate cake: dairy-free

  • imaluckyducky on March 02, 2025

    5 stars This make a ridiculously moist cake with a light crumb that didn’t crack when trimming. Doubled the recipe for a 2 layer 9 inch cake. Kept well for a week in the fridge.

  • breakthroughc on March 30, 2025

    Excellent non dairy chocolate cake. Moist, good crumb and rich without being too much. This will be my good to chocolate cake and cupcake recipe. Frosted with vegan buttercream frosting and no one missed the dairy.

• Vanilla cupcakes: GF vegan

  • christineakiyoshi on January 28, 2025

    Unfortunately these fell apart for me. I ended up crumbling them in a ramekin with frosting on top. The taste is delicious they just didn’t hold together. 4 stars

• Cocoa brownies: regular

  • gboden on February 26, 2026

    These were good, but not great. Not nearly as fishy in texture as I’d hoped. But the taste was good for being only cocoa powder.

• Chocolate chip cookies: dairy-free

  • imaluckyducky on March 03, 2025

    4.5 stars recipe as written is perfect for thing chocolate chip cookies with a crisp exterior and an addictive chewy center. 3TB scoop produces HUGE cookies, used a 1.5-2TB scoop for more manageable cookies. Doubled the recipe and got 30. With one pan in the oven they cooked in 12mins, two pans in the oven needed 14mins. I can tell there isn’t any butter in them (dairy free) but I’m not unhappy about it.

  • breakthroughc on September 29, 2025

    These are a nearly perfect chocolate chip cookie. I was doubtful about the melted butter, but was proven wrong.They are large cookies, but the large size allows for spreading while still be thick and chewy. My were perfect in 13 minutes and I got 26 big cookies from a double batch. Using a large cookie scoop made these look like they had come from a bakery. Winner recipe.

• Lemon crinkle cookies: dairy-free

  • breakthroughc on May 18, 2025

    These are just okay. First recipe from this book that hasn’t been great. They will get eaten, but are lacking in lemon flavor. My lemons may have been on the smaller side, it would have been nice to have a measurement on the lemon zest. I don’t think they are worth making again to up the lemon flavor.

• Shortcrust pastry: gluten-free

  • FJT on November 13, 2024

    Came together really easily! Most gluten free pastry is a very sticky business and you have to roll it out between sheets of baking parchment, and is difficult to handle. This was different. Rolled out nicely and went into my quiche tin without any issues. I made 1.5x the recipe just in case I didn’t have enough for my quiche tin. I reduced the sugar by 2/3 as I wasn’t making a sweet recipe, but left some in as I’ve read somewhere that it helps with the structure of GF pastry. My only comment would be that I think it needs to be blind baked for a bit longer than stated with the baking beans in as the sides started to buckle during the 10 minutes it was in the oven without them. The recipe suggests cooling the case completely before adding any filling (hot or cold) but I ignored that and proceeded to bake the quiche. It was lovely and the pastry tasted great. Made a few jam tarts with the leftover pastry.

• Flaky pie crust: gluten-free

  • FJT on March 15, 2025

    Tasted great and was very flaky, but i struggled to roll the pastry out to the right thickness and keep it in one piece. Luckily my tin was smaller than stated in the recipe! I will try to get it thinner and neater on another day. Be aware, this is a different recipe to the online recipe linked to above - the proportions are different - seems to be an issue with links for quite a few recipes in this book.

  • rmardel on July 05, 2025

    This recipe follows the proportions I have developed over time for my own gluten-free pie crusts and it turned out quite nicely. This is an encouraging sign for future success with this book. As noted by the author the gluten free dough will require slightly more water than a similar wheat-based dough.

• British scones: gluten-free

  • FJT on November 11, 2024

    Came together nicely and produced very light, airy scones. Next time i will be doubling the recipe as these didn’t last long. I made these again recently and used buttermilk instead of milk. I needed to add more by weight than stated in the recipe for milk, but I just continued adding until the texture seemed right. Would probably do this again in future as I thought it really improved the texture of the scones and made them seem more like 'normal' scones.

  • Bessp on January 27, 2026

    This is a very good gluten free biscuit/ scone recipe. They had pretty good rise, nice texture, and a very subtle sweetness. They could be slightly softer/fluffier, but for a gluten free option they were really delicious.

• American buttermilk biscuits: dairy-free/vegan

  • breakthroughc on February 07, 2025

    These are absolutely wonderful diary free/vegan biscuits. Mine were tall, light and flakey. I chilled them for about 30 minutes before baking and brushed them with a dairy free butter. They were easy and I will be making them often. This is an amazing book.

• Thin French-style crêpes: gluten-free

  • FJT on March 04, 2025

    Worked really well and we enjoyed these. Be aware that the online recipe link for this recipe has different proportions of flour to milk than the recipe in the book which has much more milk and slightly less melted butter.

• Fluffy American-style pancakes: gluten-free

  • FJT on March 02, 2025

    I used less sugar, but otherwise followed the recipe. Makes nice fluffy pancakes.

• Fluffy American-style pancakes: dairy-free

  • breakthroughc on January 26, 2025

    Really nice dairy free pancakes. These browned better than other dairy free or vegan pancakes. I used a 1/3 cup of batter per pancake and got 9 large pancakes. This will be my go to pancake recipe. This is a terrific book.

  • shapije1 on April 19, 2026

    I cooked these using vegan butter and the gluten-free flour mix provided in the book. We used stone ground millet flour and sorghum flour, which yielded dense and grainy pancakes. The ratio of liquid-to-dry components was likely somewhat off given our ingredients—we would make these again but will be more careful in monitoring the batter consistency.

• Fluffy American-style pancakes: vegan

  • anna_66imxn on May 01, 2026

    Used the batter recipe to make dairy and egg free toad in the hole (omitted the butter) and worked really well

• Chocolate chip banana upside-down cake [gluten-free]

  • rmardel on July 13, 2025

    Updated to add that this was quickly devoured and loved by all. -- Although this is a combination I never would have thought of on my own, I was immediately drawn to it. The cake turned out quite nicely. I would make some small tweaks in the future, I will certainly make this again. I think my minor issues are due more to the GF flour blend I used (I did not use the author's blend) than any error in the recipes.

• Veggie & hummus galette [vegan]

  • breakthroughc on June 12, 2025

    Great recipe. Made a delicious and satisfying vegetarian dinner. I used a Kroeger premade pie crust which is dairy free, but not vegan. I rolled it out to be thinner. I roasted my bell peppers before making the filling. I used one medium zucchini and dried thyme and basil. I did not use the carrot, but two shallots sliced thinly and a dozen Kalamata olives cut in half. I was eying the amount of veggies needed based on the crust. This was really good with grocery store cherry tomatoes and zucchini and dried herbs and would be a great when gardens are overflowing with tomatoes, zuchinni and fresh herbs.

• Swiss meringue buttercream: vegan

  • anna_66imxn on May 24, 2026

    This recipe did not work for me it just went soupy as soon as I added the butter and couldn't be bought back. I then refrigerated it re-beat it but it then curdled, ended up using another recipe that used slightly less aquafaba added to creamed vegan butter and sugar which worked better

• Pastry cream: dairy free

  • LE1162 on May 13, 2025

    Halved the recipe and made it with almond milk and coconut cream (my apologies to the author, who recommended AGAINST coconut cream). It was absolutely delicious, and worked so well in the fruit tart that I needed it for. Great recipe with great advice about adapting to dairy free.

• Lemon curd: vegan

  • anna_66imxn on May 24, 2026

    Really easy method to make lemon curd and tasted delicious