Recipe for Gluten-Free French Apple Cake - A Girl Defloured (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep a gluten free cake from crumbling? ›

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.

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.

Because gluten-free batters contain more liquid than traditional versions, they typically take longer to bake. If you remove them from the oven too soon, you may develop a gummy, mushy texture.

Although regular breads and cakes are not included in a gluten free diet, there are many creative ways in which people with coeliac disease can have their cake and eat it! Gluten gives bread, cakes and pastry the right texture. Without gluten, bread is less chewy and cakes and pastry can be drier and more crumbly.

Oat Flour. With its creamy, earthy flavor and delicate texture, gluten-free oat flour is a staple of my gluten-free baking recipes. It bakes up soft and smooth, adding necessary starch to many GF baked goods and keeping them moist and tender due to its high fat content and stable protein structure.

Gluten-free baked goods often benefit from extra liquid to hydrate the flour blends, eliminate grittiness, and achieve a less dense or dry texture.

We recommend covering your batters and doughs and letting them rest for at least half an hour. Note: This will also help batters become thicker and doughs to firm up.

However, you can actually mix a batter containing xanthan and/or guar gum to a point of diminishing returns. You can overwork the gums and end up with a stringy cake batter or rubbery cookie dough. (Having said that, doing this takes some work. Just don't take your aggressions out on a gluten-free cake batter.)

When combined with baking soda, it becomes a leavening agent (the stuff that makes baked goods puff up in the oven) by producing carbon dioxide gas. If you ever run out of baking powder, you can substitute 1/4 teaspoon baking soda plus 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar for 1 teaspoon baking powder.

If the original recipe calls for 260 grams of all-purpose flour, substitute with 260 grams of your blend. Beat the batter more. Because gluten-free flours provide less structure than all-purpose, the batter or dough you make with them may require more beating than that which you are accustomed.

Why is gluten-free baking so difficult? ›

Gluten-free baking is a lot harder than traditional baking because gluten protein is what gives baked goods their structure. Bread without gluten or any gluten substitute will be thick and crumbly when it comes out of the oven.

Ultimately, the toothpick test is just one data source to rely upon: with the trio—toothpick, edges, & centre—you can reliably know your gluten-free baked goods are, well, baked! If your toothpick comes out with wet batter on it, your cake definitely needs more time.

People who develop celiac disease later in life can have eaten gluten for many years without having a negative reaction. Studies suggest that a shift could be caused by the body reaching its breaking point after a lifetime of eating gluten. Stress and other environmental conditions may also be a part of the change.

Avoid all products with barley, rye, triticale (a cross between wheat and rye), farina, graham flour, semolina, and any other kind of flour, including self-rising and durum, not labeled gluten-free. Be careful of corn and rice products.

Cross Contamination from Kissing

If you kiss someone that has recently eaten or drank something containing gluten, there is a risk of cross contamination and being glutened because of the particles in their mouth. As we all know, a crumb contains enough traces of gluten to cause a reaction in some coeliacs.

If the flour you are using doesn't already contain xanthan gum, combining quarter of a teaspoon to every 200g/7oz of gluten-free flour will help to improve the crumb structure of your bake. You can also use guar gum or a combination of the two.

Let the batter or dough "rest" 30 minutes before baking. This gives the flours time to absorb moisture and soften, minimizing that gritty texture. Baking time and temperature can vary. Start on the low end of baking time and add minutes as needed.

One common reason is that gluten-free flours tend to be lower in protein than wheat flour, which means that they don't have as much structural support. This can result in a softer, less cohesive dough that is more prone to crumbling or falling apart.

We recommend covering your batters and doughs and letting them rest for at least half an hour. Note: This will also help batters become thicker and doughs to firm up.