Gluten-Free Baking For Dummies [Paperback]

Jean M. Layton (Author), Linda Larsen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 6, 2011

More than 150 tasty recipes for gluten-free bakingImagine baking without wheat flour. Impossible, right? Essentially, that's what you're doing when you bake gluten-free. Sure, there are replacement flours, but there's an art to combining those ingredients to re-create the tastes you know and love. Baking is truly the greatest challenge when cooking gluten-free, and more than 150 delicious, gluten-free recipes for baking cakes, cookies, and breads are coming fresh out of the oven to help you meet this challenge with Gluten-Free Baking For Dummies.
Gluten-intolerant eaters have big concerns with baking, as wheat flour, a staple ingredient of many bread and baking recipes, is their greatest concern. Gluten-Free Baking For Dummies expands baking opportunities for those avoiding wheat. rye and barley flours, either for medical reasons or by choice. It offers you a wide variety of recipes along with valuable information about diet, health concerns, and kitchen and shopping basics.

• Discover new baking ideas and substitutes for common glutinous ingredients
• Easy recipes and methods for baking more than 150 gluten-free cakes, cookies, and breads
• Tips and advice for shopping and stocking your kitchen

Gluten-Free Baking For Dummies is for the millions of people who suffer from Celiac disease, their friends and family, and anyone looking for healthy and tasty wheat- and gluten-free baking recipes.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

More than 150 tasty recipes to bake your (gluten-free) heart out

Imagine baking without flour. Impossible, right? Sure, there are replacement flours, but there's an art to combining those ingredients to re-create the tastes you know and love. Baking is truly the greatest challenge when cooking gluten-free, and more than 150 delicious recipes for baking cakes, cookies, and breads are coming fresh out of the oven with Gluten-Free Baking For Dummies.

• Gluten 101 — understand why gluten is harmful for those with gluten sensitivities, gluten intolerance, and celiac disease, and get the skinny on the ingredients and techniques you need to start baking gluten-free

• Get excited about being gluten-free — grasp the many benefits of being gluten-free and get your health on track by converting old family recipes to the gluten-free lifestyle

• How sweet it is — satisfy your sweet tooth with tons of recipes for all of your favorite sugary snacks, like cinnamon rolls, thin mint cookies, chocolate chip cookies, cupcakes, and many more

• Savor it — make all the savory, satisfying dishes you love, from pizza and pot pie to quiches and casseroles — and everything in between

Open the book and find:

• What gluten is (and where it lurks)

• Symptoms of gluten sensitivity

• How to mix alternative flours to get the right flavor and texture

• How to make good dough you'll want to devour

• Tips for decoding confusing food labels

• Ways to convert traditional recipes to gluten-free

• Important gluten-free baking tips

Learn to:

• Make more than 150 delicious gluten-free cakes, cookies, and breads

• Use gluten-free ingredients to re-create the tastes you know and love

• Maintain a healthier diet

About the Author

Dr. Jean McFadden Layton is a doctor of naturopathic medicine, recipe creator and nutritionist who specializes in gluten intolerance and celiac disease. Linda Larsen creates and tests recipes for major food companies, is the Busy Cooks Guide at About.com, and is the coauthor of Eating Clean For Dummies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 392 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 1 edition (December 6, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1118077733
• ISBN-13: 978-1118077733
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 0.8 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #51,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Very informative! January 7, 2012

By S. Young VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

As someone who has made many a gluten free recipe I was excited to get this book.

If you are new to gluten free anything this is probably the best book I've seen on the who, what, why and how of gluten intolerance and how to bake for it. If you're an old hand at gluten free, you'll probably learn more reading this and would recommend it still.

Let me say after reading it, as with all gluten free books, you need to realize you're going to have to spend a bit of money on making the flour mixes.

The popular flours are sorghum, potato starch, tapioca, sweet rice and brown rice along with a few others. This book is no exception. Some of these can be hard to find locally, and now that the gluten free way is exploding through the food world the prices are going up. Also, regardless of any book you have to fine tune recipes for your weather, quality of products and altitude.

