There are soooooooo many good books on the subject, so have your friend check her local library. It's not like it was 35-years ago when I started gluten-free baking for my mother. I have since branched out to developing gluten-free recipes for a sorghum mill located just outside of town. If I were to give advice to someone new to gluten-free baking, get a good quality grain mill and purchased your own certified gluten-free grains/seeds/beans and mill your own gluten-free flours. Fresh IS always BEST. She can mill many of her own flours in a coffee/spice mill - even rice flour. There is little difference in performance or color between white and brown rice, and they can be used interchangeably in a recipe. But there IS a significant difference between varieties. Flour made with long-grain rice is best used for breading, sauces, and as a thickener - not for baking. Both medium- and short-grain rice flours are multi-purpose and can be used as thickeners, breading and baked goods. Because you never know what commercial rice flour is milled from, making your own rice flour will be beneficial. I also love using coconut flour and almond flour, both are gluten-free and low-carb. Favorite books on the subject: -"Cooking with Coconut Flour" - by Bruce Fife, N.D. You can find many recipes on-line using coconut flour. -"The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook" - by Elana Amsterdam (Absolutely LOVE this book!!!) I purchase almond flour from Honeyville Grain by the 5-pound bag. -"The Spunky Coconut Cookbook" - by Kelly V. Brozyna - Gluten-free, Casein-free, and sugar-free. I just posted this pizza crust recipe the other day in another thread. I found it on-line for a friend who is very carb sensitive because of type-II diabetes, but it will work as a gluten-free option as well. It's hubby's new favorite pizza crust recipe using the Hot & Spicy variety of pork rinds. We make up a pile of 8-inch pizza crusts at a time, par-bake them, then store them in the freezer. Low-Carb Pork Rind Pizza Crust Yield: One 8-inch crust. 1/4 c. ground pork rinds 1/4 c. canned (dry) Parmesan Cheese (I've also used Parmesan/Romano blend) 1 egg Italian or Pizza Seasonings (to taste) 2 T. high-maize resistant starch (optional) Preheat oven to 350-degrees F. Mix dry ingredients; add egg and mix well. Place dough on a prepared pan (greased or sprayed with vegetable spray). You can use an 8-inch pizza pan or a pie pan. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and press the dough into place, building up at the outside edge of the pan. S-L-O-W-L-Y peel the plastic wrap off the dough. Bake for 10-minute, or until golden brown. Remove from oven and add toppings of choice; bake until cheese is melted and any other toppings are heated through. You can also pat the dough into a loaf pan and bake until golden brown. Cut into "bread" sticks. Grainlady note: I add hi-maize resistant starch for added fiber. I purchase it in 5-pounds bags from Honeyville Grain, but it's also available in 12-oz. amounts from King Arthur Flour (see link below). I use it a lot in baked goods as a substitute for some of the flour. You could also add flaxmeal in this recipe, for additional fiber. ---------------------------------------------------- My favorite, easy-to-make, tastes great, versitile, gluten-free bread - Arapes. I can find the pre-cooked cornmeal for making them at one store here locally, and I always keep it on hand. Arapes freeze well. You can find all kinds of recipes for them and they make a great bread for any meal. Just talking about them I can almost smell them baking on the griddle....YUM! -Grainlady

I find the Bob's awful...gross, nasty.. to much bean flour... I've not worked with the Kinni-Kwik but on Mennonite Girls Can Cook blog..they have a recipe that looks good, and uses the bread mix with other typical GF things to make a crust. I don't know why you couldn't give it a whirl..... Here is a link that might be useful: Mennonite Girls Can Cook GF.

I am mostly wheat/gluten-free. I do lots of baking - lots of experimenting with new recipes. I've had some pretty good luck! I recently started a blog (for fun) with mostly (but not all) gluten-free recipes. First few weeks going off of wheat were the hardest. Like with any addiction, the cravings are really strong. But it passes, and gets easier. I make my own gluten-free mix which I keep handy. It's 1 part Sorghum flour, 1 part Rice flour, 2/3 part Potato Starch, and 1/3 part Tapioca Starch (or flour). I also use Xanthan gum most of the time. I also use other flours like Brown rice flour, Almond flour, Oat flour (I don't need it certified since I don't have Celiac), Bean flours (can be strong). It depends on the recipe. Here's my favorite Waffle recipe. It's a Yeast recipe you make the night before, and cook up in the morning: 2 gluten-free flour 1-1/2 tsp instant yeast 1/2 stick melted butter (1/4 cup) 2 c. warm milk (or ½ buttermilk) -heated to about 110 degrees 2 eggs 2 tsp vanilla extract 1 Tbs. sugar 1/2 tsp salt The night before: Combine and whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl: flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Combine the melted butter and milk. Add the mixture to the dry ingredients. Whisk eggs and vanilla together in a separate small bowl. Add the egg-vanilla mixture to the other mixture, and whisk until well-combined. Cover with plastic wrap and stick in the fridge until tomorrow morning. The next morning: Prepare waffle iron as usual. Stir the batter to deflate it (it should be puffy and frothy). Add to waffle iron the same way you would other batter, keeping in mind that this batter will rise more than batters that use baking powder instead of yeast. Bonnie Here is a link that might be useful: My blog :-)

