Guess I haven't paid enough attention to ingredient lists on the candy I eat. And I'm still alive, too! LilySpider, gluten free products will be labeled as "Gluten Free" or "Certified Gluten Free" with GF in a circle between the wording. IIRC, the former is used when a specific product doesn't contain gluten in its many forms but is made in a factory that also processes products that contain gluten (chance of cross-contamination). That info will usually be included at the end of the ingredient list (chance of cross-contamination). The latter is made without any gluten-containing ingredient and in a factory that does not process products that contain wheat, etc. I can handle minor cases of cross contamination; people with Celiac Disease can not do so without becoming ill. When I started eating a GF diet, I had to learn the secret code to figure out what ingredient might contain gluten. "Food starch" could be corn starch or wheat starch; no way to know so I avoided both. Malt is often used in chocolate; malt contains gluten. Labeling has gotten much better in the few years since I went GF so it's not quite as difficult to tell when an item is a no-no for me. btw, I just read a fascinating article on NPR about the discovery of a protein that affects how we process gluten. It may be the first step towards finding effective treatment. In case you're interested,A Protein In The Gut May Explain Why Some Can't Stomach Gluten

I think parchment is better under the ceramic pie weight balls. I fill the dish with them, and as soon as it's cool enough to touch, I pull the paper into a cone, grab the point for moving to the jar, and they just funnel back in They don't prevent slumping however. Lovemycorgi, you're right about the weights. They prevent the puffage. Docking would too, but only if the filling is very thick or dry--otherwise it would leak! What prevents slumping is a very cold dish/crust and a very hot oven. Chill your crust lined pie plate for half an hour, and blind bake at 425° F.

My mother (with a family of 7, plus friends, grandparents, aunt...) used to bake scads of cookies for Christmas. We were spoiled for choice! Almond crescents, pecan balls, mini pecan tarts, date pinwheels, hermits, jam thumbprints, cut out sugar (with a touch of nutmeg), a cream cheese pastry dough filled with various fruits or nuts (can't remember the name). Sometimes she would make fudge. I am sure that I've forgotten a couple. Over the years I've made all of these, usually just 2 or 3 in small quantity (almost always including hermits) but as the DD grew up and I became prone to gaining too much weight in November and December, I am down to making just one small batch. This year it is gingerbread.

Thanks for the questions. It's hard to know sometimes what points need to be spelled out. So when rolling out with plastic, there's plastic top and bottom and no bed of flour. This makes for a relatively clean workspace and also saves a lot of wash water, though it does send plastic to the trash. I haven't found thin enough silicone. Bread wrap (beeswax impregnated linen) might work, but it's probably not smooth enough and likely too thick. Anyway, you chill the crust after rolling, either in the fridge or with ice packs, especially when starting with warm butter. I learned from Stella Parks at Serious Eats that the big secret to handling any kind of crust was to chill it all along the way, chill the bowls and tools, chill the work surface (ice packs on counters). Cold is your friend. After that, just remove the top layer of plastic, invert over the dish, and lay it in. For something as friable as graham cracker, you could also put the dish on top and invert them together. The partial advantage of that is that it's for sure centered, but it takes about 5 hands to do, and it's hard to get those hands under the whole crust, because it'll bomb if you just have one hand and it droops, and if you lift the mat as well, and it seals to the dish, then it won't drop in gracefully and fit down in the bottom and up the sides. Some people have the trick and do it that way. They may have bigger hands than I. :) In general, when one flips the crust on plastic right--dish right next to them--and it's centered enough, you just let the center sag into the dish, lay the edges up the sides, and ease the sides into the corners and flat. When it's in position, gently pull off the plastic, and smooth out any oopsies. So, the first 5 TBSP were melted, and got sucked up super quickly. The latter 3 TBSP were in a Pyrex cup (same as the first batch) in the microwave, when the MW committed harakiri. It was 30 years old and had had many lives, and was only in the kitchen because my speed oven needs fixing (and I hadn't yet put powdered dyes in it, which would have made it ineligible for food). So I put put hot (sink) water in a double sized ramekin and set the dish of butter in that. Ergo, softened. I liked it better than the melted. It combined well and had more body, less will to escape. But this is an unimportant detail. So long as the crumbs are moist enough to stick together there's no problem—specifically, yes, the extra butter makes it moist enough to hold together. A bit of water might have done the trick, but with water one would have to worry about it going mushy since crumbs collapse when wet (and wouldn't have turned into caramel!), whereas flour turns to glue. For GF, one uses egg for both moisture and glue. And it's a disgusting sloppy mess, but the plastic wrap method gets it rolled and into the dish. ETA: It occurs to me that the liquid of the melted butter might make the sugar more liquid and work to hydrate the crumbs, and thereby not roll out so dry. There's no way I could have endured a whole quarter cup of sugar with these graham crackers! Sally might use graham crackers more like what I thought they should be like. In the end, the crispy caramel crust, while not what I'd usually make, bears repeating. I use this rolling method for all my crusts. It's so much easier! I finally figured out that a lot of people were developing gluten as they rolled, and were making thicker crusts, both of which made them easier to manhandle. My preference is thin, but still flaky (regular flour crust) which requires not beating up the crust so much while rolling. But then for other non-gluten crusts, one can use the same method, and be clean and easy with the whole thing.