The Basics Of Gluten Free Living: Baking Tips
When I first learned that I had to eat gluten free (over 5 years ago), I was a bit overwhelmed. I’m someone who likes to bake and cook, and I had no idea where to start or restart. What flours do I use? Marinades? Dressings? Etc??? Thankfully a lot has changed over the past 5 years and there are a lot more gluten free baking/cooking options.
Today I wanted to chat briefly about gluten free baking basics. What flours are gluten free and what GF flour mixes work well. It actually took me a while to figure this one out. There was lot of trial and error and researching. I also found great blogs (like Sarena) that have been doing this for years and know what gluten free flours work well and where.
Okay, let’s start with these four flours and save the rest for another post. Deal?
Tapioca flour – Tapioca flour comes from the root of a cassava plant. Same thing as tapioca pearls, like you would use for a pudding, but tapioca flour is when the pearls are grounded into a flour texture.
- Tapioca flour/starch adds structure to gluten free baking. It also helps give things a an even chewiness, which we often lack in gluten free foods. It’s great for baking things like cookies and cakes.
Amaranth flour – A high protein gluten-free grain- even more protein than wheat. One cup of raw amaranth contains 28.1 grams of protein.
- Amaranth absorbs water quite easily, which makes it a great emulsifier. But it can make your gluten free baking very dense if you don’t use it with other gluten free flours/starches. I like to use amaranth in savory dishes like pizza dough or some other kind of thick crust.
Sorghum Flour– sorghum is the probably the easiest gluten free flour to work with. Great substitute for wheat flour in baking or pancakes. It improves the texture for sure and is light in taste. It works best when combined with other gluten free flours, such as rice flour and tapioca flour.
Potato Starch –Potato starch acts like a thickening agent. Great to add to stews, soups, sauces, etc. It also can help add more moisture to your baking mixes.
Note: Also check the labels on the starches, just in case they’ve added any other agents that are not GF.
Not into making your own GF mixes? Check out all the certified gluten free mixes that you can buy pre-packaged here. I’m pretty sure I’ve tried them all.
Okay, and now for a recipe, which of course includes a gluten free flour, and is perfect for SPRING!
adapted from my favorite dessert book)
Ingredients:
¼ cup (½ stick) melted unsalted butter (earth balance works too)
3 Lemons
1 ½ plain yogurt (2% or full fat Greek Yogurt work well)
1 ¼ cup sugar (I used turbinado sugar)
3 large eggs
¼- cup gluten free flour (Sorghum or a multi purpose flour blend would work here)
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon lemon extract
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 330F. Grease 1 quart casserole dish, set aside.
2. Using a grater, grate the zest of one lemon. In a food processor, mix melted butter and lemon zest until combined.
3. Squeeze the juice from the 3 lemons and strain into the butter mixture. Add your yogurt, flour, sugar, extracts, and process on low for 3 minutes or so.
4. Pour the batter into the casserole dish and bake for 50-60 minutes or until golden around the edges and it springs back when touched. Let it cool slightly.
5. Best served sprinkled with powdered sugar and fresh cream and berries and on top.
NOTES: I actually baked it at 330F for 50 minutes, then another 15 minutes at 350F.
Do you have any go to Gluten Free Flour Mixes?
Cheers to GF baking!
LC
I’m a lemon junkie so I love this.
This is so cool! I’m just getting serious about being GF (I would always cheat before and feel awful) and I have NO IDEA what all these flours do – they’re so intimidating! Right now I just stick with almond meal/coconut flour/peanut flour… but they’re tricky too!
let me know if you try these cassie. Always here to help!
Thank you! This was definitely a help! Even though I am not gluten free right now, it was interesting to learn about. I was so overhwhelmed when I was trying to bake. Wish I had this then! My sister has been doing gluten free eating for a few months now, and she has found it is really helping, so I wil pass this on to her!
All these lemony desserts are becoming great temptations for my mum….trying to convince her to come to the States to visit for a girls week, she LOVES lemon! 🙂 Thanks for helping my cause!
yea! let me know if your sister needs more info!
I need to try these different types of flours. I’ve never tried them before. Love when you teach GF living!
Yay! I’m really excited about this post. There aren’t that many good articles (that I’ve found) to direct clients to for gluten free living. I’m gonna send them to you instead. 🙂
oh good! yes, please do!
