Gluten-free baking can be a challenge, but with a little bit of knowledge, it can be a lot less intimidating. Following are some of the most helpful gluten-free baking tips that I have found that can help you feel more confident in the kitchen, and creating all kinds of gluten-free treats to enjoy and share.
Whether you have celiac disease, or are off gluten for other health reasons (like a sensitivity, an autoimmune disease, or other reason), you’ve likely figured out that baking with gluten-free flours can be a bit of a challenge.
From figuring out what flours to use, to wondering about gums, leavening and starches, gluten-free baking does require some know-how.
Why We Went Gluten Free
My family went gluten-free about 5 years ago when my son was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome.
Asperger’s is a form of autism and there’s a lot of evidence that a gluten and casein-free diet can help those with autism.
We didn’t notice an immediate healing, but we did notice improvement in our son’s symptoms upon removing gluten from his diet. (He had been casein-free since infancy due to a life-threatening allergy to dairy.)
Going gluten free was a big deal for me.
I was a whole grain baking “maven”, with a whole wheat bread in my repertoire that a baker’s daughter told me I could easily sell.
We loved it. And loved wheat, kamut, and spelt. A lot.
But you can still make tasty whole grain gluten-free treats for yourself and your family.
These tips can help you do that with a little more ease.
Gluten-Free Baking Tips
1. Increase Leavening Agents
When adapting a recipe to make it gluten free, increase the amount of baking powder and baking soda by 25%. (The quick way to do that on your calculator is to take the amount called for and multiply it by 1.25.)
2. Smaller is better!
Since gluten-free baked goods tend to crumble easily, making all baked good smaller tends to improve their quality and keep them “sticking together” more. Think mini cookies, mini muffins, and small loaves of bread.
3. Blend Different Flours Together
Just as with alternative sweeteners, it is best to use more than one flour when making gluten-free baked goods. It helps prevent just one flavor or texture from dominating the final product and also helps with texture. I tend to use about 1/2 sweet brown rice and then make up the rest with whatever flours I have on hand (typically that’s buckwheat, brown rice, amaranth, and millet.)
4. Add Starch to the Mix
This is one tip I share with hesitancy. I personally almost never use starches in my baking since we deal with digestive issues (including gut dysbiosis, which is just too much bad bacteria and not enough good.)
Anyway, most gluten free baking “connoisseurs” recommending using a 1:1 or 1:2 ratio of starch to whole grain when baking to give the baked goods a fluffy texture reminiscent of baking with all purpose flour.
For me, our intestinal health is more important than having the perfect baked good around so I prefer to bake only using whole grains.
The only exception is when I am baking cupcakes or cakes, particularly when making them for others and the “sagging in the middle” thing is a concern. Then I will go “light” on the starch and maybe use a 1:3 ratio of whole grain to starch.
5. Some Sticky Help
Gluten is the part of wheat that gives it its “stickiness”. So when you bake gluten free, by definition, you are going to have a “less sticky” final result.
There are some things you can do to make up for some of that, however.
– Use sweet rice (glutinous) flour as part of your baking mix.
I use brown sweet rice flour for about half of my gluten-free baking mix, with the rest being a mix of whatever I have on hand. Sweet rice is called glutinous rice (it’s the kind used in Japan) and it doesn’t have gluten but is a little “sticky.”
There’s been quite a bit of information in the news recently about arsenic in brown rice. For now, we’re not switching off rice or to white rice (because of digestive concerns.) We are also buying California rice, which is less of a concern than rice from the southern part of the U.S. I plan to write more about this in the future, but for now, you can check out this link.
– Add gums (like guar and xanthan), gelatin, or agar-agar to your dough.
I tend not to use the gums as they can cause digestive upset. There’s even a new study apparently linking infant deaths to xanthan gum. I haven’t looked into this enough yet to know what I think.
However, I really like using gelatin for its health qualities, and I recommend Great Lakes Brand.
