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Anne Byrn’s The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten Free and Unbelievably Gluten Free! Cookbooks Giveaway

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Unbelievably Gluten Free!

Anne Byrn’s first gluten-free cookbook, The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten Free, came out two years ago. Now she has released Unbelievably Gluten-Free! Both books are well rated on Amazon. Anne Byrn is not gluten intolerant herself, but she’s a well-known, well-liked cookbook author. Several years ago, gluten-free friends and fans started asking her to create gluten-free recipes. So she accepted and thrived on the challenge. You can probably deduce from the title of Anne’s first cookbook that her recipes are based on ready-made gluten-free cake mixes. Being the author of the same type of gluten-full cookbook, a gluten-free version was a natural progression. Similarly, many of the recipes in her second cookbook rely on baking mixes and other ready-made gluten-free products like bread crumbs and frozen pizza crusts. I’ll be honest … if you don’t use those ingredients, these cookbooks would not be good selections for you.

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The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten Free

All that probably leads you to wonder why I am sharing these cookbooks here on gfe as part of my Home for the Holidays event. After all, my focus here at gfe is on real food and recipes made from real food, some mainstream naturally gluten-free products, and a few gluten-free specialty products. There are a couple of reasons I have decided to share Anne Byrn’s gluten-free cookbooks. I met Anne at the Gluten-Free and Allergen-Free Expo last year. I attended one of her cooking demo sessions where she shared one of the most beloved recipes from The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten Free … Honey Bun Cake! It was very good! While she was demonstrating how to make the recipe, she told us how years earlier she had interviewed Julia Child in Paris and shared an impromptu lunch with her. It was a very special treat to imagine the scene painted by Anne’s words. Then I thanked Anne afterwards for including gfe in her list of Blogs and Websites for Recipes and Fellowship her Cake Mix Doctor cookbook. She was warm and gracious throughout, and her session was “standing room only.”

home for the holidays, gluten free, holidays, gfeWhile I don’t use gluten-free baking mixes and almost never used gluten-full baking mixes back in the day, I do know that some folks appreciate the “convenience” of them. That’s especially true for those who don’t bake often; those who are new to living gluten free and not ready to learn about individual gluten-free flours, not ready to buy xanthan gum, etc.; or those who had favorite gluten-full recipes based on ready-made mixes that they previously enjoyed and want someone else to re-create for them. I especially appreciate this statement from Anne in the introduction to her new book:

“Just because you can’t eat gluten does not mean you have to do without amazing comfort foods we all look forward to. And knowing that no busy mom should ever have to cook one dinner for the gluten-free family member and a second dinner for the rest of the family helped me develop a greater resolve to write this book.”

Those “amazing comfort foods” are really the focus of both of Anne’s cookbooks. The first obviously focuses on cakes, but the new one features recipes like Mom’s Chicken and Rice Soup, Buttermilk Biscuits, Hearty Vegetarian Chili, Homestyle Spaghetti Carbonara, Real Deal Gluten-Free Fried Chicken, Crab Fritters, December Beef Stew, and Easy Irish Soda Bread. There are 128 recipes in all. While the focus of this cookbook is what I call “mainstream gluten free” and most recipes are not dairy free, Anne offers tips at the end of the recipes for making them dairy free as well (if needed, a few recipes are both gluten free and dairy free as written).

If you are interested in a preview of the recipes from Anne’s new cookbook, Unbelievably Gluten-Free!, download the following e-book (PDF) of six recipes via this link: Unbelievably Gluten Free Holiday Sampler by Anne Byrn, the Cake Mix Doctor

Or if you’d rather, you can enjoy this e-book sampler of six recipes in Kindle format. Or, of course, you can do both if you’d like!

Anne recommends a few gluten-free baking mixes in her books. Admittedly, I’m not a fan of a few of them. Here are a few other recommendations (with valued input from some friends) for gluten-free baking mixes:

Better Batter Gluten-Free Baking Mixes

Breads from Anna Baking Mixes

Jules Gluten-Free Baking Mixes

King Arthur Gluten-Free Baking Mixes

Pamela’s Gluten-Free Baking Mixes

Giveaway Details:

UPDATE: This giveaway is now closed. Thanks to all who entered and congratulations to the following winners! Please follow along with gfe for the rest of the posts featuring recipes, info, reviews, and giveaways in Home for the Holidays event. 🙂

Katie (Gluten-Free Katie) won Anne Byrn’s The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten Free. Her comment was: “I’d love to win the Original Cookbook…love my desserts!!”

Marsha won Anne Bryn’s latest gluten-free cookbook, Unbelievably Gluten Free!  Her comment was: “I would like to win “Unbelievably Gluten Free”, the first recipe that I would try would be buttermilk bisquits.”

There will be two winners. One winner will win a copy of The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten Free and one winner will win a copy of Unbelievably Gluten Free!

