Baking Tips

Xanthan Gum

Xanthan gum is a binder that improves the quality of a gluten-free product. It prevents the cookies from spreading, helps with the crumbling problem, and improves elasticity.

Suggested Ratios
  • No xanthan gum is needed for pancakes or waffles, or when dusting meats.
  • Use ¾ teaspoon per cup of flour for muffins, biscuits, or scones.
  • Use 1 teaspoon per cup of flour for cookies, cakes, pie crust, and pizza dough.
Cookies
  • Chill the dough at least two hours before baking. Dough that has been frozen spreads less than dough that has been chilled.
  • After baking, cool the cookies completely before removing them from the pan.
  • Use smaller cookie cutters when making rolled cookies.
Extracts and Spices

Some companies use starch fillers to improve the flow of dry spices. Check with the companies that market spices in your area to determine the gluten-free status of the spices and extracts you buy.

General Purpose Flour

Our General Purpose Flour has baking properties similar to flour made from wheat. The addition of xanthan gum is the only change necessary when substituting for flour made from wheat. Our flour works best with the heartier types of baking such as cookies, cakes, bars, quick breads, and muffins. Recipes are enclosed in each bag of General Purpose Flour.

For breads use Sylvan Border Farm Bread Mixes. Our Bread Mixes have a special blend of flours and ingredients created especially for breads

Bread Mixes

Bread Machine or Hand Mixer?
The ideal method of baking our bread is a loaf pan of glass or metal in your oven. Bread machines are designed to knead the dough in order to develop the gluten - and there is no gluten. Kneading is not necessary. Bread machines overmix gluten-free flours and the result is a coarser loaf of bread. Treat our bread mixes like a cake mix. Our directions call for 3 minutes of mixing. If you want to use a bread machine set it on the 1 mix /1 rise option. Try both ways and decide what works best for you.

Glass Pan or Metal Pan?
Both pans work well. The sides on a glass pan are usually a little higher and help support the sides. Glass pans need to be greased well, because the bread tends to stick to the side of the pan.

Substitutions

Most of the requests that we receive for substitutes are for non-dairy substitutes.
  • Not all margarine is dairy-free. If whey is listed as an ingredient it contains dairy. Most health food stores carry soy or safflower margarine that is usually made without whey.
  • For 1 cup of buttermilk substitute ¾ cup non-dairy milk, ¼ cup soy yogurt, and 1-teaspoon lemon juice. This mixture closely matches the consistency and tartness of buttermilk. The lemon juice is added because most recipes that have buttermilk as an ingredient also have soda as an ingredient. Baking soda works best with foods that contain acid.
  • Research on sugar and egg substitutes is not complete at this time.

© Sylvan Border Farm 2002