Gluten Free Baking Basics

[Anonymous]

When we first went gluten free (as well as dairy/casein free) 8 months ago, I had no clue how to bake anymore. It took me a lot of searching and trial and error to finally understand how to bake gluten free (and casein free). I thought it might be useful to others to share all the info and tips I’ve gathered along the way, so here goes!

1. No one particular gluten free (GF) flour makes a great, multipurpose substitute for wheat flour. You are going to get the best results using a blend of various GF flours and starches in order to best mimic the properties of wheat flour. Here are some of the best / most popular GF flour blends that I’ve found:

*Hint* Make a large batch of your favourite GF flour blend and store it in an airtight container. Then just measure out as much as you need for any recipe that calls for a GF flour blend.

Bette Hagman’s Original Formula

2 cups white rice flour

2/3 cup potato starch

1/3 cup tapioca starch/flour

Bette Hagman’s Featherlight Blend

1 cup rice flour

1 cup cornstarch

1 cup tapioca starch/flour

1 Tbsp. potato flour (not starch)

Carol Fenster’s New Flour Blend (a nice rice-free GF flour blend)

1 ½ cups sorghum flour
1 ½ cups potato starch or cornstarch
1 cup tapioca flour
½ cup corn flour or almond flour or bean flour or chestnut flour

2. Gluten itself has binding properties, so GF flours usually need the addition of special binders to keep the finished products from crumbling apart. The most common binder added to GF flours is xanthan gum, but guar gum is also used.

Here is a general rule of thumb for the addition of xanthan gum:

for breads: add 3/4 tsp per cup of GF flour

for cakes: add 1/2 tsp per cup of GF flour

for cookies add 1/4 – 1/2 tsp per cup of GF flour

Note: xanthan gum is derived from corn, so those with corn sensitivities often choose to use guar gum. I find I sometimes need to add slightly more guar gum than xanthan gum to get the same results and prevent crumbling.

MFPIx22008-07-08 13:18:53

[Anonymous]

For the more advanced GF bakers, here is some additional information I’ve borrowed from a friend about the properties of various GF flours.

Gluten Free Flour Properties

Amaranth Flour is mild and nutty.
OK for breading.
Fair for thickening.
Excellent for baking – great when combined with quinoa and arrowroot starch. Also good combined with light buckwheat.

Use for up to 25-50% of overall flour blend.

Arrowroot is relatively flavorless.
Great for breading – add seasoning and/or other GF flours for taste.
Excellent for thickening – use like cornstarch (dissolve in cool liquid and add). Don’t cook over 5 minutes. Over cooking results in it losing thickening ability.
Excellent for baking.

Use for up to 25% of overall flour blend.

Bean Flours / Lentil Flour – flavor is moderate.
Not suitable for breading.
Poor for thickening.
Excellent for baking, but the taste can dominate.

Use for up to 25% of overall flour blend.

Brown Rice has a mild flavor.
Not great for breading.
Satisfactory for thickening.
Excellent for baking – 7/8 cup of brown rice flour is equivalent to 1 cup of wheat flour.
Use for up to 50% of overall flour blend for best results.

Buckwheat (Dark) has a strong characteristic flavor.
Very good for breading.
Bad for thickening.

Buckwheat (White/Light) has a mild and mellow taste. Very different from dark.
Excellent for breading.
Bad for thickening.
Excellent for baking but has a tendency to be dry.
One of the least expensive GF flour alternatives.
Easy to grind yourself.

Chickpea/Garbanzo Bean
Not great for breading.
Excellent for thickening.
Excellent for baking.

Use for up to 25% of overall flour blend.

Coconut is sweet tasting.
Poor breading by itself.
Poor thickening.
Excellent for baking. Especially good in cakes, muffins, and cookies. Great for sweet
breads as well. Not as good for regular breads.
May need to adjust oil content to account for oilyness of coconut.
Use for up to 25% of overall flour blend.

Cornstarch

Excellent for thickening.

Excellent for baking.

Millet has mild flavor.
Satisfactory for breading.
Not great at thickening.
Excellent for baking. Helps give body to your cookies, cakes and breads. Gives a wheat like texture/taste. Is drying to foods so be careful to not over bake.

Use for up to 25% of overall flour blend.

Nut Flours (almond, cashew, etc.) have excellent flavor -roasting makes even more flavorful.
Excellent for breading.
Cashews can thicken well.
Excellent for baking.

Use for up to 25% of overall flour blend.
Reduce oil in recipe slightly to account for high oil content of nut flours.

Potato Flour is fairly bland.
Not suitable for breading.
Can be used for some thickening but not desirable.
OK for baking substitute – combines well with brown rice flour to add body to cookie dough. Let
batter stand for a few minutes before baking to allow flour to absorb liquids.

Potato Starch has fairly bland flavor.
Crisps well for breading.
Poor for thickening – turns to glue.
Suitable for cakes but not breads. Needs eggs, baking powder and other leavening agents.

Quinoa has a strong, pleasant, nutty taste.

Poor for breading.
Poor for thickening.
Satisfactory for baking when flour is fresh and combined with other flours.

Baked goods can be dry – add fruit sauce or veggie sauce along with arrowroot starch to help retain moisture
If flour is ground from unwashed seeds it will result in a very bitter taste.

Sorghum has a heavy sweet taste.
Fair for breading.
Not suitable for thickening.
Excellent for baking – especially for cakes, cookies and fruit breads.

