Gluten Free Engineer - Making Gluten Free Easy

Gluten-Free Baking 101: Essential Techniques for Delicious Treats

• Carrie Saunders • Episode 9

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Have you ever tried baking gluten-free bread, only to have it turn out dense and dry? Or made cookies that crumbled apart the second you picked them up? If you’ve struggled with gluten-free baking, you’re not alone!

Baking without gluten is completely different from traditional baking, but the good news? With the right ingredients, techniques, and a few simple tricks, you can make delicious, soft, and fluffy gluten-free bread, cakes, and cookies—without frustration.

In today’s episode, I’m sharing my best gluten-free baking tips to help you avoid the common pitfalls and achieve bakery-worthy results at home. Whether you’re brand new to gluten-free baking or just looking to improve your recipes, this episode is packed with game-changing advice!

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Carrie Saunders:

Quick reminder before we get started on this episode this podcast is based on my personal experiences and isn't medical advice. Have you ever tried baking gluten-free bread, only to have it turn out dense and dry, or made cookies that crumbled apart the second you picked them up? If you've struggled with gluten-free baking, you're not alone. Baking without gluten is completely different from traditional baking. But the good news With the right ingredients, techniques and a few simple tricks, you can make delicious, soft and fluffy gluten-free bread, cakes and cookies without frustration and, many times, without your friends even knowing it's gluten-free. In today's episode, I'm sharing some of my best you know first steps and simple tips at gluten-free baking to help you avoid the common pitfalls when you're making those common things that you want to make, like breads and cookies and cakes, to make bake-worthy results. Whether you're brand new to gluten-free baking or just looking to improve your recipes, these tips are going to help you avoid those common pitfalls that many of us, including myself, have fallen into in the first experimentations of their gluten-free baking. Welcome to the Gluten-Free Engineer Podcast. I'm your host, k Saunders. In 2011, I was diagnosed with celiac disease, a moment that changed everything, but I was determined not to let it hold me back. With my two engineering degrees, I set out to reverse engineer the gluten-free lifestyle, breaking down recipes, safety tips, travel hacks and everything in between to rebuild a life I love. Whether you have celiac disease, gluten intolerance or simply choose to live gluten-free, this podcast is for you. Join me each week as we simplify the gluten-free lifestyle, make it fun and prove that you don't have to miss out on anything. Welcome back to the show. Today we are talking Baking 101. We're talking some of the simplest tips that you will need to make sure that you are doing a successful job at baking without gluten. So why is gluten-free baking so different? Gluten is a structure builder in traditional baking. It gives bread its elasticity and helps cakes stay soft and fluffy. Without gluten, baking tends to be denser, drier and more crumbly, but the right flour blends and techniques can make all the difference. So, first off, we want to choose the right gluten-free flour blend. Single gluten-free flours don't work the same way as wheat flour, so you will need to use a blend. There are a couple main options and if you're just starting out baking gluten-free or you want to make it just simpler, simply stated, really, you can get store-bought gluten-free flour blends such as Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1. King Arthur also has a 1 to 1. Cup for Cup is also a great 1 for 1, etc. So as long as it's a 1 for 1, arrow Mills is also here we have that one here. That's another great 1 for 1 blend. I believe Pamela's brand has a 1 for 1 too. Those are easy and reliable for most recipes.

Carrie Saunders:

So what does it mean to have a gluten-free flour blend that's one-to-one? The intention of these one-to-one pre-made blends is to have that binder in it, that replacement gluten in it, to make sure that your bread, your cakes and your cookies turn out similarly to what a gluten version of the recipe would turn out. They have something in it like either xanthan gum or psyllium husk and that replaces that gluten binder and helps build the structure behind the flour. Now if you want to do it yourself and do your own flour blend, you want to have a combination of several flours. First you want to pick about 50% of your flour base should be a whole grain flour, something like brown rice flour, sorghum flour or oat flour. This gives it flavor and structure. And then 25% of your blend should be a starchy flour, such as tapioca starch, potato starch, arrowroot. That helps give it the softness that you're going to want in your produced result. And then about 25% needs to be binding agencies, so something like xanthan gum, psyllium husk, ground flaxseed. This replaces gluten's elasticity in the flour blend, so we'll put that in our show notes in case you can't remember. But it's 50% whole grain, 25% starchy flour and 25% binding agency.

Carrie Saunders:

Now, personally for me, when I am doing gluten-free baking I've done years and years and years of gluten-free baking I have found generally that the one-to-one flour blend is going to work in almost all cases that you need. When I don't use one-to-one flour blends is when I'm doing sourdough baking and sourdough work. That's the one time I will make the exception and go buy all the different types of flours and blend them together and you know produce what I'm trying to intend for the sourdough recipe and I trying to intend for the sourdough recipe, and I'll come up with some sourdough recipes that we will have either in the podcast, on the YouTube channel or on our website, theglutenfreeengineercom. So look for those. They will be coming soon.

