Gluten Free Baking

As I've said many times I LOVE to cook & especially to bake.  I've been doing both since I was a teenager.  I can remember in my childhood watching my mother ask my sister to help in the kitchen & she never wanted to.  And I would be begging to help & she would never let me.  (That's a trend in lots of areas of my childhood)  

It wasn't until I was a teenager & my parents had divorced & my mother was no longer cooking that I was able to learn on my own how to cook & bake.  

Almost a year ago my son & I had to go gluten free.  While I did have someone trying to tell me that all we need to do is heal our guts & then we can eat gluten again, I know this isn't true, at least in our case.  In our case this is a genetic disease & it is forever.  My whole life I've had lots of health issues & as I've learned more & more about gluten issues I can see that all of my health issues have been related to gluten.  

Honestly my biggest concern as I faced the fact that I had to give up gluten forever was baking.  Would I have to give up baking?  I was very concerned.....it's almost therapeutic for me.  I had no idea what I could possibly replace it with.

As I dove into gluten free baking (& was amazed at how wonderful it could be) I realized it's very different in some ways & I've tried hard to forget everything I know about baking & move forward learning anew how to do it gluten free.

I truly don't understand why there's so much gross stuff out there that's gluten free.  It's no wonder that when people hear "gluten free" they automatically assume it's yucky since so much stuff out there is so gross.  Part of me wishes I could market my gluten free baked goods just to help prove how good gluten free can be.  

My ultimate dream would be to have a place like Panera or Corner Bakery that is totally gluten free.  It would have soups, salads, sandwiches, & the sweet treats as well.  I doubt that that dream will ever become a reality, but it sure would be nice & it's fun to dream.