At Cookies con Amore, we are very excited about a new magazine for gluten-free foodies called Gluten Free Forever. And we are proud as punch to be featured in the second issue which hit the newstands at the end of January. (It’s available at 800 stores and counting.) You can also purchase print and PDF copies of the magazine on the Gluten Free Forever website.

You’ll find our gluten-free raspberry linzer cookies showcased on page 9 of the Winter 2015 issue along with a handful of other gluten free products that we are eager to try ourselves. The editors write, “Skip the struggle of finding a great GF gift, and send these classic GF linzers by family-owned Cookies con Amore.”

Cookies con Amore is a big believer that gluten-free and foodie should go together. Gluten-free cookies should melt in your mouth and warm your heart. They should taste so good that you have to double check to make sure they are gluten-free. If you want to know how we do what we do, be sure to check out our blog post on Gluten Free Cookies How We Make Them Taste So Good.

It’s a brave thing to launch a print magazine in this day and age, and we hope that Gluten Free Forever takes off because the publishers are doing such beautiful, mouthwatering work. We think of it as AFAR meets Cooks Illustrated. Or perhaps a gluten-free Saveur. If the cover alone doesn’t entice you to spring for a copy, you need to know about a few of great stories that have captured our interest.

An Edible Love Story

The cold weather and short days make this a time of year to get warm with those you love and Gluten Free Forever (page 31) delivers an edible love story. It features this luscious winter menu with contrasting textures and flavors. Recipes include: Duck Legs Braised in Red Wine and Cocoa, Butternut Squash Puree, Winter Salad with Moscato Vinaigrette, Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Spiced Bosc Pears and Currants

For a simple gluten-free winter meal to share with your sweetheart, check out our Valentine’s Day menu.

Del Posto Delivers

Del Posto is a Four Star Italian restaurant in Manhattan that shares Cookies con Amore’s commitment to offering gluten-free eaters an experience that is as delicioso as traditional wheat recipes. Gluten Free Forever (page 22) tells the story of the restaurant’s path to providing “equal-opportunity indulgence for all.”

The chef de cuisine Matt Abdoo who comes from Italian heritage had been tinkering with gluten-free cooking for many years after dating a woman with celiac disease. Unable to imagine a life without pasta, “he made it his mission to create worthy gluten-free alternatives to the foods closest to his heart.”

This matches our own motivation for creating the Glutenetto line. When Cookies con Amore head baker Fernanda Capraro, who has been sharing cookies since her childhood in a small Italian village, tried a gluten-free diet, she noticed that felt better but that most gluten-free baked goods were not as delicious as the real thing. She also had friends with Celiac Disease and wanted them to be able to share in the love of a good cookie. She set out to bring artisanal taste and gluten-free health together, believing that gluten-free should taste so good that you don’t miss the wheat.

Both Del Posto’s Gluten-Free Focaccia and our Glutenetto cookies have been know to bring tears to the grateful eyes of diet-restricted customers. In our experience, creating gluten-free recipes that make people weep takes a great deal of trial and adjustment with flour blends. To produce our signature crunchy, crumbly Biscotti texture, we had to experiment with various combinations of gluten-free flours. In general, we also find that gluten-free dough is more temperamental than wheat based dough and we need to make adjustments to cooking temperature and time to yield the right combination of crunch and crumble.

We’re excited to try out Del Posto’s focaccia recipe on page 27. Chef de cuisine Abdoo attributes much of his success with gluten-free recipes to chef Thomas Keller’s Cup4Cup flour. Like Fernanda, Abdoo spent years honing his own gluten-free blends and testing the latest varieties as they came onto the market. But it was with Keller’s flour, that Del Posto’s gluten-free “pastas achieved the elusive and greatly coveted silkiness and chew of conventional handmade varieties.”

Sunday Supper with Daniel Patterson

Follow along (page 46) as this self-taught chef from Massachusetts and proprietor of Michelin Two Star Coi in San Francisco pulls together a relaxed weekend meal. Recipes include: Dungeness Crab and Parsnip Bisque, Roasted Whole Chicken with Herb Vinaigrette, Olive-Oil Crushed Potatoes with Leeks and Tatsoi Leaves, Salad of Chicories and Shaved Radish, Steamed Baby Broccoli with Rice Wine Vinegar and Citrus Jelly with Citrus Ice.

We’re foodies and always curious about what other foodies are doing in their kitchens. The best chefs draw from what’s local, experiment with different flavor combinations and tinker with tradition. We are known for our cookies based on traditional Italian recipes, but head baker Fernanda Capraro is always finding inspiration from the cuisine that surrounds her in Southern California. For instance, at Thanksgiving this year she created a pumpkin jam cookie that gave pies across America a run for their money.

We love stories like this one in Gluten Free Forever which take us into a chef’s home kitchen, because that’s where the most interesting experimentations begin.

** all artwork: Gluten Free Forever magazine