OH.
I need to explore tapioca flour!!!!!
you will like.. maybe with an egg dish. FLUFFY!
Great info! Experimenting in the kitchen a lot lately so some of it I already knew…gf rookie no more 🙂
i love that! you are such a GF wiz! <3
You are an amazing wealth of information, you know? So super helpful. Thank YOU.
nah, just speaking from experience. You know how that goes with food.. trial and error
we loved sorghum flour when we first started baking GF. seriously so good and makes gf baking easy as we felt it did great job as a replacement for regular flour.
I need to try udi!
girl, you must! like yesterday! try the chips. OH MY HEAVENS GOOD
Well, you know I am not gluten sensitive – thank god with my love of bread! 😉 BUT I love sharing this for others to learn!!!!
Love the recipe! We’re completely gluten-free as a family. I keep meaning to try tapioca flour…
yay! let me know if you do try it!
I love sorghum flour! I use it in donuts! 😉
you are baking queen, i knew you’d know these. LOVE IT and YOU
This is a super helpful post, even for those of us who are not forced to go totally GF, but like to dabble in GF baking now and then for variety reasons.
P.S. My latest recipe?? GF! 🙂
vvvv
yay! send me some!
This is super helpful for me since I’m wanting to dabble in more GF recipe creation. I am pretty intimidated by GF flours, especially coconut flour. It’s pretty touchy to work with (unless I’m doing it wrong!). I really had no idea what the other GF flours would work best for.
coconut flour is very dry. I use it in combination of other flours or maybe egg white protein. That helps!
I love your gluten free tips, I always learn so much!
Fabulous roundup! I’ve only ever used oat flour, almond meal and coconut flour so I’m interested to try these out! The amaranth flour with all its plant protein sounds like the perfect pick 🙂
it’s one of my favorites. kinda tricky but so good!
I love using almond or coconut flour for baking!
ahh yes, good staples for sure!
Curious, why do you have to eat gluten free? Are you celiac? I’m new to your blog and don’t know the story yet! Thanks!
Hi Beth! Good question. I posted about it here. https://www.cottercrunch.com/2013/11/my-gluten-free-journey/
I love rice flour for pizza dough! Do you ever use buckwheat flour? I read in a cook book about it but haven’t tried it yet. Great tips!
I love buckwheat flour! it’s very hearty. good for breads and pancakes.
I don’t know if this can top the shortbread recipe, but it sounds like it might come close! And who knew there were so many flours? Great, informative post.
haha it’s a close call. this one is different texture of course
I’ve really started to enjoy baking gluten free things; plus, they’re SO tasty too! My favorite flours to use are coconut, almond or oat flour.
those are so good to bake with! love them.
I just recently started to bake up some Gluten-Free love in the kitchen, thanks to FitBetty… Not sure if I should ACTUALLY be thanking her though because I totally ate 5 GiGi-Approved cookies last night. UHHHHHHH MAZING. Yes – MAZINNNGGG!
what? I need these!
I am warning you…. You might strip naked and run around naked screaming to the cookie gods… After you try this recipe!
http://gigieatscelebrities.com/2013/12/24/sugar-free-gluten-free-dairy-free-cookies/
LOL! i’m stripping
I am not gluten free but loved how informative this was! I love learning because I am no where near the amazing cook you are! Knowledge of health eating is power!
oh i bet you are an amazing cook! your meals look divine!
Just pinned. Thanks for sharing this info. when I do GF baking, I follow recipes very specifically so I use those different flours, but never really know what they do. I sometimes use tapioca flour to help thicken sauces – like a mushroom sauce. It adds a nice texture.
I have been eating gluten free for about 5 years now too, and I JUST recently began experimenting with how to cook with gluten free options (before I just avoided anything that contained gluten and never tried to substitute it… which was very difficult to say the least!) I’ve been using a lot of almond flour, coconut flour, and chickpea/garbanzo flour. Have you had experience with those? I am definitely going to try tapioca flour too! Thanks for that great suggestion 🙂
yes, those flours are great for baking. I’d add more moisture to them or fat because they dry out but love them for flat bread!
Okay, great suggestion, thank you!
I’ve been using almond flour for making quinoa protein bites/bars (I mix quinoa and flour together, then add pb and bananas and chia seeds!).