Gluten Free Tea Party

On Sunday, March 1st, my 11 year old daughter, Autumn and I hosted a gluten free tea party. Gatherings such as these used to be such a challenge, but are not so much of a challenge any more.

Autumn is also has Celiac and has learned to love cooking and baking. When she was diagnosed, I did not want her to feel deprivation as I had put myself through and so went the search for gluten free baking classes. Thank God for my mentor and friend Amy Radbill who teaches Gluten Free Cooking and Baking Classes out at the Davis Food Co-op. She gave our life back to us by showing us that by going gluten free we could still bake and bake things that no one can tell are gluten free.

At our tea party we had two kinds of tea, served with homemade vanilla milk, and homemade biscuits with either a homemade cinnamon apple cream cheese spread, or a homemade strawberry butter. They were yummy. The biscuits were light and fluffy, and yet oh so buttery. Our next course was gluten free tea sandwiches with toasted brown rice triangles, and two different kinds of cream chees spreads. One had a little garlic, shallots, dill, chives, sea salt and pepper. the other cream cheese spread had sundried tomatoes, calamatta olives, parsley, chives, garlic, shallots, sea salt, and pepper. By the time we finished this course we had to wait at least a half hour before we could move on to the last course of mini desserts. For dessert we had chocolate dipped coconut cookies, lemon curd squares, and chocolate dipped strawberries. Oh my was it all delicious!! Unfortuantely I did not have enough room in my tummy to partake of each dessert. Neither did Nina Cathy, Autumn's godmother, so we sent her home with a nice little goodie box. Nina Cathy does not have Celiac but she enjoys eating our gluten free creations and always has such positive remarks. Our Gluten Free tea party was definitely a success!