Baking With Gluten-Free Products
Are you looking for a way to expand your gluten-free eating options? Until recently, most people were largely in the dark about gluten-free foods, but due to the rise of food-related allergies, more people are looking toward gluten-free options to regain control of their health.
Just because you’re living gluten-free doesn’t mean you have to give up on your favorite foods altogether. To someone trying to abstain from wheat, eating can become a major stress factor. However, all hope is not lost. Like all special dietary situations, the key to sticking with it is substitution, not sacrifice. While gluten-free baking can seem intimidating at first, with a few adjustments and a little help, it can be as easy as pie.
The most important part of successful gluten-free baking is to keep it simple. If you’re just beginning, it’s OK to start off with prepared items. At Truly Organic Baking, we carry a variety of tasty pre-packaged gluten-free mixes to steer you in the right direction. Store-bought baking and pancake mixes can be a serious stress-reducer for those new to the gluten-free lifestyle, and may lead the novice baker toward creating their own mixes from scratch.
Sometimes ingredients are processed in factories that also process other allergy-causing foods. Because of this, gluten-free foods can have dairy, soy, beans, sugar, or nuts. If you choose to purchase pre-made mixes, carefully read the label to check for potentially problematic ingredients. If you have dietary issues with lactose, soy, legumes, casein or nuts, make sure that these products are not present, or could be present, in your gluten-free foods.
Once you’re comfortable with preparing pre-packaged gluten-free foods, you can begin to explore making your own mixes. Your best bet is to find gluten-free cookbooks and recipes and try each one out with different flours. There are a surprising number of options out there, including rice, buckwheat, quinoa, coconut, and almond flours. Each of these has their own special characteristics, and learning about them will help you determine which will work best for you.
As with all forms of baking, practice makes perfect. When exploring gluten-free baking, remember to go easy on yourself. Because the ingredients have different properties than their wheat-created cousins, it can take some time to find the ones that work best for you.
For a wide range of gluten-free and organic baking products, visit our online store at www.TrulyOrganicBaking.com!
