I was tempted by an adsense advert to visit the Freebake site at www.freebake.co.uk, and bought a trial pack of four bags of gluten free flour mixes (bread mix, cake mix, pizza mix and plain flour, with packets of yeast).
The trial pack came quickly and today my coeliac daughter made two 2lb loaves of bread using the bread mix. I’ve frozen one, as she won’t get through two quickly enough.
It was easy to make by hand – though we could have used a machine if we’d wanted – and the results were good. The mix rose well, and resulted in a firm dense bread that didn’t crumble, and cut well. The bread is tasty, slightly yellow-tinted and didn’t have any of that ‘gritty’ feel that some gluten free flours give. No doubt you could add seeds and other things (onion, sun-dried tomatoes etc) to ring the changes.
Overall, then, I would recommend it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be available on prescription yet, so it isn’t a cheap option. Also, there were no baking instructions in the trial pack, though providing the packets of yeast is a good idea. Full instructions are available on their web site, for both baking by hand and by machine, but it would have been more convenient to have had a set included in the pack. Impressively, the instructions for baking by machine include different instructions for different models of breadmaker, so you could follow the correct ones for your machine.
Apart from the trial pack, which contains 4 bags of mix, each pack contains six bags, and each bag is enough to make 2 loaves of bread, 2 victoria sponge cakes, or 1 pizza. Freebake also sell seeds (and not-gluten-free grains) to be added to your bread in big packs.
I hadn’t heard of Freebake before, so perhaps they need to do some better marketing. Apparently they are a division of one of the UK’s leading suppliers of specialist ingredients to the baking industry and, as a result, have a lot of expertise.
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I’ve written a book summarising what we’ve learnt over 20 years of dealing with the gluten free diet, and it might be just what you’re looking for. It packs the lessons we’ve learned into what I hope is a helpful and straightforward guidebook. It’s available on Amazon, as a paperback or for your Kindle… |
HELP As frrebake has ceased to exist can you tell me where I can purchase the bread improver. I have tried other types but cannot make my bread as good as with this product.
please can you tell me if you have stopped doing the free bake gluten free flour. i have been getting this from you on perscription now they say it has been discontinued. i dont like other flours yours is the best
many thanks janet
Hi Janet
As far as I know, Freebake no longer exists. They were a subsidiary of a larger company (Fermex) who closed it down back in March.
It’s a shame, isn’t it? I hope you find another flour that you like…