Gluten-free dream: This Italian cooking class provided the best food of my life

It’s safe to say I was apprehensive about spending five days in the home of pizza and pasta, as someone who can’t even have so much as a whiff of flour near my food.

So, when my friends and I travelled to the Peninsula Experience cooking class on the Sorrento coast, I was very much expecting to cook but be unable to eat anything.

Oh how wrong I was. My brilliant friend Jasmine who booked the class informed the family who run it beforehand of my allergy and they were excellent.

At a glance, the three traditional Italian dishes we were making – tiramisu, gnocchi and eggplant parmesan – were all unsafe for coeliacs, but I had gluten-free alternatives every step of the way.

Upon arrival we got our aprons and chef hats before heading inside and enjoying an espresso. Yum.

The first dish we made was the tiramisu. I was staring at the very not gluten-free wafers sitting on the table and my heart began to sink.

But I was given my own GF biscuits, my own espresso and my own cream to soak and layer on top of each other to create my own tiramisu.

Each tiramisu was in it’s own unique dish with your name on it so there was no risk of a mix-up or cross-contamination.

So with that in the fridge it was on to the gnocchi, which we were making from scratch.

So that I didn’t feel left out, I created the same gnocchi dish as everyone else (gluten and all). The class included a race between the two teams to crush the potatoes as quickly as possible.

We then let the salt and flour absorb into the carby goodness before kneading it and shaping it into our own gnocchi, which was to be cooked.

The kitchen staff then separately prepared my own GF gnocchi, so I could enjoy it at the end with everyone. The best part was everyone had to share their pasta but not me, I got my own little bowl all to myself.

Finally, the star dish in my opinion, was the eggplant parmesan. When I say it was literally the best thing I’ve ever tasted…I mean it.