Baking is one of the most difficult disciplines of gluten-free cooking. Because actually the gluten protein is essential for many classic and typical recipes, for cakes, cookies and breads. Besides, the question arises: with what to bake, if you can not use flour?
First, the good news: There are an incredible number of flours that are not based on wheat, rye, spelt, barley, green spelt, emmer, einkorn, kamut or oats. A look in the corresponding section of a larger organic market quickly clarifies the situation, the web is full of fancy recipes – and if that’s too much effort for you, you can of course also find ready-made baking mixes without gluten.
It is important to note that good-free flour has different properties than conventional flour and, of course, requires appropriate recipes and different proportions of the ingredients. For a stable baking result, the missing gluten component must be replaced by a thickener. Locust bean gum, grape seed flour or guar gum are particularly suitable for this purpose, as they have a thickening effect and bind liquids very well.
I baked my first gluten-free bread with chestnut flour, flakes, grapeseed flour and buttermilk. Of course you can also use yeast, for sweetening I experimented with beet syrup. Honey probably works just as well. Roughly I have oriented myself to this recipe.
The result is not bad at all: light and fluffy, but already different from other breads. In particular, I miss the typical smell associated with whole wheat or wheat breads. But the consistency is good and I think with a little experimentation you can quickly come up with good variations adapted to the individual palate.
My first steps with gluten-free cake were made with a baking mix, the Choko Cake Mix from Schär. The first pass strictly according to the recipe turned out to be a bit dry, on the second attempt I also added just under 100gr of chocolate to the batter – this not only made the cake stronger, but also provided a bit more binding. You can not taste a big difference from a classic cake (with baking mix). However, the basic mix can also be used to bake even more elaborate variations, for example, there are recipes for Sacher cake or even Black Forest cake here.
With a little effort and rethinking – or, of course, using ready-made mixtures – very respectable and delicious results can therefore be achieved without gluten if necessary.
Note: This article was created with the kind cooperation of Dr. Schär GmbH, which of course does not affect the content and assessment.