Carrie Saunders:

So just note, most of the time, if you want it simple, use that one-to-one flour blend. Pick the one that's your favorite. I personally use Bob's red meal the most. Um, I do like the other ones too. They're also good. And one little tip here too if you're wanting to make like egg noodles, bob's red meal is fine for that. But if you like a bit more of a chewier, um egg noodle and I'll put up my egg noodle recipe too on our website um, I like the arrow meal one of that one better, because it produced a bit more of a chewy texture to it, had a little bit more bite to it. So just note they all are going to act a little bit differently, so experiment with it and have fun.

Carrie Saunders:

Now there is a secret to soft and moist gluten-free cakes, and on our YouTube channel we have a delicious lemon curd cake and coming very soon I have it produced, but we're getting ready to release. It is my best ever chocolate cake. I mean, I have people who are not celiac, not gluten-free, coming back for more bites of this chocolate cake. It is so divine, but there's some secrets to it, and one of them is hydration. Hydration is the key, because gluten-free flour blends absorb more liquid than wheat flour. So many times the recipes. If you're looking at a specific gluten-free recipe, you're going to see more liquid in it than if you looked at a similar recipe that was not for gluten-free baking. You can also add extra eggs, milk, yogurt or applesauce to help prevent dryness when you're baking, and some suggest letting the batter rest for 15 to 30 minutes before baking, allowing the flour to fully absorb the liquid and creating a better texture. In the recipes that I use, I don't find this part necessary, but it is definitely a great tip to consider. If you're turning a gluten recipe into a gluten-free one and you're finding that it's not quite the results you want, maybe let it rest for 15 to 30 minutes before you start baking it.

Carrie Saunders:

Now, when we're making gluten-free cookies, we want to use a mix of flours. Too much starch makes brittle cookies, so a blend of flours is great. Some like to use a blend with almond flour in it or oat flour to add chewiness. I find that the Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1 makes great chocolate chip cookies, but the tip here, though, is to make sure you chill your dough for at least 30 minutes for baking. That helps improve texture, and you may want to bake at a slightly lower temperature, and one thing I have found, particularly with Bob's Red Mill and baking cookies is that it's not going to get that golden brown that you would expect with a normal wheat floured cookie. I find that they're done before you realize they're done.

Carrie Saunders:

So make sure you're checking the edges of the cookies when you're baking cookies like chocolate chip cookies, because they may not brown. It's going to depend upon the flour blends you use as to how much they're going to brown. Some are going to brown more than others. The Bob's Red Mill, in my experience, doesn't brown very much and actually one time my youngest son and his girlfriend made gluten-free chocolate chip cookies and they over browned the bottoms because she was used to baking with regular flour and was waiting to see them brown some and he didn't know the tip that I had there. So they made them a little bit crunchier than usual because they were a little bit overbaked.

Carrie Saunders:

So just note that. Experiment with it, you know. Just write notes on your recipes. I do this all the time. I did this the other day when I made focaccia bread. I wrote on it it needs more salt. I had a great recipe. I don't even think it was a gluten-free recipe. I converted it to gluten-free. And just make some notes on your recipes when you're doing them, when something doesn't go quite right. Now, gluten free bread that's a bit of a different horse that we're talking about here.

Carrie Saunders:

Don't expect the dough on gluten free bread to look like regular bread dough. I have an excellent pull apart roll recipe that we will be putting on the website, and when you are making that dough and I'm actually going to make a YouTube video on it as well at some point it's going to be more like batter. It's going to be so much wetter it looks really odd. If you're used to gluten baking before you realize you had to go gluten free, it's going to look really odd. It's pasty, it's more batter, it's like a really thick pancake batter almost. But trust me, it'll work. And you want to use a high protein flour mix when you're baking with bread many times something with psyllium husk or xanthan gum to add that stretch to it, and some recipes you're going to want to let the dough rise a little bit longer than usual. Gluten-free dough sometimes needs a little extra time to develop the structure. Now I will caution you.

Carrie Saunders:

If you want to use a bread machine to make gluten-free sandwich bread, for example, make sure your bread machine has a gluten-free setting on it. I know sometimes people think, oh, that's just, you know a sales tactic to have a gluten-free setting on it. I know sometimes people think, oh, that's just, you know a sales tactic to have a gluten-free setting on something. But it's actually there on purpose for bread machines. So when you're baking with traditional bread you're going to need it typically twice. With gluten-free bread, if you need it more than once then it's going to get tough and just not be good. So the gluten-free bread setting on a bread machine knows well it knows that because it's been programmed to do that, but it knows to only need it once. So it's only going to need your bread once in your bread machine.

