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A quick-start guide to gluten free baking in New Zealand.

If you’re new to gluten free baking, there is a distinct possibility that your head is spinning right now.

And I get it. It is a big learning curve. I’ve been baking gluten free for over 18 years, and yet I still remember when I started – being thrown into a world of different flours and starches, and ingredients that I’d never heard of before.

Because I’m a bit of a nerd at heart and had time on my hands, I dove headfirst into trying out different flours (we had ten different flours in our pantry at one stage) and testing out recipes, finding out what did and didn’t work.

Here’s the thing, though: I don’t want you to have to do all that.

I mean, if you’re super interested and keen to learn, then that’s awesome, I’ll be giving you snippets of info and tips along the way. But the purpose of this website is to give you tried and tested gluten-free recipes that you can jump right in and start enjoying!

There are a few important things that you will definitely need to know about gluten free baking before you start. I’m going to cover those here, then once you and I are on the same page, you can dive head-first into some delicious Kiwi favourite recipes.

Here’s what we’re going to talk about:

Like all good adventures run by a safety-conscious Kiwi, we need to start with a quick safety chat. But I’m not talking “please keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times”; I’m talking…

Baking Gluten Free Safely.

There are different “levels” of baking gluten-free, or anything-free, really, and this is an important thing to take into consideration before you start baking.

If you’re a confident gluten-free baker, or your whole household is already gluten-free, then some of these suggestions won’t apply to you, but you may like to give them a skim read anyway.

If you don’t have a 100% gluten-free kitchen and you are baking for someone who has a slight gluten sensitivity or has chosen to be gluten-free for any kind of lifestyle reason, then you can most likely just safely jump into making your gluten-free goodies. The precautions I’ll outline below will be helpful to you, but they won’t all necessarily be essential.

But, if you’re baking for someone with Coeliac Disease or a gluten sensitivity that gives them a severe reaction to gluten, then you will need to take some precautions when you bake, especially if your kitchen is not entirely gluten-free.

Here’s the thing – gluten is sneaky. Not on purpose (I don’t think), but it can be found on almost any surface in any kitchen where gluten-containing products are used.

Crumbs go everywhere, and if you’ve ever measured or sifted flour and then run your finger across nearby benchtops, you’ll know it can fly through the air and settle on any surface.

For people with Coeliac disease, even minuscule amounts of gluten can trigger symptoms. And even in those who don’t have severe outward symptoms, it can still be causing “silent” damage to the gut.

I’m going to presume that you like the person you’re about to bake for, so chances are you’re going to want to do everything possible to make sure you don’t make them sick.

I’m going to cover some of the more important things you’ll need to do, but if the person you’re baking for isn’t yourself, the most important thing to do before you do anything else is to check with that person (or, if it’s a child, check with their parent/caregiver/s). They will tell you whether it is safe for you to bake for them in your kitchen.

If they give you the go-ahead, then keep reading for some tips.

Here are some important precautions that you should take before you bake:

Cleaning

The following is a list of some important things that should be cleaned before you bake, but you will need to have a think about your own kitchen, how you use it and where you might have had gluten-containing food.

• Wipe down the bench with cleaner and paper towels or a clean cloth.
• Make sure all the bowls and utensils that you’re going to use have been well washed, preferably in the dishwasher.
• If you’re using cake tins or baking trays, check the corners to make sure there isn’t any dried cake batter crusted in there.
• Wipe down any appliances, such as electric mixers, you’re going to use, and check any nooks and crannies in them to make sure there isn’t wheat flour lurking in there.
• If you wear an apron to bake, grab a clean one.
• Change your hand towel and tea towel.
• Wash your hands.

Use metal or silicone utensils if you can – avoid wooden spoons, which can’t always be thoroughly cleaned.

Try to bake at a time when people won’t be coming in and out making food that contains gluten.

The most important thing to remember is that if you can mitigate all the risks and make the food safe, then go ahead and bake. If you can’t do those things, you’re not confident that you can, or the person you’re baking for isn’t confident that you can, then give it a miss, and maybe pick up something from the supermarket instead.

