Becky Excell Books in Order

Becky Excell was born in Colchester and is based in London and Essex. She is a food writer and recipe creator who built her career around a very ordinary, very frustrating problem, how to eat gluten free without feeling shut out of everyday food. She is also half South African, and she has said that baking has been part of her life for as long as she can remember.

The turning point came after an IBS diagnosis. In 2013, a few years after being diagnosed in 2009, she started sharing gluten-free recipes online because she missed the foods that used to feel automatic: bread, pizza, pasta, cakes, pastries, and takeaways. Instead of treating gluten free eating as a narrowing list of things to avoid, she started treating it as a puzzle to solve.

At first, that project was mostly practical. She wanted somewhere to point family and friends before meals so they knew what she could eat and how to feed her safely. Then people beyond her own circle found the recipes, cooked from them, and sent back photos. That response turned a personal workaround into a real body of work, and it still explains a lot about her appeal.

She didn't come to this with formal chef training.

That matters, because her books are built for home cooks. The tone is direct, the recipes are designed to be used, and the promise is simple: gluten-free food should still feel like real food, not a sad substitute or a backup plan. She writes for people who want supermarket-friendly ingredients, clear steps, and dishes they would happily make again. There is a lot of testing behind that easy tone, especially when texture and reliable swaps can make or break a recipe.

Her first cookbook, How to Make Anything Gluten-Free, arrived in 2021 and set the pattern for what followed. It focuses on the foods gluten-free eaters often miss most, from pizza and bread to doughnuts, cheesecake, and proper fakeaway dinners. Readers tend to like it because it goes straight to the point. It is about getting comfort food back on the table, and doing it in a way that feels doable.

Later that same year she published How to Bake Anything Gluten-Free, which shifts the spotlight to cakes, cookies, pastries, desserts, and savoury bakes. In 2022 she widened the brief with How to Plan Anything Gluten-Free, a meal planner and food diary for day to day life, and Quick and Easy Gluten Free, a collection built around convenience, faster dinners, and low-fuss treats. Together, those books show the range of her approach, from project baking to weeknight survival.

The audience got big, fast.

Her early cookbooks became Sunday Times bestsellers, she has appeared on national television and radio, and she won Best Food Personality at the Observer Food Monthly Awards in 2022. She also serves as an ambassador for Coeliac UK. Across all of that, the themes stay pretty steady: helping people feel less left out, making recipes that work in real kitchens, and building in options for readers who may also need dairy-free, veggie, vegan, lactose-free, or low FODMAP choices.

These days, she still shares recipes online and continues writing from a life split between London and Essex. She lives with her boyfriend Mark and their Miniature Schnauzer, Peggy. She has gone on to publish more books too, but these early titles still show the core of what she does best. She wants people to feel that going gluten free does not have to mean giving up the food they love.