Gluten Free Snowball Cookies - Easy Christmas Cookie Recipe! (2024)

FAQs

What is the trick to gluten-free baking? ›

Gluten-free flours often contain fine starches, so they absorb more liquid than conventional flour. To address this, gluten-free recipes usually call for more liquid and produce looser batters. They may also call for a larger quantity of leavening, like baking powder, to help add volume and lighten the texture.

What's the best gluten-free flour for baking? Bob's Red Mill gluten-free 1-to-1 baking mix is my favorite gluten-free all-purpose flour blend for baking. It has a mild texture and plenty of "stick" thanks to a blend of sweet rice flour, brown rice flour, and sorghum flour, plus some starches and xanthan gum.

Add extra liquid: Gluten-free flours tend to absorb more liquid than regular flour, so you may need to add more liquid to your recipes to compensate. This can help to keep your baked goods moist and prevent them from becoming dry and crumbly.

Gluten-free goods tend to brown faster and take longer to cook through. So they need to be baked at a slightly lower temperature, for a slightly longer time. Every recipe is different, but in general, try lowering the temperature by 25 degrees and baking the item for 15 minutes longer.

Gluten-Free Bread Flour can be swapped 1:1 for all-purpose flour and bread flour by both weight and volume.

Brown rice flour is about as close to a 1:1 substitute for all-purpose flour as it gets since it provides structure and a “wheat-like” flavor.

2 teaspoons of baking powder per cup of gluten-free flour is necessary to ensure proper leavening. Baking soda and buttermilk can be used to leaven instead of baking powder, but 1-1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar should be added for each 1/2 teaspoon baking soda used.

Baking with gluten-free flour will produce some slight differences in taste or texture. Millet flour tends to have a mild flavor while buckwheat flour lends itself to a more earthy taste. In addition, quinoa flour has a nutty flavor and bean flour can actually sometimes taste like beans.

Binding agents (such as xanthan gum, guar gum, or flax) help give gluten-free baked goods the elasticity needed to create structure — so if your favorite gluten-free flour mix doesn't contain one, you'll probably want to add one.

How do you keep gluten-free cookies from falling apart? ›

Use a Binder

Binders like xanthan gum and guar gum provide structure in gluten-free baking to make up for the missing gluten. This prevents cookies from being too crumbly plus it also helps with freshness.

Gluten-free flour is not a perfect substitute for wheat flour. Each mixture out there is designed to mostly work in certain kinds of recipe, but not in all of them. And yes, it is perfectly normal for a gluten-free cookie to be crumbly, since it is the gluten itself that holds wheat cookes together.

Rice flour(s): A combination of brown rice flour and white rice flour, with their ideal balance of protein and starch, provide bulk and mildly sweet, neutral flavor. The rice flours are finely ground so they absorb liquid quickly and evenly.

For flours that are made from grains (amaranth, buckwheat, corn, millet, quinoa, rice flours, sorghum, and teff), always buy them labeled gluten-free, since many are grown, harvested and processed in facilities that also manufacture wheat, barley, or rye and cross-contact can occur.

Flavor. New bakers should try adding extra vanilla and/or spices to recipes. Gluten-free flours often have unique tastes, and adding additional flavoring to recipes will help cover up these unfamiliar flavors.

One of the first rules of gluten-free baking is managing your expectations; traditional baked goods lean on gluten for their texture and rise. Replicating this is challenging and the results might not be identical, but it can get pretty close with the right flours.

USE SEPARATE EQUIPMENT, FRYER, UTENSILS and TOOLS FOR GF PREPARATION. CLEAN GRILL BEFORE COOKING A GF ORDER. PLACE GF ITEMS ON ALUMINUM FOIL WHEN TOASTING. KEEP GF ITEMS SEPARATE FROM OTHER FOODS TO PROTECT AGAINST CROSS-CONTAMINATION.

One of the most common gluten-free baking tips is “let your batter rest”. Letting the batter rest gives the gluten-free flours and starches more time to absorb the moisture. In theory, it will turn your dry, crumbly cakes into delicious, moist masterpieces.