Here is a general usage guide for these ingredients:
- Breads and pizza doughs: Add 1 tsp of gum, gelatin, or agar-agar per cup of GF flour used
- Cakes, muffins, quick breads, cookies and bars: Add 1/2 teaspoon gum, gelatin, or agar-agar per cup of gluten-free flour used (source)
6. Gluten-Free Flour List
Safe whole grains for gluten-free baking include brown rice flour, sorghum flour, millet flour, amaranth flour, and teff flour (a fairly high-protein grain). The grain-seeds, buckwheat and quinoa, have a higher protein value.
White rice flour is safe but I prefer not to use it due to our being a whole grain family.
Bean Flours can be used, but I highly recommend using de-gassed beans and then dehydrating and grinding your own–or you might not be (ahem) happy with the results.
Oat flour can be used, but there are a lot of cautions regarding oats. Some gluten-free folks can’t tolerate oats. Others are fine with gluten-free varieties like Bob’s Red Mill. The oats from our co-op were testing at “gluten-free” levels for years despite their not being certified.
For an extensive list of gluten free flours and their characteristics, check out this post at Whole Intentions.
7. Don’t waste your “mistakes”
There is a use for botched kitchen experiments.
You can use savory baked good mistakes for breadcrumbs (just put in a food processor, run it for a bit and store the crumbs in the freezer), and sweet baked mistakes can be crumble toppings. Both can be used for cereals. Just top with milk or Homemade Coconut Milk or Homemade Almond Milk and enjoy!
8. Lower Baking Temperature
I haven’t used this tip much, but perhaps I should. A reader shared that GF baked goods tend to brown more easily so lowering the oven temperature by 25 degrees is a good idea.
9. Beat Longer
When baking with gluten-free flours, try beating the batter longer as this should add structure to the dough.
10. Let the Dough Sit
After mixing the dough, let it sit covered for 10-30, or even 60 min before baking. 30, of course is the happy medium.
This is called “blooming” by some, but this technique gives the flours and starches time to absorb the liquid as well as soften before baking. Batters also become thicker and doughs firm up using this technique.
Of course you would have to add leavening agents after this step as otherwise most will not work in the recipe and your resulting product will end up being flat.
11. Forget Perfection!
I gave up trying to be the perfect gluten-free baker a long time ago. Well, I still feel bad sometimes about my failings, but for the most part I’ve accepted that I am aiming for health–not perfect replication of fake-food goodies.
Case in point:
The other day, I made gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. Not sure what went wrong with these. They were kind of gritty (I’m now wondering if my Blendtec didn’t really get the flour so fine after all :-(.) and they fell completely apart after baking.
The ones I let cool longer in the pan held together better, but still–we’re talking crumb city.
Anyway, I’d made them for a charity dinner function we were going to so the “men” in my family ate them up regardless of the fact that they were crumbs (I was a little embarrassed as they ate crumbs at our table. It was a casual event–but still :-).)
The Homemade “Almond Joy” Bars I made the next day are disappearing faster than the “crumble cookies” but they’ll be eaten at some point.
They weren’t the greatest, but that’s OK ;-).
Ready to use your new Gluten-Free Baking Techniques to make some Gluten-Free Goodies? How about trying:
Great Gluten-Free Recipes:
– Buckwheat Wraps / Pancakes – super easy!
– Baked Oatmeal Cake – make ahead and delish
– Baked Cinnamon Doughnuts – super healthy
– Focaccia Flax Bread – another easy and delicious, sure to please recipe
– Easy Drop Biscuits – great for meals or snacks
– Chocolate Chip “Cheesecake”-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes
– Pumpkin Snickerdoodles -not just for fall!
– Soft Pumpkin Cookies – great taste without all the sugar (and gluten)
Do you have any gluten free baking tips to share?
Hi
I just printed off your Sourdough bread starter recipe, but I cannot find the link to the bread recipe, hope you can help.
thank you
Lynn
Hi Lynn! There are recipes in the post. I will go back and make sure that they are more obvious. Thanks for reading!
The starter sounds worth trying, but I’d appreciate the sourdough bread recipe as well.
Hi there–there are links to several recipes in the post–let me know if you can’t see them. Thanks!
