How is gluten free baking different?
Without gluten, baked goods crumble, but don't worry there is hope.
When people learned that we were on a special gluten-free diet and that I was having a hard time cooking or baking, they would console me by informing me that I could buy rice flour and I could just substitute that in my baking. These well meaning, but clueless, people don't understand that in baking, gluten swells to form a continuous network of fine strands. This network forms the structure of bread dough and makes it elastic and extensible. Any flour that does not contain gluten (gluten-free) will not form the structure that forms dough. Simply substituting a gluten-free flour makes lousy bread, lousy cookies, lousy muffins, lousy everything. The soft, fluffy and moist qualities of your favorite baked goods come from gluten. Without it, your cookies crumble, dry out and get stale quickly. Hence the frustration. However, there is hope and success in gluten free baking and gluten free living.
One piece of magic is called xantham gum. It is a plant-based thickening and stabilizing agent. Xantham gum is a polysaccharide, which is a fancy way to say "a string of multiple sugars." It is expensive, but you only need a fraction of a teaspoon per cup of gluten-free flour and is absolutely necessary in gluten-free baking. It's still not the same as gluten, but at least it's workable. Gluten free baked goods go stale very quickly, so eat it while its hot or store it in the freezer. The fridge won't work to keep them fresh, except for some gluten-free batter, which can be stored in the fridge and then baked for immediate use.
Also: Gluten-free bread dough is thin and has the consistency of cake batter rather than regular bread dough. It can't be "shaped" into rolls but it can be shaped by choosing different shaped pans. (See 'Gluten Free Bread' and 'Amazing Gluten Free Rolls' for examples.
Also: Gluten-free bread dough is thin and has the consistency of cake batter rather than regular bread dough. It can't be "shaped" into rolls but it can be shaped by choosing different shaped pans. (See 'Gluten Free Bread' and 'Amazing Gluten Free Rolls' for examples.