Four gluten-free treats from around the world to bake at home

Gluten-free cooking is far from the new phenomenon it's often purported to be.

Home cooks around the world have long worked with recipes that use a variety of crops and ingredients other than wheat and other gluten-containing cereals.

In The Gluten-Free Cookbook, Italian chef Cristian Broglia has collected 350 gluten-free recipes from more than 80 countries around the globe.

Many are classics that have been treasured for generations or regional specialties using corn, buckwheat, rice, nuts and other wheat alternatives.

All are naturally free from gluten, without the usual substitutes or skipped steps required in so many coeliac-friendly recipes.

Here, Broglia shares four sweet treats to try at home.

Milk flan (Venezuela)

Venezuelan quesillo (or "little cheese") has no cheese in it, but is a flan that develops airholes as it bakes, making it look like Swiss cheese. You can also bake quesillo in individual moulds, adjusting the cooking time according to their size.

INGREDIENTS

• 150g sugar
• 3 eggs
• 400ml condensed milk
• 175ml milk
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 120C fan-forced (140C conventional).
2. In a small saucepan, combine the sugar and 2 tablespoons water and cook over medium heat until it caramelises. Remove from the heat and pour into a 25-centimetre cake pan 5 centimetres deep, and let the caramel cool on the bottom of the pan.
3. In a bowl, with an electric mixer, beat the eggs, condensed milk, milk, and vanilla for 5 minutes. Pour the mixture into the cake pan over the caramel.
4. Set the cake pan in a roasting pan on a pulled-out oven rack. Pour enough hot water into the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the cake pan with the flan.
5. Bake until firm and lightly browned on top, about 2 hours.
6. Remove from the oven. Remove the cake pan from the hot water and let cool, then refrigerate overnight until well chilled.
7. To serve, invert the flan out of the pan onto a serving plate, so the caramel is on top.

Ricotta cake (Poland)

Polish sernik ("cheesecake") rises quite high during baking, but will sink back down as it cools, and, like many cheesecakes, does a final bit of slow cooking in a turned-off oven. If preferred, serve it decorated with melted chocolate, berry compote, or caramel sauce.

INGREDIENTS

• 150g unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for the pan
• 2 tbsp potato starch, plus extra for the pan
• 8 eggs, separated
• 400g caster sugar
• 1kg ricotta cheese
• 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
• juice of ½ orange
• juice of ½ lemon
• 1½ tsp baking powder

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 145C fan-forced (165C conventional). Grease a 30cm springform pan with butter and dust with potato starch.
2. In a bowl, with an electric mixer, whisk the egg yolks and caster sugar until pale yellow and frothy. Add the ricotta and thoroughly combine. Add the melted butter, potato starch, vanilla sugar, orange juice, lemon juice, and baking powder and mix well.
3. In a clean bowl, with an electric mixer, whip the egg whites to stiff peaks. Fold the egg whites into the ricotta mixture. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
4. Transfer to the oven and bake for 1 hour. Turn off the oven and let the cake rest for 30 minutes inside the oven, without opening the door.
5. Remove from the oven and let it cool down before removing the pan's sides. Leave the cheesecake on the springform base or carefully transfer it to a serving plate. Serve warm.

Catalan cream (Spain)

Crema catalana, with its rich custard and crackly sugar topping, is very similar to a creme brulee – and in fact there are those from Catalonia who insist that creme brulee is the copycat. Unlike creme brulee, the Catalan version is a cinnamon-scented custard and is cooked on the stovetop instead of being baked. To make the sweet crust, sugar is sprinkled over the chilled custards and is then caramelised with a kitchen torch or grilled, but the traditional method of doing this is to super heat a special iron (see Note) over a flame and then let the radiant heat caramelise the sugar.

INGREDIENTS

• 475ml plus 75ml milk
• grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 100g caster sugar
• 25g cornflour
• 4 egg yolks
• sugar, for sprinkling

METHOD

1. In a saucepan, combine 475 millilitres of the milk, the lemon zest, cinnamon stick, and 50 grams of the caster sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring often.
2. In a small bowl, add the remaining milk to the cornflour and stir to combine. In a medium bowl, whisk together the yolks and remaining 50 grams caster sugar, then whisk in the cornflour mixture. Whisking constantly, very gradually pour the hot milk into the egg yolk mixture. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and bring to a bubble over low heat. Stir constantly until it's creamy, thick, and smooth, 2-3 minutes.
3. Pour the cream into four 200-millilitre ramekins, cover with cling film and refrigerate until firm, about 3 hours.
4. Dust the tops of the custards with sugar, then caramelise them with a kitchen torch and serve immediately. (Alternatively, you can put the custards on an oven tray and run under a very hot grill.)

Note Special long-handled caramelising irons are frequently sold in a set with shallow ceramic custard moulds for making crema catalana.

Serves 4

Flourless chocolate cake (Italy)

​Depending on which origin story you believe (and there are many), the torta caprese, from the Italian island of Capri, might be the result of a mistake (a baker in the 1920s forgot to add flour to a cake recipe) or possibly simply a cake designed to showcase almonds, an ingredient typical of that part of Italy. Any way you look at it, the cake is delicious, soft and creamy.

INGREDIENTS

• 170g unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for the pan
• 25g potato starch, plus more for the pan
• 180g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
• ½ vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• 5 eggs, separated, at room temperature
• pinch of salt
• 170g dark chocolate, grated
• 80g almonds, finely chopped
• 80g hazelnuts, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 160 fan-forced (180C conventional). Butter a 21-centimetre round cake pan that is 8 centimetres deep. Dust the pan with potato starch.
2. In a bowl, combine the softened butter and 90 grams of the sugar. Scrape the vanilla seeds into the bowl. With an electric mixer, beat at high speed for 4 minutes. Add the egg yolks and salt and mix for 5 more minutes.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together the chocolate, almonds, hazelnuts, potato starch, cocoa powder, and baking powder.
4. In a third bowl, with clean beaters, beat the egg whites with the remaining90 grams sugar until stiff peaks form. Fold half of the egg whites into the butter/egg yolk mixture and stir gently. Add half of the chocolate/nut mixture, then the remaining whites again, and then the remaining chocolate/nut mixture. Gently mix all the ingredients until perfectly smooth.
5. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the surface is dry and lightly cracked, about 45 minutes.
6. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack. Invert the cake onto a serving plate and dust with the remaining sugar.

Serves 6

This is an edited extract from The Gluten-Free Cookbook by Cristian Broglia, published by Phaidon, photography by Infraordinario Studio for Dalcò Edizioni S.r.l., RRP $65, phaidon.com