#baking101

So you or someone you know was just diagnosed with Celiac disease.

You discovered you feel better when you don't eat gluten.

You found out you have a wheat allergy.

You just want to eat gluten free.

Whatever your reason for going gluten free, you go to the store are grab yourself some gluten free goodies only to have your tortillas crack in half.

You go to make your favourite cookie recipe, replace the flour with some good 'ol "all purpose" gluten free flour only to be disappointed by the results.

What's going on? The only difference is it's gluten free! This must mean that this is what gluten free baked goods are right?

WRONG!

Baking is chemistry.

Different ingredients mean different properties and therefore different rules. So when you simply dump gluten free flour mixes into a wheat based recipe you can get dry and crumbly and then we blame it on it being gluten free.

You need to forget the rules and notions you learned of wheat based baking.

Once you understand the whys and how’s the sky is the limit. Your confidence will grow and soon you will be trying out substitutions and making your own recipes.

One thing I have learned since opening the bakery, from talking to people at markets and customers, is that people still think gluten free baking isn't as good as the "real thing". I've even caught myself saying this or that is as good as the real thing.

BUT HERE IS A TRUTH

In the words of Katarina Cermelj...

"GLUTEN FREE ISN'T AS GOOD AS "THE REAL THING". IT IS THE REAL THING"

My squishy, indulgent donuts aren’t delicious despite being gluten free. They are delicious while being gluten free.

FULL STOP

What I'm going to do in this post is break down the basics of gluten free baking. From what gluten is so you can understand what you are fighting with or against and then at the end I have a basic recipe for you folks to try out in hopes that your into to gluten free baking can be a positive one.

WHAT IS GLUTEN?

The basic definition of gluten is a mixture of two proteins in cereal grains, like wheat, which is responsible for the elasticity of dough. These proteins are also responsible for other characteristics like water absorbency capacity (how much water the flour absorbs). So it determines how dry, moist, crumbly or springy the baked goods are.

See where I'm going with this?

So, while us gluten free bakers have to create gluten like characteristics in gluten free baking, sometimes a baker working with gluten has to work against the gluten!

While gluten makes for great fluffy bread, it works against a baker trying to make things like cookies or pie crusts. You don’t always want a cakey fluffy cookie or poofy pie crust.

For gluten free baking, we have the opposite issue. Cookies are easily crispy or chewy while breads become dense. This is why when people are starting out I always suggest making cookies, or something that isn't meant to be fluffy, as their first gluten free recipe.

GLUTEN FREE FLOURS

So, you want to bake something gluten free. You hop on over to your local store and head to where the flour is.....aaaaaaaand now your head is going to explode.

Cup for Cup gluten free flour, all purpose gluten free flour, brown rice flour, tapioca starch, corn flour, arrowroot flour....what the heck do you use?!

Now this is a topic you can REALLY get deep into so I'm just going to skim the surface of it here as an intro.

Gluten free flours fall into two categories kind of. Starchy flours or protein flours. These two categories will have different characteristics in terms of the protein levels, elasticity and how much water they absorb.

Protein flours like oat, quinoa and brown rice give flavour and structure. They provide a little bit of elasticity to prevent crumbling and absorb more water so the goodies don't dry out as fast.

Starch flours like arrowroot, potato and white rice make things fluffier and their lower protein content and water absorbency prevents stuff from getting gummy.

If you were to look at the ingredients and nutritional info of many cup for cup gluten free flour blends you will notice a mix of all of these flours, but they are mostly made up of the starch flours. This is why they will work great in cake or cookie recipes, but if you try to make a yeasted bread, you get something that just falls apart,

Now, there are flours out there like almond and chickpea flours that don't really fit completely into one category or the other...but that's for a post dedicated to flours and way above what you need to know starting out.

TRY THIS OUT!

What to visually see the difference in flour characteristics? Take 1 tbsp of a flour of your choice and add about 1 tbsp of water to it and mix it up. Different flours will soak up different amounts of the water and their textures will be different.

BINDERS

Gluten is what gives things it's flexibility and elasticity. Without gluten, you get dry and crumbly. So, what do you do to compensate for this? Xanthan Gum or Psyllium husk! These mimic the characteristics of gluten and help bind your goodies together. Basically, they increase the viscosity of liquids

While xanthan gum works GREAT for things you want to come apart like muffins and cookies, for bread, psyllium husk tends to work better. That is because these two binders have slightly different characteristics. You want cakes, cookies, and muffins to break apart, you don't want breads to crumble.

GLUTEN FREE FLOUR BLENDS

So, do you make your own blend or buy?

I get it, making your own blend can be very time consuming and sometimes more expensive than buying a blend. So for the sake of convenience, blends are awesome. However, gluten free blends don't lend themselves easily to every type of baking. The other disadvantage, that you will experience at least once the longer you bake gluten free, is that blends will be discontinued or changed. So now you have to find a new blend, which will be a different ratio and blend of flours, and may change the results of your recipes! Lastly, if you have an intolerance to a particular grain, you have to make sure that grain isn't used in the blend or added to the blend if they change the recipe.

