7 Tips for Baking Gluten Free

It is a expected for gluten free diets to exclude sweets and commercial baked goods because generally speaking they are filled with processed wheat flour and artificial flavourings. Now, as discussed in What Is Gluten Free these are among the components that possess a good amount of gluten, often disrupting your metabolic processes, causing you all kinds of discomfort. But there is great news! There are many Gluten Free baking alternatives available so you can bake your own yummy sweets and treats. If you’ve been following my movement or if you at all know me you’ll know I LOVE baking. Having lived gluten free for alot of my life I feel it only fit that I share my gluten free baking tips with you.

I know that the thought or idea of having to giving up delicious treats like cakes, fresh breads, slices is all discouraging especially when your trying to follow a gluten free diet plan. But lucky for you there are numerous ways around baking gluten free that is easy, fun and tasty too.

My 7 tips for gluten free baking:

1. What you could do is make your own baked goods from scratch using gluten free flour like almond meal, buckwheat, quinoa and coconut. The possibilities are endless and I encouraged you to experiment with different kinds of flour alternatives so you’d know which is more ideal for your favourite gluten free baking recipes. For starters though, I highly recommend using Almond Meal or Rice Flour as your first go to flour replacers. Especially when it comes to making some of my favourites like Banana Breads, Cupcakes, Fritta’s and muffins. Buckwheat is especially great for muffins.

2. How doesn’t have a family recipe favourite of their grandma’s, great news these recipes can easily be tweaked in gluten free yummies! Firstly I advise you to do a straight exchange 1 cup of gluten flour with 140 grams of a wheat free replacement – rice or corn flour, and most conventual supermarkets now have gluten free flour and self raising flour. I consider these as standard pantry staples now. My preferred at Rice flour and Almond Meal. Be aware though that in some recipes you may have to slightly tweak the ingredient amounts dependant on texture and moisture.

3. To add layers of taste and fragrance to your gluten free diet baked goods, you should apply natural ingredients, such as vanilla beans, strawberries, coconut shavings and even spices like nutmeg and cinnamon for example. If you want something chocolatey, you could buy cocoa or cocao to make your own chocolate fillings or frostings by mixing different proportions of fresh milk, brown sugar and honey. One thing I love to use is Super Sprouts 100% Raw fruit and vegetable powers – Strawberry and Beetroot out my favourite!

4. Try your best to bake in room temperature because some gluten free baking ingredients tend to react immediately to slight changes in humidity. Gluten free flour, in particular, absorb moisture quickly. So if you’re baking somewhere hot, you’re bound to make a heavier and less manageable dough. Try and look for a gluten free guide on what would be the best conditions and schedules for baking certain wheat free baking alternatives.

5. Avoid adding xanthan gum or guar gum to your gluten free baking mixture even though other gluten free diet plan recipes advise you to. Their only good for thickening the mixtures anyways. As I always aim to bake using as many natural ingredients as possible you can easily use flaxseeds or ground chia seeds in their place of these artificial ingredients.

6. Don’t be afraid to apply multiple techniques when baking gluten free diet food. I find freezing gluten free baking ingredients a great tip especially because by doing this it eliminates the chewy or crumbly texture wheat free flour can often create.

7. Finally, drop all expectations and accept the gluten free baking experience for what it is and what the outcomes are. Perfection is not your main goal when first starting out your gluten free baking journey. After all your still getting great treats that are great for you inside and out. Remember we don’t always have victory first go, after years of baking gluten free I still sometimes have to make a second batch because I got the first one wrong. It’s fun – so enjoy it 🙂