Have You Ever Been Frustrated With Gluten-Free Baking?

Like me, you have probably been very frustrated with baking something gluten-free at times. Baking gluten-free after you have spent a lifetime of learning wheat baking means you have to have a new mindset. You almost have to change everything you knew before!

What You Need To Know About Gluten-Free Baking

• Gluten-Free Baking often requires various flour blends rather than just one.
• Gluten-Free Ingredients function differently than traditional recipes.
• You need to change many of the methods you used before.
• Gluten-Free Batters need to be wetter than traditional wheat recipes.
• You need to get to know about many different gluten-free flours. Not all flour types are tolerated by every person who is gluten intolerant.
• People with Gluten Sensitivity or who have Celiac Disease often have other food sensitivities. This means one gluten-free flour mix does not fit all.
• Leavening Ingredients need to be adjusted differently than in traditional recipes.
• There are many more gluten-free ingredients that are now available. Keep experimenting with new things.
• Even if something is naturally gluten-free, you need to read the label or look for the gluten-free symbol to make sure there is no hidden gluten in the ingredients.
• Some gluten-free flour blends claim to be 1-to-1 substitutes for wheat flour. They may work on basic recipes but will not behave similarly across the board. For instance, a flour blend may work perfectly for muffins but will create a brick-like Angel Food Cake.
• Always keep learning; there are people like myself who love to share and help. Be patient with yourself; even the best of us trying to bake gluten-free still make a few flops here and there.

Gluten-Free, You Can Do It -by Trina Astor-Stewart. Contains charts for Trina’s Flour and Bread Mixes. Three Series Of Mixes: Original, Corn, Nightshade, Tapioca, and Rice Free Mixes. Over 300 Recipes. The ebook is available on Amazon.

After over twenty years of gluten-free baking, I have figured a few things out… In my bakery formulations career, when asked to develop recipes for commercial roll-outs, blends, and mixes, sometimes I would have to bake for days before coming up with just the right amount of this or that, just the correct methods and such. Often I would have sleepless nights, wondering what I could do, or add to create the right amount of functionality in the recipe, make it work time and again, and above all, look and taste great!

After many trials and tastings, I would go out into the ‘field,’ a food factory, a bakery, or a classroom of bakers, and hoped things would perform again in my home/test kitchen. Often, I would go from making a standard batch of some recipe and having to translate it to a large Hobart Commercial Mixer amount. A scary amount of ingredients just for a test! One time I was testing my gluten-free buns recipe on machinery that could output hundreds of buns an hour. I made it work, but that was scary, for sure!

Trina

A baking test at ‘Gluten Free Co-Pak.’

Working with big mixers, big ovens, and huge amounts of ingredients is exciting. Here are some photographic memories of one of those times when we were doing the initial tests for a commercial buyer. Gluten-Free Co-Pak is located in Barrie, Ontario, and ships gluten-free baked goods to stores all over North America.

The Mini-Sheet Cakes and Muffins we produced on that occasion were Chocolate Cherry, with and without Streusel Topping. Blueberry Streusel Muffins and Mini-Sheet Cakes, and Chocolate Cake with Butter Caramel Icing. Yum… I can still taste them.

On other occasions, I found myself baking smaller amounts for a restaurant test with very good wheat bakers. Chefs who definitely knew their stuff! I had to be a bit humble as a home cook, but a lot of times, they would see what I was doing and try to interject, and I had to steer them down a little different path because things just work differently in gluten-free baking.

One instance was judging the moisture content necessary in a muffin batter prior to baking. In wheat baking, a muffin batter will look a lot drier and heavier and come out ideally. In gluten-free baking, a muffin batter needs to be less heavy with more moisture in the batter as you pour it into the tin before baking because gluten-free flours are often drier and denser than wheat flour. Also, wheat-based recipes often require less leavening than gluten-free recipes to turn out the best results.

I was invited to bake and do a series of taste tests for Druxy’s Deli for some new franchise owner friends of mine that had tasted my baking and wanted to introduce some better gluten-free options to their menu. Costs are an issue, and so is prep time in a fast-paced Deli operation. They had a breakfast crowd, and the pancake formula I had for them worked perfectly. They could offer a pancake or waffle to a gluten-free customer at almost the same price as their regular wheat offering. With only the addition of two small dedicated pieces of equipment, they could serve those wanting a gluten-free option. The numbers grew by word of mouth. This was good for breakfast, but the bulk of their customers came for lunch to enjoy their vast deli meats selections.

The pancake and waffle were the same batters, so how do you make it work for lunch? Well, always one to think of a solution, I suggested making a square pancake and calling it a ‘Panwich.’ We ended up not making them square because of the extra equipment it would have taken, but the customers loved the idea. In a phrase, ‘They went like hotcakes!’

The Gluten-Free Pancake and Waffle Batter went from breakfast to lunch and in between with just a few minor twists. This all worked better than taking time to toast some awful-tasting frozen gluten-free bread that had been the only option previously. People loved having a hot and fresh gluten-free option that tasted awesome!

We did a number of taste tests at the Druxy’s with Garth Riley and his wife Darla at the time. We even made bagels which also went over quite well.

Unfortunately, it is said in the industry that “Gluten-Free people have lost their taste buds and will eat anything!” Well, I have not lost mine, and more and more restaurants and bakeries are finding ways to cater to some good gluten-free foods for those of us who really are not gluten-free by choice!

Thankfully all my taste tests proved successful!

As mentioned, initial testing and creating formulas for commercial or other taste tests can be fraught with flops!

You just have to keep testing, trying, and improving. It also helps to take things in stride and laugh a little! One of my outlets for frustrating moments is to write a little poem. For me, it helps put things in perspective and not take it too seriously. I am a positive person in general, and the poems I write usually come out alright, so it helps me laugh a little and go on to whatever is the next food challenge.

These days I focus more on my career as a writer and cooking and baking for my family.

Gluten-Free, You Can Do It -by Trina Astor-Stewart. The cookbook contains charts for Trina’s Flour and Bread Mixes. Three Series Of Mixes: Original, Corn, Nightshade, Tapioca, and Rice Free Mixes. Over 300 Recipes. The ebook is available on Amazon.

Here is a poem I wrote after one of those frustrating baking moments. I hope it will give you a chuckle.

Bobby’s Coming Home On Leave…

I think I’ll just bake a cake!
Ingredients set out in a row.
Kids in tow want to lick the bowl…
Eggs half beaten; where’s the sugar?
Oh my, the kitchen’s a mess!
To top it all off, forgot to turn on the oven, I guess.
Finally baked, ready to decorate
When a corner got ate.
Then, “someone left the cake out in the rain”
To cool… and Bobby’s coming home on the train!
What shall I do? What shall I do?
Well, maybe the store
Has them galore.
Just dust myself off
The homemade memory is tossed
But nothing’s lost.
Bobby’s still coming home on the train!

The line from the song “MacArthur Park” by Richard Harris, “someone left the cake out in the rain” -Songwriters: Jimmy Webb – MacArthur Park lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

There is gluten-free help on the way via my cookbook! Soon you will be able to bake that cake for your loved ones who are coming home and feel good to serve them something made with your own loving hands!

just wait until you bake a gluten-free sponge torte – recipe in gluten-free, you can do it