Cost Of Baking

[bakingbarb]

I have to laugh a lot about this, my gluten baking friends are moaning about the higher cost of wheat which is causing their flour to go way up. HA, try baking gluten free!

[JennyC]

No Kidding!!! Xanthan gum is only $15 a pound or more!

[cruelshoes]

I have to laugh a lot about this, my gluten baking friends are moaning about the higher cost of wheat which is causing their flour to go way up. HA, try baking gluten free!

Silly gluten eaters!

Well, should we talk about ways to keep the cost down? I buy my Open Original Shared Link5 pounds at a time. Looks like the current price is $37.50, which works out to $7.50/lb. Buying flours at asian markets is a huge money saver. Cornstarch, tapioca, potato starch, rice flour and others can routinely be found where I live for $.33 to $.99 a pound. I buy my brown rice flour 50 pounds at a time, and it works out to around $1.25 a pound. A.M.A.Z.O.N. is a great place to get Open Original Shared Link for really good prices.

Got any more tips to share, anybody?

[bakingbarb]

Silly gluten eaters!

Well, should we talk about ways to keep the cost down? I buy my Open Original Shared Link5 pounds at a time. Looks like the current price is $37.50, which works out to $7.50/lb. Buying flours at asian markets is a huge money saver. Cornstarch, tapioca, potato starch, rice flour and others can routinely be found where I live for $.33 to $.99 a pound. I buy my brown rice flour 50 pounds at a time, and it works out to around $1.25 a pound. A.M.A.Z.O.N. is a great place to get Open Original Shared Link for really good prices.

Got any more tips to share, anybody?

Wow, you are getting some great deals. There is a couple of large asian markets not far from me but I keep forgetting to go check them out.

I tried grinding my own to save money but my vita mix isn't doing such a good job, I think it is feelings its age or something.

Somewhere I saw xanthan gum for quite a bit less and I told myself to remember where, uh ya I forgot! ARGH

[Sweetfudge]

I have to laugh a lot about this, my gluten baking friends are moaning about the higher cost of wheat which is causing their flour to go way up. HA, try baking gluten free!

OMG seriously!!

Wow, you are getting some great deals. There is a couple of large asian markets not far from me but I keep forgetting to go check them out.

I tried grinding my own to save money but my vita mix isn't doing such a good job, I think it is feelings its age or something.

Somewhere I saw xanthan gum for quite a bit less and I told myself to remember where, uh ya I forgot! ARGH

I once found xanthan gum for really cheap at the HFS, and thought, next time I'll come with more money, and buy a bunch of it. When I went back it was back up to "normal"...about double the price

I really have found that buying in bulk is the best way to do it. My local HFS offers pretty much everything in bulk. Almost out of my first 25 lb bucket of rice flour. It's lasted me a year I keep telling my husband I want to buy an extra freezer to store more gluten-free junk, but he just laughs.

[larry mac]

I found a health food store that sells guar gum for 5.99/lb (about a year ago). Since then I use half zanthan gum and half guar gum. It's a little more trouble but more economical, and I haven't been able to tell the difference.

best regards, lm

[gluten15]

Zanthan gum and guar gum. Is the main reason that people choose to use zanthan gum over guar gum is the laxative affect? I have read that as far as productivity..they are about the same and even that zanthan gum has more of an aftertaste and is a 'made' product?

Why do more people use zanthan gum over guar gum when there is such a dfference in price?

Thanks again!

[HAK1031]

confessions of a rogue gluten-free baker:

I have never put Xanthan gum (or guar gum for that matter) in anything. Not in cookies, banana bread, muffins, or anything else I've baked. It's more out of sheer laziness than anything else, and not having bothered to buy some. But I routinely bake for gluten eaters, and it turns out pretty good. I get plenty of compliments That said, I am an extremely daring baker...I was at my dads a few weeks ago, and the only gluten-free flour we had was soy flour. My stepmom realy wanted me to use the overripe bananas, so using only the soy flour and a little bit of cornstarch and cornmeal that I found, I made up a recipe. And it came out really good! I froze it and I had some tonight, mmm

Life's short, bake w/o Xanthan gum...no, it doesn't really have a ring to it lol

[itchygirl]

I used to use benefiber in baking (guar gum) but then they went and changed it to wheat dextrin, drat them

Open Original Shared Link

[cruelshoes]

Zanthan gum and guar gum. Is the main reason that people choose to use zanthan gum over guar gum is the laxative affect? I have read that as far as productivity..they are about the same and even that zanthan gum has more of an aftertaste and is a 'made' product?

