Delicious chocolate gingerbread loaf. Gluten-free yum.

Chocolate Gingerbread, Gluten-Free Goddess Style

In the deep midwinter, I cheer my fragile spirit by baking. I put on Yo Yo Ma and stir cocoa laced batter with a wooden spoon, imagining my fellow gluten-free bakers- all of you- out there- standing in your humble kitchens, beating strange flours and non-traditional ingredients with an odd blend of dread and hope. Crossing fingers and scooping tea bread, cake and muffin batter, rolling cookie dough between nervous palms, praying to the kitchen gods.

By Winter Solstice- I will celebrate my twelfth thirteenth anniversary of living gluten-free. Yep. December 19, 2001 was the day I decided to shun gluten forever. What timing. Right before Christmas. I could have waited until December 26th. Or even the New Year.  But I didn't. 

I couldn't.

As soon as I connected the dots- from my plague of symptoms to their instigator gluten- I couldn't wait to begin my new life. If I had eaten my very last buttery croissant, so be it. If I had unknowingly crunched my last iced sugar cookie, so what. I was done.

Few of us have to make such choices.

Continue to recipe >>>