Sometimes used alone, but is best tasting when used in combination with tapioca, bean flours and starch.

Use for up to 50% of overall flour blend.

Sweet Rice is bland and gritty.
Not suitable for breading.
Excellent for thickening.
Excellent for baking. Can be combined with rice flour. Use very little of this in breads. Nice in cakes and cookies.

Use for up to 10% percent of overall flour blend.

Tapioca Starch/Flour is silky and flavorless.
Very good for breading.
Excellent for thickening. Dissolve in cold water. Don’t leave on heat after it thickens.
Excellent for baking.

Use for up to 25% of overall flour blend.
Don’t confuse tapioca starch with tapioca granules used to make pudding/pies.

Teff has a distinctive and sweet flavor and dark color.
Satisfactory for breading.
Not easy to use for thickening.
Good for baking – especially brownies, cakes and pancakes. Not great when used with yeast. Will dry quickly if over baked.

Use for up to 25% of overall flour blend.

White Rice is bland and inexpensive.
Not suitable for breading.
Not suitable for thickening.
Good for baking. Combines well with tapioca, potato starch and cornstarch.

Is best suited for cakes and cookies.

MFPIx22008-07-08 13:20:48

[Anonymous]

Sheri this is great. I am actually going to send this to a co-worker who does our outpatient education and we always need help with ideas for gluten free people.. you are such a great asset to this site.

[Anonymous]

good info, sherri. we bake with bette hagman’s featherlight mix most of the time because the results are so good. however, since i feel like it doesn’t necessarily have the most nutrition, since it is mostly starches, i like to add sorghum flour and sometimes i add flax seed meal. example: i use the betty crocker buttermilk pancake recipe—doubled for our family. it uses 3 cups of flour. i will use 2 cups of featherlight mix and 1 cup of sorghum flour—and i had approx. 1 tsp. of xanthan gum. the pancakes turn out great. if you are also casein free, i would imagine that you could use soy or almond milk and add a little vinegar to make sour milk to replace the buttermilk.

we also keep a canister of carol fenster’s baking mix made up in the cupboard, although i do not use it as much.

the bean flours are wonderful to bake with. they really bake up nice—just don’t taste the dough when it is raw—NASTY!!!!—-but it tastes fine once it is baked up.

i also bought myself a new grinder and i grind my own rice flour and sorghum flour. i have only ground white rice, i haven’t tried brown rice yet.

a comment on tapioca flour for thickening—–it thickens, but it grosses us out to use it for thickening because it looks alot like the slime you always see dripping from any creature on a sci-fi show!!!!

this is a great topic for you to start, sherri, since i know that a number of people on here have kept their kids off of gluten, even though they did not have celiac—-their kids just seemed to do better.

we do alot of baking and we actually use most of our old favorite recipes and just use the gluten free flour blends and xanthan gum. the twins did not do alot of cookin before they were diagnosed, but they have both become excellent bakers since being diagnosed with celiac.

bette hagman’s book ” the gluten free gourmet bakes bread” is a really good book for people that have more intolerances than just gluten because she gives various substitutions for alot of different allergies or intolerances with quite a few of the recipes. i have not been able to find my copy of the book since we moved!!!

bob’s red mill is a good source for buying gluten free flours in bulk. it really brings the price per lb. down. i am going to put in an order through azure standard next month (mostly because i can get tinkyada pasta in bulk) i’ll let you all know how their selection and prices are. we have a local gal that orders for alot of people, so shipping is only about $3.

probably one of the things we bake the most are muffins—-our favorite is pumpkin chocolate chip.

we have beeen able to recreat almost everything we baked before—bread is the hardest. we make muffins, pancakes, waffles, biscuits, cake, cookies, pizza, fruit and cheese danish, sweet rolls, apple pie, pies with crumb crusts, frog eye salad and any other pasta dish.

gluten free can be inconvenient, but it is not hard.

sherri, have you tried coconut flour or hazelnut flour? they both seem like they could add some pretty good flavor.

kevieb2008-07-09 18:03:11

[Anonymous]

Christine,

I do like the coconut flour! I only use a small amount in my own flour blend, but it’s nice. I wish we could try the nut flours – I’ve heard they’re great, but Ben is very allergic to peanut (carries an epi-pen) and tested mildly allergic to almond, so it’s not worth the risk for us. It’s too bad because I’ve heard so many good things about them. Also, I hear you about the raw bean flours! I made the mistake of tasting cookie dough that had garbanzo/fava flour in it – my goodness it was one of the foulest tastes ever!! But great when baked.

I’m getting a lot better at my GF baking. I make pumpkin and banana chocolate chip muffins regularly and have a good recipe down for both cookies and pancakes. I’m working on biscuits right now. Bread has been a disaster for us. Not so much because of the GF, but because Ben is also egg free and can’t have rice flour or corn starch. I find you can only substitute so much in a bread recipe before it all just turns to mush!

It’s interesting, since I’ve gone mostly GF myself, I feel so much better and I’ve lost a significant amount of weight (that’s a good thing – I certainly had it to lose). Also if I “cheat” and eat something with a lot of gluten in it, I will really pay for it the next day, mostly with my seasonal allergies flaring up. Sounds strange, I know! I think it just triggers some type of allergic or inflammatory response in my system and then other allergies flare too.

[Author]

Posts