This book offers good news for people with gluten allergy: If you cannot eat bread, eat cake! Indeed, if you are one of the increasing number of people allergic to gluten, you may have great difficulty in finding good-tasting gluten-free bread, but in the realm of the finest European cakes, there are practically no restrictions. Many cakes presented here, exquisite European desserts, do not contain any flour and hence are naturally gluten-free. Others contain a very small amount of gluten and are easily converted to gluten-free cakes by substituting flour with cornstarch without any sacrifice in taste or structure.
Meringues (egg-whites based cakes) usually do not require any flour and are naturally gluten-free, as are many of the whole-egg cake recipes which, instead of flour, use grated nuts to support the cake’s structure. Historically, nuts were considered a desirable food. Grated nuts were praised as cake ingredients in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, the time when most of the cakes presented here originated. Consequently, cakes made with grated nuts instead of flour are traditionally considered as cakes of the highest quality. Some people value the superior taste of these cakes so much that they would not even try any other kind. These nut-rich and, consequently, gluten-free cakes have a long tradition and legions of passionate admirers.
Fillings and creams such as buttercream, mousse, and whipped cream naturally contain no flour. Although flour is used for pastry cream, it can be substituted by cornstarch. The original recipes call for flour probably because cornstarch was not readily available when these recipes originated. I follow this tradition here and use flour only because it is more commonly used than cornstarch, but the substitution is easy and equally delicious.