If you pick up an "All Purpose Gluten Free Flour Blend" and read the ingredients, these tend to NOT have xanthan gum in them. You will see a list of different flours, and just flours. these give gluten free bakers a bit more flexibility because then they can control how much xanthan gum to add to control the final product's texture. Depending on the flour blend in these, they CAN work for some breads. However, even with the improvement in gluten free products today, a majority of store bought flour blends tend to be too starchy to get quality bread.

A "Cup for Cup Gluten Fee Flour" will have a mix of flours and xanthan gum already added to it. The benefit of this is these Cup for Cup mixes will usually sub into a cookie or cake recipe that was made with wheat flour very well, because the xanthan gum mimics the gluten. The negative of these mixes is you already have a base level of xanthan gum so you don't have a lot of control over the final products texture. These mixes will also tend to be made with more starch flours so, again, they work great for the soft cakes and cookies, but not good with bread.

OTHER STAPLES TO HAVE WHEN BAKING GLUTEN FREE

EGGS

Most recipes use eggs for the fat and protein. There are vegan recipes out there and even egg substitute you can plop in. Just know that if you use an egg substitute, you are changing the fat and protein in the recipe so your results will be different.

Remember. Baking is chemistry.

As an added tip, when baking, make sure your eggs are room temperature. Room temperature eggs whip up better and fuller, while cold eggs can lead to denser results.

TIP: If you forget to pull the eggs out of the fridge, fill a bowl or mason jar with very warm water and submerge the eggs for a couple of minutes.

BUTTER

Good ol' tasty butter. Again, there are vegan alternatives out there but make note. Vegan butter, which are a blend of oils, does NOT bake the same as butter. Without the milk solids they will not brown, different vegan butter will give different spread in cookies, and they are also salted so the give different flavour.

OIL

Sometimes oil works better than butter in recipes. Oil is pure fat while butter is fat and water. It also doesn't solidify, so depending on the texture of dough or goodie you are making, the properties of oil might lend themselves to the recipe better

SUGAR

What is an indulgent treat without sugar? Now there are absolutely a billion different types of sweeteners out there, but to keep things at the 101 level we are just going to talk white sugar.

When I use sugar, depending on what I am doing and what texture I am looking for, I might put my sugar through the blender. I always blend my sugar when making Boterkoek.

I know, extra step...but hear me out.

In Canada, when we buy white sugar its granulated. Finding what is called castor sugar here can be a bit difficult. What is castor sugar you ask? Think fine granulated sugar. It's not a powder like icing sugar and not as chunky as granular. So I weigh out my sugar, dump it in a blender and run it on low for a few seconds. The advantage of this is smaller particles, smaller particles means easier to dissolve (hint hint about one of my Nanaimo bar secrets). Now, with high moisture recipes like crepes, this doesn't make a huge difference but, things like cookies and muffins will have a more consistent/smoother texture.

If I want to sprinkle sugar onto something, granular of even coarse sugar works great.

Brown sugars are great to add flavour to a recipe. Dark brown sugar in particular will add a nice molasses flavour and is my go to for my pumpkin pie to give it a nice rich flavour (We will have them available for thanksgiving!) The extra moisture in brown sugar also helps things like brownies and cookies have a more fudgey/gooey texture.

SALT

Salt is a natural flavour enhancer. A pinch of it in a cake can pump up the flavours while too little of it in bread can make it bland.

GIVE IT A TRY: Swap the type of butter you are using in a recipe to see the different. If you always make your cookies with unsalted butter, try removing the salt and bake with salted butter and notice the flavour difference.

RAISING AGENTS

So what's the deal with baking powder and baking soda? What's the difference?

Baking Soda reacts with acids to release gas. Salt and water are biproducts created from this reaction. so if there is no acid in your recipe, baking soda won't actually do anything. Acid can come from vinegar, lemon juice, yogurt, sour cream and naturally processed cocoa (Dutch processed cocoa is NOT acidic). This beauty also has a pretty long shelf life of...well...nearly forever.

Baking powder is actually baking soda plus an acidic component and fillers to keep the acid and baking soda dry. This is why it is UBER important on a gluten free diet to make sure the baking powder you buy is gluten free. To get the reaction to start working with baking powder, since the acid is already in it, you need moisture. Heat will speed up the process. So if you keep your baking powder in a hot and humid area, the shelf life will be really short. to test if it is still active. Take some baking powder in a small bowl, add some warm water and see if it bubbles.

Yeast can come in different forms. Active dry yeast needs to be activated before being added to a recipe by being added to warm water or milk. Instant yest is just added to the dry ingredients.

TOOLS

The tools for gluten free baking are pretty much the same as non gluten free, and could be a massive post on its own, but there is ONE tool I always suggest...

DIGITAL SCALE

Ok hear me out on this.

I know in Canada we use volume. 1 cup, 1tbsp ect. But using volume can give you very inconsistent results.

Here is an example.

