Gluten-Free Chocolate In Toronto?

[Katie B]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to bake some brownies and am looking for a gluten-free chocolate (preferably dark) in the Toronto area. Any tips please let me know!

Thanks,

Katie

[romarin]

Hi Katie,

I am not aware of chocolate being a problem, unless of course it has something added to it, like cookie crumbles to make it crunchy... otherwise, any plain dark chocolate should be fine, as it normally just consists of cocoa, cocoa butter, sugar, and sometimes soy lecithin. A particularly nice chocolate that is made in Ontario, however, is Cocoa Camino. It's organic and fair trade, and in my opinion, the best chocolate bars anywhere. They make chocolate powder too, and I believe baking chocolate, but I'm not sure.

I'm curious, though, why you were under the impression that chocolate is a tricky thing to find as a celiac.

Good luck with your brownies!

R

[Reba32]

quite a lot of chocolate is produced on or in facilities that also manufacture wheat products. So while cocoa or chocolate itself is not glutenous, the end product may be cross contaminated.

Some chocolate makers use barley as a sweetener (Lindt) and won't swear that even the candy that doens't contain it are gluten free.

At least one chocolate candy manufacturer in the GTA uses maltodextrin from wheat as a sweetener (Purdy's) and though they swear it is a "sugar alcohol" and therefore gluten free, I had a severe reaction to it when I tried it. I was writhing in pain for hours from one small bite!

I would just read labels and look for the usual suspects in the ingredients and watch for cross contamination possibilities, same as any other product.

That said, I believe I posted in the other thread with the same question that Metro has some really nice dark chocolate bars, which are gluten free. They're not specifically "baking" chocolate, but yummy nonetheless

[K-Dawg]

Yes, you do need to be careful re: crosscontamination.

There is a vendor (or maybe 2) at St. Lawerence Market (downtown) who sells certified gluten-free chocolate (basement level).

I also think that aero is a no gluten added bar, but I"m not postive so check first.

Also, re: chocolate and celiacs: Sometime there is added flavouring (e.g. malt flavouring and that is derived from barley) that will make a celiac sick.

Hi everyone,

I'd like to bake some brownies and am looking for a gluten-free chocolate (preferably dark) in the Toronto area. Any tips please let me know!

Thanks,

Katie

[romarin]

Also, re: chocolate and celiacs: Sometime there is added flavouring (e.g. malt flavouring and that is derived from barley) that will make a celiac sick.

Okay, I guess that would be a problem then! I generally stay far away from more commercialized chocolate anyway, for plenty of other reasons, so I guess I haven't come across chocolate bars that have these extra ingredients in them. From my experience, organic chocolate, or non-organic but all-natural chocolate, is usually safe. Unless of course it says "may contain gluten, etc."