Ingredients

Firstly, it’s important to learn how to read an ingredient label for gluten. That guide will get you fully up to speed, but the most important steps when reading labels are to check the ingredients list to see if barley, rye, oats or wheat are listed in bold, and to check the “contains” statement to see if gluten is listed. If you see that it contains gluten, look for a different option.

• Check the packets of every ingredient you’re using to make sure they don’t have any gluten.
• Avoid Pams baking powder, as it contains gluten, and if you’re using cornflour, make sure it’s not wheaten cornflour.
• Check baking pan non-stick sprays; some include wheat flour to prevent sticking, so choose one that is oil-only instead.
• Think about whether you may have previously dipped into your ingredients with a measuring cup that had just been used to measure wheat flour (dipping into a sugar container with the same cup used to scoop flour is a common way to cross-contaminate). If that could be the case, make sure you buy new ingredients.
• Using jam or honey? Think about whether someone may have dipped a crumb-y knife back into it after spreading some on wheat bread. If that’s likely, use a new jar. Same goes for blocks of butter, or any other spreads.

If there’s anything you’re not sure about, a quick search of the brand’s product page on their website will usually give you the information you need.

If you’re baking for someone who has been gluten-free for a while, ask them. They’ll be able to tell you their favourite brands of products that are safe for them. See this post for more about my favourite gluten free ingredients for baking.

Flour

To bake gluten free, you’ll need to use a gluten free flour blend.

Unfortunately, there is no single gluten free flour that can replace wheat flour, so blends include multiple gluten free flours and starches to help give a better result in baking.

You can either buy a gluten free blend, or make one at home. I have a post all about how to choose a gluten free flour blend, but I’m going to do the short version here and say, if you’re making my recipes, then I recommend either using my homemade gluten free flour blend, which all my recipes are developed with, or the Edmonds Gluten Free Plain Flour. It’s available from most supermarkets, and works with almost all of my recipes (there are only a couple it doesn’t work in, and I say in the recipe notes if it doesn’t.)

While other flour blends can be used in my recipes, just keep in mind that all blends are slightly different and will give you different results.

If you’re using my homemade blend, or another gluten free flour blend that doesn’t contain any binders, you will also need to buy some xanthan gum. It helps replace the gluten, and gives the baking some structure.

Not feeling quite ready to jump into baking yet? Try one of my no-bake gluten free recipes – no flour required.

Other Dietary Restrictions

Because I know that many people who can’t eat gluten also have other dietary restrictions, I make a note in the recipe if I have tried the recipe with any other substitutions for common allergen ingredients.

I have dairy free, egg free and nut free categories, where the recipes don’t contain those ingredients or where I have noted possible substitutions for those ingredients.

If I haven’t noted it, then I most likely haven’t tried it. That’s not to say that a substitution won’t necessarily work, but you may need to experiment.

Often, butter can be replaced with a dairy-free alternative such as Nuttelex, or a vegan butter. Just check the pack to make sure whatever you choose says it’s suitable for baking.

Milk can often be substituted for non-dairy milk; make sure you choose an unsweetened variety, and something that isn’t too low in fat will generally work better in baking.

Egg-free is a bit more difficult, and egg replacements are currently outside of my area of expertise. So if you need to make one of my recipes egg-free, you will need to do a bit of research on the alternatives from someone who knows what they’re talking about, and then experiment a little.

Just keep in mind that gluten-free baking is inherently different to traditional baking and the ingredients don’t always work the same way, so substitutions can be a bit hit-and-miss.

Measurements

One thing you’ll most likely notice early on in your perusal of my recipes is this: “She weighs everything!”

Ok, maybe not everything, but for recipes where exact measurements are important, like in baking, where, you know, it’s a science, then I will always weigh the ingredients.

This is important for two reasons –

1. Accuracy. Cup measurements are super inaccurate for dry ingredients. If you’re measuring flour, then the actual amount of flour you end up with in your cup will vary hugely depending on how you get the flour into the cup. If you scoop it out using the cup, or spoon it into the cup and level it, or scoop and tap to level it, it will give you a different amount of flour every time.
   
   Even things like how long your flour has been sitting in the container can affect your measurements – flour compacts over time (because gravity), so a cup of flour that you measure the day you get the flour home will be different to the amount you get when it’s been sitting for a few weeks.
   
