Cooking with Clinical Nutrition

Before I became a Clinical Nutritionist I owned a gluten-free vegan bakery called Azna Gluten Free. It was one of my most remarkable accomplishments in life, but after a 7+ year run, I had to move on in 2012. If you count the time I sold waffles from the trunk of my car, I guess it was more like 8+ years! I am STILL waiting for someone to come up with an equal to my cinnamon rolls, scones, Belgium waffles, bread, cookies, cakes, and the thousands of other creations I had! Passion and Energy were the first two ingredients to everything I ever made, and they really came through in my products. Taste, texture, and nutritional content were important to me even before I became a nutritionist.

If you’re going to live this healthy happy lifestyle, you have to touch your food. If you want to have an amazing scone, or moist fluffy cake and not get a reaction, bake one! Not sure how to go about it? If you’re not afraid of rolling your sleeves up and getting into the kitchen, then sign up for my baking classes.

I welcome you to have a peek into module 1 of 3 of my gluten-free, dairy-free baking classes.  Here we will discuss all the things on how to set yourself up for gluten-free/dairy-free baking successes and wins. There is a lot that goes into this, if you start from the beginning and build on it in layers, you won’t have a problem moving on to advanced doughs. I cover a lot of information and will provide you with your recipe sheets as we go so you can build your own cookbook.

We will talk about the science and planning around this new type of lifestyle and baking. Baking gluten-free and dairy-free is not as simple as just replacing wheat flour with rice flour and adding almond milk. You are removing 2 very complicated proteins that cause binding, texture, flavor, and elasticity. So how do you replace that?! No worries, I’ll cover that!

There are thousands of potential things to bake! I will show you how to make the base dry/wet blend formulations for you to choose from to make your baking creations a success. This baking style works in layers. Fat, protein, starch, moisture, texture, flavors, binding, nutritional content.  It’s not just about the ingredients, it’s really more about the methodology and technique. Adding clinical nutrition along the way makes it even extra nerdy and fun! Trick your kids into eating healthy by providing what I call a ‘bridge’ food. It’s still a cookie, but at least it’s free of all of the common allergens and made with a minimal amount of sugar by using the cleanest organic evaporated cane juice. I will also cover using alternative sweeteners, but I feel using the right ingredients in moderation is all in the ‘lifestyle plan’.

Kitchen Prep

Be equipped for success! I will also cover how to prep your kitchen before you begin your new gluten-free/dairy-free baking journey, so you can be prepared!  Have your kitchen well stocked with all the things!

You will want all the necessary ingredients on hand, so make a list. Have the proper equipment, tools (pans, racks, utensils, proper oven temp, etc.) storage, and time. The success of gluten-free/dairy-free baking is all about the prep work you put into it.  SO… prepare and do the work, you won’t be disappointed!

This is scratch baking at its best, so if you want it to be an instant ready-made thing, it’s not. You can however make pre-baked items like cookies, scones, cake rounds, cinnamon rolls, bread rolls, pizza crusts, and more to store in the freezer and bust them out to bake off whenever you want them.  This is how we do instant in a gluten-free/dairy-free world. Do I have your attention? If so…

Let’s welcome your dietary restriction’s liberation, bring your foodie face and let’s stuff it with deliciousness, education, and empowerment!

I will be doing a live baking demonstration at my home kitchen on Saturday, April 1st. 10:00 am – 1:00 pm Space is limited, and donation based. Recordings will be made available for download or perhaps I do a live event on IG? Not sure yet, stay tuned! Want in on the action? DM me and let me know if you’re interested!