How to Use Vegetable Gums

by Becky Rider
(Fargo ND USA)

When I first started baking gluten-free breads, muffins, and other flour-containing recipes, I simply substituted gluten-free flour blends 1-for-1 with wheat flour in my regular recipes.

I now have dozens of doorstops, and the knowledge that g-f flours do not have the same characteristics as wheat flour.

Those end results that weren't up to building codes in my area turned out so crumbly I couldn't even pick them up.

An experienced g-f baker told me about xanthan gum and guar gum. I went out and bought some, tossed some into my next batch of dough, and mixed it like crazy. My mother always told me that if it's good to beat it for 30 seconds, then it's much better to beat it for 2 minutes.

I'm sure she said that because it was hard work and she liked to see me suffer.

The muffins I made were rubbery enough to bounce. Literally. The texture of these things - I hesitate to call them "muffins" - was absolutely awful.

I was getting pretty disagreeable by this time.

Since then, I have learned to use the gums better. Gums do the work of gluten in flour-based recipes: they hold the dough together in a cohesive unit. That cohesiveness can work against you, though: over-work the dough, and it turns rubbery.

Here are three things I've learned over the years:

1. If you are following a gluten-free recipe, follow it exactly.

2. Remember to keep mixing to a minimum - the more you mix, the more rubbery the dough becomes.

3. Don't try converting wheat-based recipes to gluten-free recipes until you have successfully made lots of gluten-free items.

I'm still disagreeable, but at least now I can turn out some pretty decent muffins.