Baking Gluten free? The digital scale is your new best friend!

I have been doing a fair bit of gluten-free baking recently, specifically testing and adapting recipes for yeasted breads, in a quest for good bread without eggs or dairy.   Many of you who already bake gluten-free will know that: 1) many GF bread recipes call for eggs to provide structure, and 2)small changes or omissions to recipes/baking times/temperatures, make huge differences in the final result.

To eliminate nasty surprises, I like to try and be as precise as possible when making glutenfree recipes, and I have found a couple of pieces of kitchen equipment to be key in achieving a good result on a consistent basis.  Just to give you some sense of how much difference precision can make, take a look at the two loaves below:  there is literally no difference between the two (same ingredients, same baking temp), except that one had the ingredients weighed, and one had the ingredients measured by volume.  Amazing! non?

So, in the spirit of precision (and successful!) gluten-free baking, there’s a couple of must-have’s in your kitchen arsenal.

1) Thermometers (yes, my pretties, that is plural!)

There are two here, because I use both on a regular basis!  The one on the right is an oven thermometer.  Differences in oven baking temperatures (as little as 25 degrees) can make or break your gluten-free bread.  In my experience, most ovens, even brand-new ones, rarely calibrate exactly, therefore, it’s really helpful to know that your oven is exactly the temperature it’s supposed to be.  Wheat-based breads, because of the gluten, are somewhat more forgiving, whereas in gluten-free bread baking, all the ingredients are doing yeoman’s duty both to allow the bread to rise, and keep it risen, and can’t afford the luxury of adapting to unexpected changes!

The thermometer on the left is an instant-read thermometer.  I find it invaluable in determining when the bread is done (i.e. fully cooked through).  No-one wants gummy bread . I find that the optimal internal temperature is a little higher than with wheat-based breads, and for me “done”  is just shy of 210 degrees.  I use agar powder in the breads that don’t contain eggs, and this helps ensure not only that the loaf has risen fully, but also that the agar has reached that “set” point.

2)  The kitchen scale

This, in my opinion, is indispensable — and ideally a digital scale that allows you to measure in grams.  I have baked by weight for years with wheat flours, and was a quick convert as soon as I started.  One of my pet peeves when I started baking gluten-free was that all the recipes used volume measures rather than weights — one person’s “full” cup, is another’s “level” cup.   Knowing that this could create problems with rise with wheat-based recipes, I knew instinctively that this would create even more problems with gluten-free flours, where differences as small as 1-2 T can make huge differences,

I did a lot of poking around to try and find weight-conversions for many of the gluten-free flours.  I am often baking with blends of GF flours that I have pre-mixed ahead of time, so it has also meant working out the weights of those mixes, but I feel it is worth it in the end!  As you can see in the loaves above, this was a recipe for a GF bread that I was developing with added brown-rice protein powder.  By using volume measurements, the flour fell short by about 2 T, which was enough to create a slightly wetter dough, that while edible, did not cook as evenly throughout, and sunk somewhat after coming out of the oven.

I am putting these volume-weight conversions into a table, and hope to have them up in a pdf form shortly — handy to have taped on the inside of a cupboard door.

3) Finally, the other indispensible item is a variety of loaf-pan sizes.  Generally GF breads will bake better in smaller loaf pans — While some people have had success with the large 9X5 pan, I find that for the breads with no eggs, generally the smaller 8 1/2 X 4 1/2 size works better.

So, once you have your oven temperature calibrated, and are happily weighing ingredients, there’s lots of yeast-bread possibilities:

Until next time — happy Gluten-free baking! and to see you on your way, here is the recipe for the gluten-free bread that I developed with brown rice protein for a family with a number of restrictions — a little GF YeastSpotting for this week!

Best Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Egg-Free, Soy-Free, Corn-Free Bread

• 2/3 cup + 1 Tb. garfava flour
• 1/3 cup + 1 Tb. sorghum flour
• 1 cup potato starch
• 1 cup tapioca starch

(I mix the above grains in large batches in a 2-1-3-3 ratio, so total pre-mixed flour required for this recipe is 306 grams)

• 2 Tb. sprouted brown rice protein
• 2 Tb. organic cane sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. xantham gum
• 2 1/4 tsp. instant yeast
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt

• 4 Tb. Ener-g egg replacer, beaten until frothy with 1/3 cup cold water
• 1 Tb. Agave syrup
• 1/2 tsp. cider vinegar
• 2 Tb. Grapeseed oil, or other neutral flavoured oil
• 1 cup warm water

Combine all dry ingredients in a medium bowl and mix well and set aside.

Beat the egg replacer with the cold water until it resembles beaten egg whites.  Add the other wet ingredients and mix briefly.

With the mixer on low, gradually add the dry ingredients.  When they are incorporated, turn the mixer to high and beat for 3-4 minutes.  The dough will NOT look like bread dough, but will resemble thick cake batter instead.  Spoon the batter into an oiled
8 1/2” x 4 1/2” loaf pan.  Smooth out the top of the dough as much as possible with a wet spatula.  Cover with plastic wrap, and let rise for 30-35 minutes, until the dough is slightly over the top of the pan.

While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Bake the bread in a preheated oven for 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes, cover the bread in the oven with foil (to prevent overbrowning), and bake for an additional 40-50 minutes, until the interior of the bread registers 208 degrees.

Remove from oven, and let the loaf cool on a rack for 10 minutes.  Remove the loaf from the pan and let cool COMPLETELY before  slicing.