Welcome to Springformed! This website focuses on naturally gluten-free baking, using recipes collected from around the world.

I became interested in baking in my late 20s. It was a great way to de-stress from my day job as a humanitarian aid worker. I have a deep love of baking and even took a break from work to go to culinary school to refine my pastry skills and gain a deeper technical knowledge.

When I was on assignment in Africa in 2008, I developed a severe gastrointestinal illness which led to a gluten intolerance. This changed the way that I cooked, baked, ate and even how I thought about food. Initially, I embraced a gluten-free style of cooking and baking that focused on substituting wheat flour for various gluten-free flour blends and xanthan gum. However, the complexity of the substitutions wore me down and I never thought the gluten-free versions tasted quite like the real thing.

It was the Queen of Sheba Cake that made me realize how delicious and natural gluten-free baking can be if you use traditional recipes that never included gluten in the first place! So I started to search for recipes that were originally and naturally gluten-free and did not rely on substituting wheat flour.

Over the last ten years, I have amassed a collection of hundreds of recipes from researching and travels. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, I decide to put order to my collection of recipes, which became the basis of this website. It is a work in process!

This website mainly features traditional, local or regional specialties which are naturally gluten-free. I spent significant time researching and then translating the recipes from the original language and then testing and writing up recipes when more than one version existed and there was no universal standard recipe. Sometimes I came across new, modern recipes, which I couldn’t resist including, or I developed my own. I also included a handful of favorite recipes which include a small amount of wheat flour that could easily be substituted without changing the overall taste and texture of the finished product. All the photos are my own. My husband created the logo and the website.

This website aims to be streamlined, providing only 600 characters for the recipe background or some food history, and then the recipe, focusing as much as possible on providing technical directions. Each recipe includes a handful of pictures. I often find that most food blogs are too lengthy and complicated to fully comprehend – and too full of ads! – so the aim of this website is to keep it simple and baking-focused.

The site is meant for any baker – gluten-free or not – that loves dessert as much as I do. I hope you enjoy it! You can message me below or email me at springformed@gmail.com.

xx

Janet

PS – The website is named after my favorite bakeware – the springform pan. I also was born in the spring, as was this website, so the name has a double or even triple meaning!

PPS – Photo and Recipe Sharing Policy