I use gfJules flour I buy online. They’re a 1 for 1 replacement for flour and I don’t have to think about all that other stuff. Whenever I bake, I substitute applesause for oil in the recipes (most oils upset my stomach), then have to add approx. 5 -10 minutes to baking time. I don’t know if it’s the flour or applesause that causes the extra time.
I used to sub in applesauce for oil all the time b/c I was worried about fat….then realized the carbs were worse for me. Sorry the oils bother you. Does coconut oil? I wonder if you could use an enzyme to help? Lipase helps w/ digesting fats and liver work might be a help?
I use coconut oil all the time! Put it in my coffee every morning and cook every thing else with it. I just don’t like it in my baked goods. All I can taste is coconut, so I use organic apple sauce
with no added sugar.
Naturally expeller pressed has no coconut taste. Might work out well for you! It does have a lower smoke point. That’s the only issue there.
I also, according to my doctor, I have the liver of a 16 year old, ha ha. Really, no liver problems.
Wow great!!!!
Help! is there any way to keep gluten free bread loaves from collapsing? Every loaf I make is so pretty and as it cools it collapses. Any tricks?
Looks like it might be over rising. Could that be?
Autism cannot be healed. Some issues, gutrelated, might be releived by dietary adjustments. but autism CANNOT be healed – as it is not related to vaccination. Please don’t tell these lies about illnesses. People with autism, parents with children with autism have quite enough to deal with, as is.
Hi there. So what do you think we should call it when someone isn’t diagnosable as having autism any longer after making such changes?
Hi again. I should have added more to my comment. Just b/c something isn’t caused by vaccines doesn’t mean that it isn’t curable.
Margaret Herbert, from Harvard says that autism is a gut brain disorder. So if one heals the gut and can “mop up”the effects of the disorder, what do you think of that?
I know it’s a tough situation and I don’t mean to give any false hopes but I have seen amazing stories of people reversing all kinds of things and I think we all give up too easily. I hope to write more about this but I hope, if you are touched by autism, that you will look at those factors. Best wishes and happy to correspond more if you’d like :).
Hi I have more of a question than a comment. I need to learn to modify how my family eats but almost all of the recipes I find online don’t work out for me. I’m working with heart problems, diabetes, autism, and lots of stomach problems and almost zero time to do anything. Can you give me any pointers on where to look for recipes that actually hold. I have tried lots of almond flour recipes that look like failed science experiments. I’m not the most wonderful cook but I was in school for culinary arts for some time and took classes for food service and dietary aid and still can’t make heads or tail out of why almond flour pancakes look like you don’t know cream of wheat isn’t supposed to be fried or something lol.
So are you looking for any kind of recipe?
Hey! I’m a little confuse when you were talking about the sweet rice flour. When you say “ I use brown sweet rice flour for about half of my gluten-free baking mix, with the rest being a mix of whatever I have on hand. “ Do you mean :
1) in your GF baking mix, do you use 1/2 sweet rice flour, + Another GF flour blend mix + buckwheat or whatever u have on hand? . Or of the TOTAL GF flour called for, u use half sweet rice flour and another half of something else? Does that make sense?
3.) would I need to let it sit out for 30 mins before baking when using sweet rice flour or even the brown rice flour?
4.) could u use sweet rice flour and brown rice flour together? Or what is the result usually, like gritty or what?
Thanks so much!!
Hi there!
So for doing GF baking, sweet rice flour works well b/c it has a gelatinous nature. I typically would use about 1/2 sweet rice and then make any kind of blend of whatever else I had lying around. You could use sweet and brown rice together but white rice will give you a much lighter product.
I haven’t tried the 30 min tip but I will add that to the post.
Hope that helps!
I i just read the the artical it never totaly said how to stop the cake from or cookies. From getting gritty. Im thinking maybe the sifting lf i read the small point in the article right.
Please im desperate im makeing the cake for my grandaughters 2nd birthday party.
Hello there. I’m sorry what are you needing to know? If your flour is fine that should work. Are you having gritty issues all the time w/ GF baking?
To reduce gritty taste try beating longer and letting it rest 30 minutes before baking. This improves structure and flours have more time to absorb liquid resulting in less grit.
Thank you so much. You may have saved my grandbabys birthday.