Carrie Saunders:

And this is talking about traditional bread, not like dessert breads. Dessert breads fall more into the cake category. So just note that when you're using dough for bread, when you're gluten-free baking, it is just looks totally different. Now I do find that sourdough bread and I'm going to have a bunch of resources on this eventually it looks a little bit more traditional than, say, what I made with the focaccia bread the other day and um, the pull apart rolls, where it looks more battery and paste like um, but the gluten-free sourdough baking looks a bit more normal, but you're also using all kinds of different flour blends and things like that. It's. It's definitely another episode in and of itself because sour, and maybe multiple episodes because sourdough baking. Well, it's not impossible with gluten-free baking. It is definitely a lot more steps and a lot more things to consider. So Some of the common things we need to avoid, some common mistakes we need to avoid when gluten-free baking is, don't use only one type of flour, so you can't just go out and get you know sweet rice flour or white rice flour for that matter and use it to bake and replace it.

Carrie Saunders:

You need a blend for a better texture, as well as that gluten binding agent in it. You need to have that binding agent in it, and skipping that binding agent definitely don't do that. We need to make sure we have xanthan gum or psyllium husk. It's essential for structure. Now, one other tip that I just thought of too, speaking about white rice flour. There are two different types of white rice flours and this is a little bit more of an advanced tip, but I want to throw this in here because it's important.

Carrie Saunders:

If you are following a recipe and it says sweet rice flour, make sure you do not use just white rice flour. The sweet rice flour has been processed a bit more and differently and it is stickier and more gluten-like, honestly. So whenever it calls for sweet rice flour, make sure you find a bag of sweet rice flour, because they have both in the store. What I do here's a money-saving tip too. Say I'm making noodles or something like that, I'll use a plain white rice flour as the dusting agent. Say you're making a pie, you know crust or something like that, use the cheaper flour, like the white rice flour, not the sweet rice flour that's more expensive. Use a plain white rice flour as your dusting agent whenever you want to make sure something's not sticking. So there's a little saving tip there.

Carrie Saunders:

Okay, let's go back to our common mistakes we want to avoid. First, we said, using only one type of flour. Make sure you use a blend very important, don't skip the binding agency. And of flour, make sure you use a blend Very important, don't skip the binding agency. And then next, make sure you're measuring your flour correctly. Spoon and level instead of scooping to avoid dryness. You'll get a lot more flour if you scoop it. You also can measure by weight instead, which also can be a better tip, better way to do baking, a better tip to do if possible, if you have that available as far as the recipe goes, and then make sure you adjust the baking time to what you and your instinct says. So sometimes you need to bake it a little longer, sometimes you need to bake it a little shorter. Sometimes you need it, like, if you're in US measurements, 25 degrees lower. I can't do that conversion for Celsius in my head, but 25 degrees Fahrenheit a bit lower sometimes we want. So those of you across the ocean can hopefully convert that to Celsius. I think that's about 10 or 12-ish degrees difference. So make sure that you are playing with the temperature too.

Carrie Saunders:

I usually always try a recipe the way it's written the first time and then I adjust based upon my experience, whether it needs a little bit lower temperature, a little bit longer bake. So don't be discouraged and just try again. I couldn't tell you how many times I tried to make gluten-free rolls. I think it was five times or six times. I kept making hockey pucks, so I will definitely give you guys the recipe to that, but I didn't give up. I finally found a recipe that worked and, oh my goodness, people come back for seconds and non-gluten-free people. They absolutely love it. So that's another tip there Don't give up. Always retry If you mess up.

Carrie Saunders:

Feel free to join our free facebook group. Just search for the gluten-free engineer on facebook and we'll have a link to it on our the gluten-free engineercom website. You're always welcome to jump in there and ask questions, say hey, here's my recipe and this is how it turned out. I don't know what I did wrong. You know we'll all jump in there and help you out. There's a lot of gluten-freefree people in there who've been gluten-free for a very long time and have lots of experience. So make sure you jump into our community and get all the help you need there.

Carrie Saunders:

So some key takeaways Gluten-free baking doesn't have to be complicated. With the right flour blends, extra moisture and a few simple tricks and really listening to your instinct, you can create delicious bakery quality bread, cakes and cookies at home. I know my friends and family joke and say I need to open up my own restaurant, but that's not something that's in my heart. I'd rather help and teach other people to do their own wonderful baking and experiment. Don't be afraid to try new blends or new brands and, most importantly, have fun with it. This is a life, is just a process and a journey, and we don't want to get discouraged, even though sometimes gluten-free baking can be frustrating. We don't want to get discouraged and we want to just have hope and faith that we're going to figure this out, because I know I had to have that in the early years and I certainly did so. Hopefully all of my tips will help you out to be successful in your gluten-free baking.

Carrie Saunders:

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Gluten-Free Engineer. If you found value in this story, please share it with someone who might need encouragement on their own gluten-free journey. For more tips, recipes, resources and even links to my YouTube channel, head on over to theglutenfreeengineercom. It's your one-stop hub to make gluten-free living simple, fun and full of flavor. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss out on an episode and we will see you next week. The Gluten-Free Engineer podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. I share my personal experiences and stories about living with celiac disease and navigating a gluten-free lifestyle. This podcast does not provide a medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional for medical questions, concerns or advice specific to your health.

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