Converting Recipes?

[Oria]

I was wondering how I go about converting recipes to gluten free? I'm mainly running into problems with baked goods. There are many recipes I would like to try but in a gluten-free form. What's the easiest way to go about it?

Thanks!

[pricklypear1971]

If you search this site you'll find a lot of tips.

As a rule, if a recipe contains 1cup or less of flour it's pretty easy. The more flour, the more difficulty.

Are you using a premixed gluten-free flour to convert or wanting to make your own mix?

Here's a link to tips: Open Original Shared Link

It really is trial and error. I have easily converted cookies but not biscuits. Pancakes were easy once I used buttermilk. Buttermilk is a big help, btw. I also don't use xanthan gum very often in cookies or brownies or pancakes (when using buttermilk).

I also found I prefer paleo baking -nut and coconut flour. It eliminates that "not quite right" texture you get in some gluten-free baked goods.

[sa1937]

Welcome to the forum, Oria! After being gluten-free for two years, I have yet to attempt to convert a regular recipe to gluten-free. Too chicken, I guess. Depending on the recipe you want to use will make a lot of difference. I think yeast breads would be really difficult....lots of us have baked more than our share of bricks even using gluten-free recipes.

Is there any particular recipe you want to convert? There are some baking gurus on this site...sadly, I am not one of them!

[ElseB]

It really is trial and error and the more you try, the better you get! I've stopped using gluten free cookbooks entirely, and all of my baking is using regular recipes, converted to gluten free. I agree with pricklypear - if the recipe has more than one cup of flour it gets difficult. I don't even try to convert anything over 1 cup. The trick to baking is the mix of flours you use. There's lots of gluten-free all purpose mixes out there, and those are good to start with. One thing I have learned is never ever use bean flours with anything chocolate - you end up with beany chocolate and its gross! An easy mix you can make yourself is Carol Fenster's mix of sorghum (35%), cornstarch (35%), tapioca (30%), and it gives good results. If you can tolerate nuts, look for recipes using almond flour.

[missy'smom]

I've had some success with converting muffin and quick bread recipes-like banana bread.

With the quick breads, I sub in the gluten-free flour blend and add Xanthan gum according to the package direction for the type of baked good I made. I've converted a zucchini bread and a sweet potato bread recipe successfully.

For my muffins I started with recipes that used a lot of oats, I figured that way I was chaging up only a smaller portion of the "flours" in the recipe if you understand what I mean. Kind of goes along with what others have said about the 1 cup. I've converted blueberry oat muffins and zucchini oat muffins this way.

With some of my conversions, I took a gluten-free recipe that worked well and used the same flour blend. There's a gluten-free banana bread recipe I love so I mixed up the flours the same and used that blend when I tried making the sweet potato bread. That blend had a little sweet rice flour in it(Mochiko), as well as the usual plus some sorghum. I use a sorghum blend a lot too.

Good luck to you.

[Oria]

Thank you for your replies! :3