I am new to GF. Just reading a book on hypothyroid, which I have and I am hoping to avoid Hosimoto’s Disease by going GF. I can see already this is going to be a difficult change to make—although I believe it is worth it.
I have been making bread with wild yeast for a couple of years now. It takes 6-24 hours to make (before baking) and during that time the gluten is pre-digested, making it naturally gluten free (made with white and red wheat, spelt and kamut). At least I can still make my bread! I can also make pancakes and waffles and other things with my wild yeast and keep things gf.
I can see making this change is going to be challenging. I’m looking for more information on labels now and it’s amazing how many things contain gluten. I’m a good cook and love to cook. I appreciate the tips you’ve given to help me still love to cook—in a different way.
Hello there! Yes, gluten removal can really help with that. I have heard it over and over again. However, you can’t depend on fermentation in the home to make bread really gluten free. It’s just not feasible.
Please do be careful. Foods need to be below 20 ppm of gluten to really be gluten-free.
I am trying to find recipes to make gluten free treats for my granddaughter who has ADHD. We are sticking to a natural, no drugs approach. It is working good with some healthy supplements, but I need to find some tasty treats that she can enjoy.
This website has been interesting and helpful to me. Thanks for all the hard work, and for sharing!
What lead me here was trying to find an alternative for the gluten alternative in another recipe of mine that calls for xanthan gum. What frustrates me is the ingredients often called for in gluten free recipes that are just as bad for those I’m trying to help, as the gluten….. groan! That seems to be even more true of ready made things. I find it’s almost impossible to find things off the shelf, so I’ve quit trying. The diet food industry is making a lot of profit in the meantime however. (Remember the “fat free” and “low carb” fads?) I’ve gotta wonder whether folks who say they’ve tried gluten free with no success are just buying many of those things off the shelf.
Various family members of mine need to be gluten free either because of Celiac’s or other problems, and the list just keeps growing, with friends, family, kids’ friends; it’s quite astounding really. It seems to be a fad for some, but very real for others.
At any rate, since we do a LOT of cooking, baking, and catering for family, friends, and functions, the search for economical, delicious, and simple recipes, (especially an all purpose bread dough) that can accommodate a variety of dietary needs seems to be never ending!
Thanks again!
Tx sooo much! I am recently trying to switch to gluten free, read it helped rheumatoid arthritis, my mom got it at 34 and only did western medicine, steroids, chemo drugs, never helped and destroyed her! Anyways I am determined to do this holistic and gluten free was recommended, I have noticed huge difference in the inflammation process, as a nurse everything you said makes sense, wish I knew about autism earlier, we have over 300 kids on Maui living with autism, I used to manage a home care agency and over saw their care and families, I do recall some moms aware of the effect of gluten free, moms are way smart when it comes to their kids! switching to gluten free has been gradual but at this point the baking area was where I was being bad, I love to bake too, I am super excited, I will purchase my flours etc from your links when I can, so sad how being healthy is expensive in our world, tax again, aloha, Angie in hana
I have been playing around with so many varieties of flours since my daughter was diagnosed with Celiac a few years ago. Every single thing I baked had a gritty after taste. I’ve read a few interesting articles about letting the batter rest prior to baking and using any original recipe with regular flour. It allows the wet ingredients soak up the dry rice flours and it takes away the gritty after taste. So I tried it, what did I have to lose? I was already losing my mind trying so many new recipes that tastes like dirt. I made my original brownie recipe that I always made prior to the diagnosed that I made with regular flour. I just substituted the reg. flour with all purpose gf flour. I let it sit for over 30 minutes. I didn’t taste any grittiness. I’ve been making this along with all my original cookie and cake recipes. I feel like I just won the lotto. I love baking and it just never has been the same when I had to switch to gluten free flours. Now it’s fun again. *** I have not tried pie crusts, I’m not sure about the flakiness. that’s next on my list to experiment with. Breads are also on my list to try out.
This is music to my ears! Thank you!!! What is the brand of GF flour you use?
Have you ever used Green Banana Flour or Gluten Free Oat Bran in your baking?
