[Anemonefish]

I'm having some friends over for dinner this weekend, one friend has recently cut out gluten from her diet and she always cooks amazing vegetarian meals for me when I go to her place, so I'd like to make an extra effort for her. I'm planning on making Jamie Oliver's pea, mint and feta soup, then a polenta dish (baked polenta squares with grilled eggplant & roasted tomato on top) with rocket/pear/parmesan salad. I'm not really a dessert person, but these friends love desserts, so could you please give me some ideas for a gluten-free dessert that won't take too much time/effort to make & will go with the meal I'm planning to make?

Thanks very much in advance!

[babycuddler]

How about pavlova or something meringuey?

[emlis22]

Chocolate mousse. Serve in martini glasses with cream and shaved chocolate on top. So easy, and so so delicous!

Otherwise I usually just subsitute flour; for example I recently made a really nice self-saucing pudding, and just used GF in place of 'normal' flour.

[citylife]

Pears in red wine

[Georgie01]

My standard gluten free desserts include chocolate mousse, meringue (or pavlova) and fruit, fruit (usually sprinkled with liqueur, sugar) with good icecream or cheesecake (the one with cream cheese, lemon, condensed milk filling and I use gluten free sweet biscuits and butter for the crust, needs to be made the day before to set, here's a recipe). Most icecream is gluten free but you need to check the labels.

I've also done flourless cakes with icecream/fruit/cream (good to prepare ahead).

[brindle]

Orange & Almond cake with loads of thick cream.
If you want it richer you can add some melted chocolate & creme to the mix and make it a JAFFA cake.

Cake tastes better when made the day before - so extra easy for preparing for dinner.

[julzely]

This gluten free chocolate cake. Its really easy and very tasty

Gluten free chocolate cake

[Phascogale]

I often do a meringue or pavlova. They don't actually take that much to make (make sure you use gluten free icing sugar and not icing sugar mix) but taste really good. They are a real treat as they don't get made all that much here. And add some whipped cream (ice cream too) and some fruit and it's an awesome dessert.

Chocolate mousse is really nice too.

Do you want a hot dessert? Chocolate self saucing pudding is really nice too (I use an ordinary recipe and just use a gluten free flour mix).

[Beancat]

orange syrup cake, flourless choc cake or merinugues with seasona berries and double cream, panna cotta, home made semi fredo, seasonal fruit jellies, friands

[Anemonefish]

Mmmm.... yumm! Thank you all so much for the suggestions!