Gluten Free Cooking and Baking Tips

You can have a roast. Brown it without using flour.  It takes longer, however, nothing changes in the flavor.  You get the browned look, the right texture and you didn’t add flour, gluten free or not.  Then to make the gravy from the dipping use corn starch.  (Or another starch if you can’t eat corn.)

Salt pasta water.  Gluten free pasta often has less flavor then wheat pasta.  Make sure that you salt the water before boiling.

Noodles: undercook them a little.  If the package says 9 minutes, I cook it for 8 and then check it.  Most of the time these noodles are already done.

Add more butter.  When you are baking gluten free you need to increase the butter or butter substitute Gluten sticks together better than the gluten free alternatives.  This can be fixed by upping the fat. 

Don’t want to add more fat to your recipes?  Try using Knox unflavored gelatin to bind the ingredients together and to keep everything moist. 

Flaxseed can be used to replace eggs.

Mix everything all at once.  Gluten free flour is easy to break down if you over mix it.  Fix this by mixing all the ingredients together at once.  When you have mixed it so that nothing looks individual anymore.  STOP. Over mixing gluten free baked goods will make them tough and too dense.  Make sure that you are not over mixing your batters.

Make your own gluten free all-purpose flour.  Once you have learned what you like and what you don’t like.  This leads you to knowing what you want to bake with.  Personally I hate the taste and texture of tapioca starch.  So my all-purpose baking flour doesn’t use it.  This has the best flavor to me. 

Here is the recipe I use to make my baking flour.

For cupcakes, cookies, cakes, muffins, and bread:

1 cup rice flour

1/2 cup almond or buckwheat flour

1 cup potato starch

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

 For breakfast muffins, cookie bars and bread:

1 cup Rice flour

1/2 cup millet flour

1/2 cup buckwheat flour

1/4 cup almond flour

3/4 cup potato starch

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

These work well for me. Try it and see what you think.  You can always alter this to make it your own.