I’m not gluten intolerant but I am *checks personality quiz* type A. Which means, when I started developing gluten-free recipes for our March issue, I may or may not have gone off the deep end. So many outcomes, so little time.
There is considerable variability in ingredients when it comes to gluten-free baking. This is fascinating or frustrating, depending on who you ask, but for today, let’s go with fascinating. Here’s why:
With wheat flour, you can switch between brands and conceivably have comparable results. (You could make these cinnamon rolls with one brand of all-purpose flour, I could make them with another, and we’d both sell out at the bake sale.) But with gluten-free baking, something labeled “all-purpose” is not as consistent across brands. Blends often vary in their ratios of rice flour (the typical base) to starches, and they have different grind sizes, dramatically altering the results. This became evident when I set out to develop a gluten-free focaccia, strewn with red onions and crisp as a potato chip on the bottom.
One option with gluten-free baking is skipping a store-bought blend altogether. For example, in this gluten-free oat cookie recipe, you just need old-fashioned oats (to turn into homemade oat flour) and a smidge of xanthan gum. In many situations, though, a gluten-free blend is invaluable, allowing you to recreate classic baked goods in a swift and seamless way, without having to buy a lot of different flours. Such is the case with gluten-free bread.
My experiment involved three nationally available gluten-free flour mixes: Cup4Cup Multipurpose Flour, Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Baking Flour, and King Arthur Baking Company Measure for Measure Flour. The recipe was identical as were the rest of the ingredients. When the three loaves came out of the oven, the difference was noticeable.
In fact, it was so noticeable that tasters mistakenly assumed that the Cup4Cup focaccia was a sneaky control made with regular flour. Focaccia made with Cup4Cup gluten-free flour blend was puffy, golden, soft, chewy—all the hallmarks of great bread. The rest were dense, gummy, or simultaneously dry and soggy (no, I can’t explain it). Test after test corroborated this truth: Cup4Cup consistently outperformed the other GF flours.
This brand has been around for awhile. In the late-aughts, at the restaurant French Laundry, in Yountville, California, Lena Kwak was tasked with finding a gluten-free alternative to the restaurant’s iconic salmon cornets—small, crunchy wafer cones filled with salmon tartare to signal the beginning of the meal. What followed, according to Kwak, was 18 months of trial and error. The result was Cup4Cup, meticulously tested and endorsed by Thomas Keller, influential chef and owner of French Laundry and stickler for scissor-cut masking tape (where do you think The Bear got the idea from?). It went on to become one of the first commercially successful gluten-free flour blends.
Why does Cup4Cup work so well? An ingredient breakdown provides answers:
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