To enter the giveaway:

~ Leave a comment telling which book you would like most if you’re one of the winners.

~ Look at the preview of either The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten Free or Unbelievably Gluten Free! and share one recipe that you would like to make.

~ Subscribe to gfe via email or RSS. Leave a comment whether you’re a new subscriber or current subscriber, and thank you!

~ Subscribe to All Gluten-Free Desserts … All the Time via email or RSS. Leave a comment whether you’re a new subscriber or current subscriber and, again, thank you!

This giveaway will end Thursday, December 13, at midnight EST.

Last, you won’t want to miss a post so subscribe or check back every day until at least Christmas for the remaining Home for the Holidays posts. I might have started slowly, but I’m *planning* to make up for it! I’m going to accelerate the speed and share briefer posts (a lot briefer than this one I might add … can I do it?). Writing much shorter posts for my new gluten-free desserts site, All Gluten-Free Desserts … All the Time, is giving me lots of practice at being much less wordy, but I still have “relapses.” Have you checked out the new gluten-free desserts site yet? There are dozens of gluten-free desserts recipes of all kinds (and more are being added daily) from the bloggers that you already love and “new to you” bloggers that you will quickly come to love!

This post is linked to Allergy-Free Wednesdays and Gluten-Free Wednesdays.

Full disclosure: The cookbooks reviewed here and offered in this giveaway were provided free of charge from Anne Byrn’s publisher, Workman Publishing. However, the opinions expressed are strictly my own.

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Comments

  4. Cindy ARnold Humiston says

    I would like the Unbelievably Gluten Free–and would love to try out the Red Velvet Cake with cream cheese frosting! I have been a facebook subscriber to gfe, but now I am also an email subscriber to both gfe and all gluten free desserts! Many thanks for your wonderful wisdom!

    Reply

  7. Cara says

    So many recipes sound good, chicken lettuce wraps and the cornmeal waffles with mashed banana and chocolate chips sound especially good!

    Reply

  24. Debra says

    I’d love to win UNBELIEVABLY GLUTEN FREE! and I’d love to try the Amazing Angel Food Cake. We miss it so! I already subscribe to everything you write and can’t “like” you any more than I already do! (Thanks for the consistently wonderful recipes! You are my “go to” site for everything!)

    Reply

  25. Donna Strickler says

    Hi Shirley,
    I would love to have Anne’s new book, Unbelievably Gluten Free! I have her other cookbook, and I absolutely love it. I am not a baker, so her recipes using gluten free cake mixes are wonderful for me. I’ve make several of them, and they’ve all turned out great, and they were all delicious! If I win, I can’t wait to try the Irish Soda Bread recipe. I have a “gluten” family recipe that I used to bake, and my family loved it, so I am anxious to find one that I can enjoy! I love getting your posts via email, and I’m going to subscribe right now to your other site, All Gluten Free Desserts – All the Time! Thanks for all you do for us gluten free foodies, and Happy Holidays to you and your family!

    Reply

  36. Eileen says

    Since I have neither, either would be a blessing. But the recipes in Unbelievably Gluten Free looked awesome, especially the Pumpking Spice Bread. YUM!

    Reply

  37. Melissa C. says

    I would love to win the Unbelievable Gluten Free cookbook, and would try the recipe for Pumpkin and spice waffles. Thank you!

    Reply

  38. Susan says

    I would like to try the Pumpkin Spice bread, and would be most interested in winning the Unbelievably Gluten Free book. Not sure if the mixes she talks about are all available in Canada. I did try a GF chocolate brownie mix last Christmas that was super delicious though!

    Reply

  56. Paula Rogers says

    I would love The Cake Mix Doctor. My family loves to bake, but now that two are Gluten Free most things don’t look or taste the same. The Chocolate Cake looks great. Not flat and thick like most GF cakes.

    Reply

  71. Rosanne says

    I would love to win a copy of The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten Free .

    From this selected recipes I would make the GF baked apricots !

    Thank you

    Reply

  72. Tamra says

    Either one I am a Newby to gfe. I need all the help I can get. I can’t believe how much better I feel in the few weeks I have started to eat gfree

    Reply

  73. Angela Sommers says

    Ok, so it’s already past midnite in your neck of the woods, but since I don’t usually win in these giveaways anyhow it won’t hurt the natural balance of things if I enter anyhow?
    So, I would gladly accept any of the above books if I had entered in time and were eligible to win 🙂 (how’s that for being politically correct, lol)
    and first I would bake the carrot cake in the cakemix doctor cook book, and then the apricot white chocolate layer cake! Yum!
    And I am already subscribing to both of your blogs.

    Sorry if I cluttered up your comment section, but I needed some fun today 🙂

    Reply

  75. Marsha A. says

    Cant believe I won the Unbelievable Gluten Free book! Thank you so much Shirley. I cant wait to get the book and start reading and cooking.

    Reply

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