   In baking, having the correct amount of each ingredient is super important to the finished result. If you add too much flour, your baking might be too dry. Don’t add enough, and it may be too liquid. Gluten-free baking makes these discrepancies even more noticeable.
   
   
2. Troubleshooting. I want you to make my recipes successfully. It’s one of the reasons my websites exist, and the reason I test recipes so extensively before I share them. I want you to be eating the same food that I am (not in a weird, dessert-with-two-spoons kind of way… you know what I mean).
   
   If you try one of my recipes and it doesn’t work, I want you to be able to leave a comment on the recipe or send me a message telling me what happened, and I’ll always do my best to help you troubleshoot it.
   
   When we troubleshoot, I need to know any ways in which you may have done something differently than me. The recipes are thoroughly tested, and I know they work when made as written, so we need to figure out where any differences are. And if we used cup measurements? Well, then we would both have no idea how much of any of the ingredients you actually used. The recipe you ended up making could have been completely different to mine.
   
   Using weight measurements means we are using the same amounts of ingredients, and we can usually quickly eliminate ingredient amounts as the reason the recipe may not have worked for you. Then we can get on with figuring out what actually went wrong.

A set of kitchen scales doesn’t need to be expensive; places like Briscoes, Farmers, Stevens and The Warehouse usually have them on sale at least every other week. And if you take care of your scales, they’ll last you for many years. It’s a small investment in your baking success.

Having said all of that, if it’s a liquid ingredient where cup measurements are accurate enough, or a recipe where exact ingredient amounts aren’t vitally important, then I’m not too snobby to use cup measurements.

So don’t throw out your set of measuring cups yet!

Baking Tools and Equipment

Now that I’ve mentioned you’ll need a scale for these recipes, what other baking-specific kitchenware might you need? You can skip this if you’re already a confident baker – you probably already have everything you’ll need.

Exactly what you need will depend on the recipe, of course, but at a bare minimum, you will probably need:

• A set of kitchen scales
• Cup and teaspoon/tablespoon measuring sets
• Mixing bowls in a few different sizes (bonus points if they’re microwave-safe)
• Wooden spoons (used for gluten-free baking only) and a silicone spatula or two
• A whisk
• A sharp knife
• Chopping board (again, used for gluten-free only)
• An electric mixer – depending on the recipe. Most things can be mixed by hand if you’re determined enough, but an electric hand-held mixer or stand mixer will make things a lot easier
• A skewer – metal or bamboo – for testing whether cakes and slices are done
• A couple of flat baking trays, for baking biscuits
• Baking tins – I recommend at least having 20cm (8″) round and square cake tins. All of my gluten free slice recipes are baked in an 8″ square tin
• A wire cooling rack
• Baking paper
• Airtight containers to store your gluten-free goodies in!

General Baking Tips

This is the last section, I promise!

I just wanted to add a few final baking tips that will help make your gluten free baking a success.

1. Read through the full recipe before you start – so you can be sure you’ve got all of the ingredients and equipment you need.
2. When a recipe says an ingredient should be room temperature, it’s usually for good reason. Room temperature ingredients combine better, and in batters, make the mixture less likely to split. Butter can be gently brought to room temperature in the microwave (on low power – don’t melt it!), and whole eggs can be warmed up in a bowl of hot tap water for 10-15 minutes.
3. Check your oven temperature – if you find your baking taking a long time, or browning much too fast, it’s likely the oven temperature isn’t accurate to what you set it to. The best way to check this is with an oven thermometer. They’re usually only around $10-$15, from anywhere that sells kitchenware. Our oven runs 5-10°C too low, so I know to crank it up a bit to get to where I need it to be.
4. Be aware that any substitutions or adjustments you make to ingredients will change the outcome – particularly reducing sugar in baking recipes. Sugar does more than sweeten; it also helps to provide structure, and it holds on to moisture. So just keep that in mind if you want to make tweaks. (And please don’t blame your friendly neighbourhood food blogger 🙋‍♀️ if your version of the recipe doesn’t turn out well).

Right, I think that’s this post all done and dusted (with icing sugar, hopefully). If you have any questions or if I’ve missed something, let me know in the comments below!

Let’s start making some gluten-free Kiwi favourites.