I have not used banana flour yet but I have some in my pantry ready to try. I have used oat bran: https://wholenewmom.com/recipes/oat-bran-muffins/ . We love those muffins! 🙂
Very intersting article, with useful tips.
I just want to share with you, if you are having digestive issues, especially constipation, try cutting down on the amount of fibre in your diet. Slow moving digestion is a major cause for bacterial overgrowth in the intestines, which is cause for both diarrhea and constipation.
I have been having serious digestive problems for years and every time the doctor told me to increase my fibre intake, then I came across information about low residue diet which is recommended for this problem, it has solved my digestive issues completely.
I have heard that. Odd, isn’t it? We have typically heard it helps. Thanks!
Hi! I’ve been playing around with gf white cake recipes for an upcoming family party. I’ve found a recipe that is fantastic and I found that just swapping out the reg flour for gf flour worked best but I also added a tsp of lemon extract and actually think I may want to add more. Now although the cake was nearly perfect it didn’t rise in the middle the way I think it should have. I did a lil research and came up w this.. maybe by adding the lemon extract I made the cake more acidic which I’m my research I found might be able to be counteracted by maybe adding more leavening … since this recipe only called for baking powder in wondering if adding a small amount of baking soda as well may help with the rising? Any suggestions or does this make sense? Thanks in advance
From what I understand the lemon extract is more the flavor without the acidity. Did you ever make it without the extract?
So many recipes are GF now. My family is not GF. How do I convert those great recipes to regular flour, etc? Thank you.
Hi there. You can reverse engineer them using the tips in this post. Hope that helps :).
Thank you very much.
You’re welcome!
Hi,
We have been doing a gluten-free casein free diet for our son (22 years old with UC) for the last 3 years. I was interested in your blog because of all your wonderful tips and especially because of the essential oils. Reading the ingredients that you use in this post makes me want to let you know that you are in the wrong diet. Please check the “specific carbohydrate diet” or the “GAPS diet.” These diets will give you the real results you want. We have used the specific carbohydrate diet, which has been the only way that put our son in remission and took him totally off from all medication since 2.5 years ago. There is a yahoo group with a wonderful support for parents like you and me! This diet works for many autoimmune diseases and it has the connection with autism, in fact, the GAPS (gut and psychology syndrome from doctor Natasha Campbell-McBride) is especially formulated for autism and was born from this diet (SCD diet). The principals of this diet is to eliminate sugars, starches and yeast, which includes rice, potatoes, wheat, sugars (we use Honey), guar gums, baking powder (we use baking soda), etc.
Oat is gluten, so oat flour is not a healthy ingredient for your son. If you want to help your son and make him be a total normal child, please check the pecanbread.com or bctv.com.
I am just a mother of an single child with an autoimmune disease that is being reversed and understand the suffering from a mother who is trying to help their child.
hope this helps and good luck
Hi Silvia. Thanks for commenting. I have looked at SCD as well as GAPS and we have actually tried going grain free with him for quite awhile w/ almost no changes noticed at all. Our son doesn’t tolerate honey well – his candida doesn’t do well with it. We actually haven’t had oats in almost a year I would suspect and he is eating almost no starches quite frequently. The problem w/ GAPS is plenty for him as he can’t have dairy or eggs, but we are considering our next steps. We just started w/ a new practitioner who specializes in detox, methylation and more and are starting a new supplement this week to see how it goes. Thanks for your suggestions, though, and I am for sure not ruling them out. Have you heard of folks who don’t get healed on these diets? I have heard of some – I guess that means that something else is going on that hasn’t been determined as of yet. It sure is tough.
Take care.
Hi, I recently bought a bag of almond flour, which is very delicious! I thought it said can be used 1:1 in recipes to replace all purpose flour. I haven’t tried to do this yet. I don’t see almond flour in your post, I’m wondering if you have any experience with it? It sounds easier to me, but perhaps I’ve misunderstood. Thank you!
You can do that but you might find you need to cook a little longer at a lower temperature b/c it burns easily. You also might need more egg and a little more raising agent like I mentioned in the post. It may or may not work but worth a try!! Let me know how it turns out if you have time!