Hell's Kitchen resident Leanne Buckley took her love of gluten-free, dairy-free baking to a new level this year with the release of a cookbook of her favorite recipes.
Leanne has been baking for as long as she can remember, preparing Sunday family dinners with her mother, Shirley Sanders, making cookies and butter cakes from family recipes handed down for generations.
“We always had fresh bread in the house,” Lianne says, “but it wasn't ready for long, until maybe Tuesday morning. I have such fond memories of having cake for breakfast before going to school.”
Lianne's passion for baking changed six years ago when she developed gluten and dairy intolerance, which meant she couldn't eat her go-to recipes, but after nearly a year of trial and error during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, she found the perfect alternatives for her baked goods.
The key is to use a mix of almond flour and gluten-free flour (from King Arthur's or Bob's Red Mill) so you get not only the right flavor but also the right consistency, she explained. Almond flour gives cakes a crisp texture and cookies a nice crunch, Lianne added.
It wasn't a simple process, and it began with a failed attempt at making chocolate chip cookies. “I got gluten-free flour and dairy-free chips, and they were great, they smelled great, but when I pulled them out they looked like hockey pucks,” she says. “They were awful.”
“Baking gluten-free can be a minefield – you'll either end up sticky or as hard as a rock,” Lianne added. But by making small tweaks to all the recipes and finding the right balance, Lianne's family recipes have all been revived.
For research purposes, I decided to bake Leanne's carrot cake with vegan cream cheese frosting, and I was very impressed with the results. Though the frosting was quite sweet, this was one of the most moist and flavorful cakes I've tasted in a long time. 1 pound of powdered sugar is mixed with 8 ounces of vegan Philadelphia cream cheese and a little milk.
I might stick to the dairy frosting next time, but Leanne also makes another recipe with vegan butter instead of cheese, so that might be worth a try.
Making gluten-free and dairy-free bread can mean spending a lot on ingredients — mine can cost me over $50 for a single cake — so to get the most bang for your buck, Leanne recommends buying in bulk at places like Costco so you can use the ingredients for multiple baking projects.
I doubled the recipe to make 12 cupcakes for a friend's birthday party, and I also shared the two-layer cake with the W42ST team, who found it “amazingly moist” and was amazed to find it gluten-free (in a good way).
Lianne's mother is also gluten intolerant, and she was inspired to write a book about her passion. Last year, when Lianne cited gluten-free baking as her “superpower” in West Side Story, she thought, “The world needs this.”
Highlights in the book include black bean brownies (she swears by the beans for texture, not flavor or nutrition), Linzer tarts, and an intricate Christmas cake that can be baked any time of year. Every photograph in the book is photographed and styled by Lianne, right down to the carrot-shaped streaks of frosting that decorate the carrot cake.
She's already planning Volume 2, delving deep into the world of dairy-free and gluten-free pastas, pizzas and breads. A long checklist on her phone lists the dishes Lianne is trying and perfecting, a process she estimates will probably take a few more years.
Lianne's Cookbook, Baking Bliss: Delicious Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Classic Recipesis available to buy on Amazon in the US and UK.
