Is your diet supposed to be gluten-free but can’t afford the extravagant food varieties you can find at stores? Why not try to make your own gluten-free food? And we’ll start that with making bread.
You probably already have a recipe you want to make, if you don’t have any, the internet is a vast source for free recipes. But before you start, here are 8 tips to ensure that your bread will come out wonderfully.
Take Note of the Temperature
Almost all gluten-free bread recipes will call for ingredients that are in room temperature. It is important that you follow this because temperature plays an important role in the rising of your bread in your bread machine.
Yeast is used in many bread recipes and needs a warm environment for it to work. When your ingredients are chilled or above temperature, there will be a tendency that the rising of your bread will be stunted.
Recommended reading: 10 Best Gluten Free Appliances for your Kitchen
Gluten-free flours are stored in refrigerators once they are opened so that they will last a longer time. With the temperature in mind, place the required amount of flour on a bowl on your counter before you use it for the recipe. This is to make sure that the flour will be in room temperature when you start cooking.
Stick to the Recipe and No Substitutions
If it is your first time making your own gluten-free bread it is important that you stick with what the recipe is instructing you to do. Using gluten-free flour is different from using all purpose or bread flour.
If you have experience with baking before, you will be surprised because the consistency when you use ordinary flour will be different when you use gluten-free. Gluten-free dough will be more fluid than ordinary dough. It will look like pancake batter but even if you have doubts, just stick with what the recipe says.
Another tip is that you should not make substitutions. If you don’t have one of the ingredients, pick another recipe. You have a higher chance of succeeding when you make use of all the right ingredients. This is just when you are beginning, when you are more comfortable with baking, you can experiment with other ingredients.
Use A Weighing Scale Instead of Cups and Spoons
As was already mentioned, gluten-free flour is different from the others. Proportions, when it comes to this kind of flour are more accurate when weighed instead of measured. And for gluten-free recipes, proportion is very important to have a successful outcome.
You don’t have to buy a very expensive weighing scale, the cheap ones will also do. The important thing is that the weighing scale is precise and always constant.
When measuring flour, sugar and other dry ingredients, it is important that you use the same bowl for every ingredient. This is just to make sure that every ingredient will be measured precisely.
The standard measurement of 1 cup of gluten-free flour is 140 grams.
Use Recipes With Eggs
Try to use recipes that call for eggs, because eggs are natural leaveners and it will help make your bread rise. It is also rich in protein and will make sure that your bread is moist when it is done. There is also a distinct flavor that eggs add to the bread.
But if you are allergic to eggs, then pick another recipe that does not use egg.
Do not Worry About Over Mixing
There is no overworking when it comes to gluten-free dough. You don’t have to worry about over mixing your dough, in fact it is encouraged. There are times when your dough will come out crumbly after mixing, but this is not because of overdoing it, but because you did not use enough liquid.
It is preferable that you use a stand mixer so the dough can be mixed correctly. Using a hand mixer will not achieve this. If you do not have a stand mixer, you can use your hand or you could use the best breadmaker for gluten-free bread.
Make Sure to Cook Your Bread Fully
If you want delicious gluten-free bread, you must cook it fully. Don’t be too excited about your finished product that you take it out of the oven quickly.
To know if your bread is fully cooked, you could insert a thermometer into the bread. Make sure that the thermometer reaches the bottom of the bread. When the bread is done, the temperature in the baking thermometer will be approximately 210 °F.
One more tip to ensure that your bread cooks fully is to cook it using a metal bread pan. Metal pans help in keeping the temperature even throughout the bread, unlike when you use glass pans. Metal pans are also cheaper than glass ones.
How to Avoid Collapsing Bread
One thing that many beginners face when baking bread is that it collapses after it is done. This happens when the bread experiences a quick change of temperature.
This could be avoided by not taking the bread out of the oven immediately after cooking. Instead you could just turn off the oven, open the door and let the bread acclimate to its new temperature. This way your bread will cool slowly and it wouldn’t collapse when you bring it out.
Do Not Give Up
Baking bread is harder than baking cupcakes or cookies or even cake. Your first time might not be successful but it doesn’t mean you should give up. Your bread might not look good but it will probably taste alright, so you will still have something to eat.
If you fail, you could look back at the recipe and what you did. Try to assess where you went wrong so the next time, you won’t do it again. Did you measure everything correctly?
Those are 8 tips that you should keep in mind before you try baking gluten-free bread. If you are not yet confident to try baking, you could watch a lot of videos to see how it is done. You could also read recipes and other articles about gluten-free bread so you have ideas when you decide to try it for yourself.
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