Why do I say this? I'm not trying to turn you from this book, honestly I think it's the best out there on information and wealth of recipes. For me though, I find myself baking on occasion to try something out, the rest of the time I buy mixes or GF cookies already made. It's just cheaper than storing pounds of flour mix. If you love to bake and you are gluten free, then go for it!

The first half of the book is the who, what and why.

Chapter 1: The challenges and rewards

Chapter 2: Why Bake Gluten Free?

Chapter 3: Understanding the Rules of Baking

Chapter 4: Unique Issues of Gluten-Free Baking

Chapter 5: Building Flavor and Structure without Wheat

Chapter 6: Understanding Dough

Chapter 7: Nutrition, Health, and the Gluten-Free Lifestyle

Chapter 8: Keeping a Gluten-Free Kitchen

Chapter 9: Converting Favorite Recipes to Gluten-Free

I like that they recommend you weigh your flours rather than use a measuring cup. This is chemistry dear readers, these flours are not wheat and to get them wrong means iffy results.

The second half is 150 pages worth of recipes. While I would have liked all of the mix recipes to be at the front of the recipe section (because some recipes combine mixes together) I can live with it where they are, it's just bothersome.

Example: white flour mix - first recipe in the book contains: tapioca flour, potato starch and sweet rice flour.

Their cake mix - a few pages later contains: sugar, white flour mix, whole-grain flour mix, baking powder, salt and butter.

So you need two mix recipes to make a third recipe. Annoying, but normal for the GF way.

Their range of recipes is amazing, cakes, brownies, pancakes, muffins, scones, quick bread, rolls, pizza dough (that one's big for me).

Not all of their recipes require the mixes. Their very lovely peanut butter brownie requires almond flour, sweet rice flour and xanthan gum. (xanthan gum is pricey, but a little goes a long way).

The recipes I've tried out of it came out well for GF baking.

5 stars. Overall the best and most informative gluten free book I've seen on the market - and it's all about baking! I would recommend this to all my friends as the first book (and maybe the only) on GF baking. Well done.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Use This Book in Combination with Others...My Recommendations January 27, 2012

By Dave Millman TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

First of all, this is a five star book on its own, if for nothing else than the clear explanations it provides about ingredients and their impact on the baking process and results. Although virtually every GF baking book will tell you to add guar gum or xantham gum to a recipe, this is the only book we've found that tells you WHY. It has clear, detailed explanations of how to make cookies chewy or cake-like or crisp, how to weigh flour instead of measuring it in a cup (very important for gluten-free baking), and much more. I can't stress how important it is to understand these issues: gluten-free baked goods can be delicious, but they require a bit more effort. This book explains it all in language anyone can understand. Five stars for the whole package: recipes, theory and specific techniques.

You can build a GF baking library around the reference material in this book. Here are our recommendations for other starting volumes:

Bread: 125 Best Gluten-Free Bread Machine Recipes
Bread: The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread: More Than 200 Wheat-Free Recipes
Deserts & Pastries: Blackbird Bakery Gluten-Free: 75 Recipes for Irresistible Gluten-Free Desserts and Pastries
Cookies: The Ultimate Gluten-Free Cookie Book

You can't go wrong with any of these books. We have them all. And we are enjoying a LOT of gluten free baking.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great place to start in learning the Science of Gluten-free Baking January 26, 2012

By D. Matlack

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

This is a great place to start for breaking down the science of gluten-free baking. Unlike general wheat-flour baking, gluten-free pratically requires a degree in chemistry to create decent flours to bake with as simply swapping one flour for another does not work.

Many gluten-free mixes and baking books are not very good either as it seems that they were slapped together just to make a quick buck and do not take into consideration flavor or elevation, convection vs. standard, etc.

Thankfully the Dummies book is more centered on breaking down the science for creating your own flours and where and how they might be used which really is a greater perogative than the recipes, which quite frankly, once you have mastered a baking mix that works for you (in my case 7000+ above sea-level & does not crumble into sand.) you can adapt other recipes such as pizzas, pie fillings, etc.

I can not stress enough the usefullness of this book & for anyone ready to attempt gluten-free baking this is the best place to start.