A recipe calls for 1 cup of flour. If you take that cup and scoop the flour out of the bag and then use a knife to level the cup you will get one weight. If you scoop the flour and then shake the flour level you will get another weight. If you spoon the flour into the cup and then level it off you have yet another weight.

What about liquids? Ever try to line up the water line with the measurement on a liquid measure? You have the cup flat on the counter and you are crouching at an awkward height to get your eyes level with the line and wait for the liquid to stop moving? Just weigh it out.

ADDITONAL TIPS

A note on convection ovens:

Ok I love my convection oven. I makes cooking stuff faster and easier. For gluten free baking though...not the best thing. Convection ovens tend to dry out gluten free baking. It doesn't make a huge difference in baking with gluten, but seeing as how with gluten free baking you are already battling dry, crumbly bakes, convection is not a good option. I just use the regular bake setting on my oven.

A fan oven circulates the hot air in the oven that is generated by the element so the operating temperature actually tends to be higher and a breeze is created in the oven. So when cooking, this is good because now your chicken is cooked faster, but in baking, that means the moisture evaporates faster making things drier and accelerated browning.

So what does tis mean for your gluten free baked goods? It means the higher heat makes the rising agents react at an accelerated rate which can lead to splitting cakes and breads. Thicker bakes like bread will be browned and look done but still be too raw in the middle.

If all you have is a convection oven, and it has no setting to do a conventional bake, reduce the given temperature by about 70 F.

NOW FOR THE GOOD STUFF

Ok, now that I made your brain explode, lets try some gluten free baking!

As we learned, gluten free flour naturally lends itself to give good results for things like cookies and muffins so in hopes of helping you build confidence, here is a gluten free cookies recipe! While this isn't the recipe I use for the cookies I make at the bakery, it is still an epic chewy recipe, and I'll tell you how to adjust the bake time to adjust the texture

---------------------CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES-------------------------

* The volume measures are approximate as I use weight when baking. If you have a digital scale, use the weights. If you do not have a scale, do not worry! Just use the volume measurements but be aware the amount of ingredients is slightly different.

*My recommended Cup for Cup blends, that I have used with success are:

Ardent Mills Gluten Free Flour

Bob's Red Mill Cup for Cup Gluten Free

President's Choice Gluten Free Flour

Our Compliments Gluten Free Flour

*Having two cookie sheets will make this recipe go faster as you have to let the cookies cool on the tray for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack and you want to bake 6 at a time to give them room to spread

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup (100g) unsalted butter melted and then cooled

1/3 cup (70g) white sugar

1/2 (120g) dark brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups (240g) Cup for Cup Gluten Free Flour Blend

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup (100 g) chocolate chips of your choice

DIRECTIONS

Beat together your butter and both sugars until they blend together and are light and fluffy

Add in the eggs and vanilla to the sugar and butter and mix until well combined

Mix together your gluten free flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. If you have a sifter this ensures the most uniform blending. If not, just go ahead and give the dry ingredients a thorough mix

Add the flour mixture you just made to the butter mixture in two batches, making sure the first batch is completely incorporated before adding the second batch.

Stir in your chocolate chips

The dough will seem very soft but this is ok. Put it in the fridge for about 1 hour to have it firm up. Unlike gluten based cookies, you don't actually have to chill cookie dough for it to develop because there is no gluten to develop. The chilling process is to ensure the dough makes nice cookie shapes.

After an hour pull out the dough and scoop it into 16 balls on cookie sheets. I like to use an ice cream scoop with a release to form my cookies so they are all equal. To get 16 cookies I use my 2 tbsp scoop.

Once on the cookie sheet, cover it with plastic wrap and put her back in the fridge for at least another 30 minutes so the dough is good and solid

While the dough is in the fridge set the oven to 350 F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mats

In batches of 6, pull the cookie dough balls out of the fridge and put them on the lined cookie sheet with lots of space to spread

Place the cookies in the oven for 8 minutes. At the 8 minute mark, pull the cookies out and tap the tray on the counter to have them uniformly spread out. You can then use a large round metal cookie cutter if you want to make the cookies perfectly round. If you like thicker cookies do NOT pull them out at the 8 minute mark. Instead leave them in the oven for 12-17 minutes

Put the cookies back in the oven for another 4-9 minutes

Once the cookies are baked you can use the metal cookie cutter one last time to round them out.

Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for about 3-5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack to finish cooling

Repeat this process until all the cookies are baked.

STORAGE AND OTHER TIPS

Store in an airtight container at room temperature for one week.

If you want to make the dough ahead of time and store it you can store the dough balls in an airtight container in the fridge for one week or the freezer for up to two months. As an extra layer of protection if you are freezing the dough, wrap each dough ball in plastic wrap before putting it in an airtight container

If you are baking these saved dough balls add 3-5 minutes to the bake time. These balls will also result in thicker cookies as they will not spread as much.

Texture of Cookie based on bake time

If you want your cookies to be very fudgy, you will want to pull them out around the 12-13 minute mark. Chewy cookies would be 14-15 minutes. Chewy to crispy would be 16-17 minutes. If you like your cookies well done, by all means keep them in even longer!