1. I grow my own stevia plants and harvest the leaves each fall and I convert some of it to a liquid extract and some to dried leaves to make extracts later. Remember, stevia is NOT sugar, just plant leaves which are sweet tasting. 2. Your dried leaves will have varying levels of sweetness depending on the growing season and variety of plants - somewhere between 10 to 30 times sweeter than sugar. Depending on the variety of plant that was grown, stevia has a bitter component and some varieties are less bitter than others. So you have no idea how much sweetness is equal to 1-cup of sugar - you'll just be guessing. 3. Pure stevioside extracts of stevia in the form of a white powder or clear liquid are 200 to 300 times sweeter than sugar. So commercial stevia products are entirely different, and usually much sweeter, that those made from the stevia leaves. 4. Stevia has it's own unique taste (a little like licorice). Therefore, if you are using it for baked goods, I'd suggest buying a commercial stevia product which has less bitterness and a more neutral flavor, and the sweetness is regulated so you know how much of the product equals sugar. 5. Sugar in baked goods has attributes that you can't duplicate with stevia. Sugar is a tenderizer and it's hygroscopic and attracts moisture. It also helps with browning. Stevia does none of those, so you have to include some ingredients that will aid those attributes, not just substitute stevia for sugar. 6. Since one cup of sugar could be replaced with as little as 1/4 t. of concentrated stevia powder, that will throw off your ratio of liquids to solids. Baking is also a science. 7. If you plan on having any kind of success making banana bread, find a recipe that is already designed for using stevia and use the kind (powder, liquid, sugar replacer packets, etc.) called for in the recipe. 8. Expect a somewhat different flavor, especially an aftertaste that takes time to get accustomed to as your taste buds switch from sugar to stevia. 9. Try to make small loaves. Baked goods made with stevia tend to get dry very quickly, so plan on using it quickly and refrigerate or freeze any leftovers so they don't dry out. Wrap it tightly in foil to help maintain the moisture. 10. By converting the leaves to a concentrate by carefully cooking stevia leaves in water, it will make a dark, syrupy liquid which is better used as a substitute for molasses or brown sugar in recipes. It is stable for months and the flavor "improves" with age. So how it will taste just after making it doesn't mean that's how it will taste 2-months from now. It would also be helpful to know what your food goals are by substituting stevia for sugar. Is the banana bread for a diabetic, for instance? If so, they are still consuming high-glycemic flour and I could suggest a better recipe that includes low-glycemic almond flour. For diabetics, it's the total amount of carbohydrates, whether it's from white flour or white sugar. Perhaps the recipe below will help you with your sugar to stevia conversion, but I don't have a recipe using homemade stevia concentrate from cooking the leaves in water. BANANA BREAD Source: "Stevia" by Rita DePuydt 2 very ripe, medium to large bananas 1/4 t. powdered stevia extract 1/2 t. stevia concentrate 1 T. lemon juice 2 c. whole wheat pastry flour 1/2 t. baking soda 1 t. baking powder 1/4 t. salt 1/3 c. oil 1 large egg 1/2 c. plain nonfat yogurt or buttermilk 1 t. vanilla extract 1/2 c. chopped walnuts (optional) Preheat oven to 350-degrees F. Oil a medium-sized loaf pan (7-1/2x8-1/2x2-1/2 inches). Mash the bananas in a small bowl. Mix the stevia extract, stevia concentrate, and lemon juice into the mashed bananas. Set aside Sift the flour, leavenings, and salt together in a bowl. Beat the oil and eggs together in a mixing bowl until creamy. Bean in the yogurt or buttermilk and the vanilla. Stir in the mashed bananas into the liquid mixture. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, stirring as little as possible. Mix in the walnuts just before the flour is completely blended. Place into the loaf pan. Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour until a toothpick or fork stuck in the middle comes out clean. Turn out the loaf and cool on a rack. Yield: 12 servings Per serving: Calories: 162, Total Fat: 7 g., Protein: 5 g., Carb.: 20 g., Fiber: 3 g., Sodium: 141 -Grainlady