The Number One Reason Your Gluten Free Recipes are Failing

Recipes fail for the best bakers

When I was diagnosed with a gluten allergy I had to completely re-learn my whole baking repertoire. As did many of you! I was a really good baker. But, when I started learning gluten free baking I was a complete failure. Consistently. I'd follow on-line recipes precisely. Sometimes attempting rebakes more than twice. I can say that most of the time they were complete fails. It was frustrating to say the least. Particularly when there were tens or hundreds of people proclaiming how great their version came out at home. But when I read deep enough into the comments, there were always bakers like me who'd say the recipe didn't work for them. Sometimes, also like me, after multiple tries. Were we all just terrible bakers who could't follow directions? I think not. There had to be something more to it. It wasn't until I became a professional baker that I figured it out. If you happen to be in same baking boat as I was, the answer to your failures isn't as easy as you make think. It may frustrate you. But it may also liberate you at the same time.

It's not your oven temperature.

A lot of on-line recipe developers will respond to failed recipes with reiterations about making sure your oven temperature is precise. Inevitably they would have you purchase an oven thermometer. But most seasoned at home bakers know this already. And own an over thermometer (✓). Temperature can be an issue. But most of the time it's not THE issue.

The second most frequent response I would read was about brand of flour. As in, "Make sure you are using the same brand of flour I used to create this recipe. That could account for the recipe's failure to turn out." Brand too can be issue, but it's not for the reason inferred. Different brands of flour will bake and taste different (especially one-to-one (1:1) gf flours). A King Arthur 1:1 and a Bob Red Mill 1:1 have entirely different compositions of ingredients and their scale, as with any other one-to-one flours. The true reason the brand really makes a difference is the weight of the flour, and the problematic use of volume measurements in recipes. But these still are not THE reasons for failed recipes.

THE reason why your gluten free recipes are failing.

Cooking is an art. Baking is a science. Mixology is alchemy.

THE reason gluten free recipes fail in your kitchen is because of... everything. As in it could be anything and everything.

For my chemistry final exam in upper school we were tasked with making an unknown substance. We had our beakers, our ring stands, our Bunsen Burners, our flint strikers and chemical formulas and their ratios. If you did the experiment right you got...peanut brittle. It was the best and most memorable final exam I ever had. It was also the first time that I really understood baking is a science.

If baking is a science you then realize that one of the key things a scientist does in their first successful experiment is attempt to replicate the experiment again (and again) to get the desired results. They do this in the exact same environment under the exact same conditions. It doesn't mean that the experiment is supposed to stay in that environment. That replication in the environment is only the first step. If the experiment is supposed to be stable and successful in different environments then it's tested in those different environments. If it fails, in the new environments it's a failed experiment. This is baking.

There are not many on-line recipe developers who are testing out their recipes in different environments. You may think to yourself, is anyone? Yes. American's Test Kitchen does. I happen to be one of their approximately 12,000 testers. They will send out a recipe before it ever reaches the magazine. They will ask all of us to test it (in our environments). We then provide them feedback of what occurred during the cooking or baking process. Then they go back to their test kitchen with the feedback and do what they do, before it can become a recipe they believe folks can rely on.

Everything makes a difference in baking. Weight of the ingredients. The quality of ingredients. The type of ingredients. The freshness of your ingredients (are they on the new side, in the middle, or on the low side of almost being expired). The measurements. How long you worked your batter or dough. How fast. The temperature of your ingredients. The temperature of your kitchen and its humidity level. The temperature outside and its humidity level. The compositions of your pans, pots, baking sheets and their color (Yes. certain colors conduct heat differently and create more or less spread). The type of oven you use. How your oven conducts heat. The intensity in which it conducts heat. The intensity of a stove top flame or heat you use. Which rack you place your baked goods on. The altitude in which you bake. And the list goes on and on...

Baking is not like cooking. Exactitude in cooking is rarely needed at the level that is required for baking. Therefore, cooking allows for a lot of flexibility. That's why cooking is an art. But it's also one of the reasons why people say, "Mine didn't look exactly like the picture but it still turned out!" (that and food photography).

There are hundreds of ways a baking recipe can fail. Very often it has nothing to do with oven temperature or the skill level of the average home baker.

How to recover from a failed recipe?

Here is my rule of thumb. If a baking recipe fails the first time, and I know I did all the things, I will not re-bake the same recipe. I accept immediately it does not work for my ingredients in my environment. It's at this point that I turn the recipe over to AI and I start to have a conversation with it. I extensively use AI in my recipe creation. At this point it understands the texture, flavor profiles and visuals I am seeking from my baked goods. It knows my go to ingredients and even my old oven's quarks. I will tell it the temperature and humidity in my home and outside before a bake. I use AI as a teacher, expert and co-creator. Feed it the knowledge of your baking desires to make that recipe work for you and make it yours.

It’s not you

If you're a seasoned baker you should never feel like a bake didn't work because you're a bad baker. Think of the Great British Bakeoff. Most people in the tent have tested their signature bakes over and over again at home, yet to find something is off and not working in the tent, even though they are doing the exact same things with the exact same ingredients they used at home. It's the environment. They just didn't suddenly become bad bakers. Neither did you!!

Remember: Life is what you bake it!!

Cover 📷 created by Micheile Henderson

Saturday Sweets Bakery