Why do more people use zanthan gum over guar gum when there is such a dfference in price?

Thanks again!

Guar gum has that pesky laxative effect, and it's viscosity-producing power is not quite equal to Xanthan gum.

Open Original Shared Link

Guar gum is often considered to be a good substitute for xanthan gum, however when substituting add an additional half of the required amount of xanthan to equal a comparable measure. As an example, if 2 teaspoons of xanthan gum is required, add 3 teaspoons of guar gum.

I do know lots of people that sub guar gum for xanthan with acceptable results, though.

[bakingbarb]

I was reading a blog the other day and she mentioned using some other natural things because they help hold the food together also. Now if only I can remember which blog it was!!!!! I will look for it today.

My daughter had about 18 kids over and about 15 of them spent the night. These are teens btw.... lol most of the parents want to know if I am partly crazy! ACK

They are very well behaved actually but still it takes awhile to recover from it all!

[larry mac]

As we Celiacs are expert ingredient label readers, I'm sure everyone's seen guar gum and zanthan gum in many, many food products. From ice cream to salsa, in condiments, salad dressings, sour cream, etc. It's very popular. Sometimes they are both present in the same item. I'm looking at one now. Kraft Light Catalina dressing (my daughter's).

Sometimes they are combined with other thickeners. I have a container of Great Value sour cream, with guar gum, locust bean gum, and gelatin. I particularly like this brand of sour cream. It is very thick, good for putting a dollop on a nacho. Some sour creams are too wet for building nachos. OK, I just wanted to use the word "dollop" . Plus, it's inexpensive, coming from Walmart.

I don't buy that "rumor" that guar gum causes big D. It is fiber, but you are only adding a small amount to an entire recipe. And then you are not eating that entire item all at once. If you are, then I guess you deserve to get a tummy ache .

Anyway, I never wanted to find out if it was true or not. That's why I use both, one to one ratio. I didn't notice any difference after starting that idea, either in my baked goods, or my tummy (I'm using the word tummy loosley .

best regards, lm

[bakingbarb]

As we Celiacs are expert ingredient label readers, I'm sure everyone's seen guar gum and zanthan gum in many, many food products. From ice cream to salsa, in condiments, salad dressings, sour cream, etc. It's very popular. Sometimes they are both present in the same item. I'm looking at one now. Kraft Light Catalina dressing (my daughter's).

Sometimes they are combined with other thickeners. I have a container of Great Value sour cream, with guar gum, locust bean gum, and gelatin. I particularly like this brand of sour cream. It is very thick, good for putting a dollop on a nacho. Some sour creams are too wet for building nachos. OK, I just wanted to use the word "dollop" . Plus, it's inexpensive, coming from Walmart.

I don't buy that "rumor" that guar gum causes big D. It is fiber, but you are only adding a small amount to an entire recipe. And then you are not eating that entire item all at once. If you are, then I guess you deserve to get a tummy ache .

Anyway, I never wanted to find out if it was true or not. That's why I use both, one to one ratio. I didn't notice any difference after starting that idea, either in my baked goods, or my tummy (I'm using the word tummy loosley .

best regards, lm

I have been wondering about that bit with guar gum also. Heck it is in so many mainstream products that if it were a huge issue would it still be there? I am not saying I trust corporate America to tell me what is or isn't good but I still think if it were that bad it wouldn't be there. Sugar free sweeteners cause issues if you eat too much of them but they are still out there. I am not going to eat this stuff by the spoonfuls so I think it would be ok to use in baking.

Flax is a fiber and it still scares the heck outta me! Of course that is rooted in my gluten eating days when that loaf of homemade bread chock full of flax sent me to the bathroom for a week. Now I know it was the wheat not the flax but you get the idea.

[BIZABET]

You know what I find REALLY irritating? The price of premade gluten-free goods. Yes, x gum is expensive, but fact--there's only a little in any one recipe, so it can't run the prices up that much. And all the starchs--corn, tapioca etc are not particularly expensive if bought in bulk. So why the heck does an itty bitty cake mix cost $4-6?? And bread at $4.00 a loaf? It's rediculous. The food companies are taking advantage of the fact that many people are not comfortable baking and/or the convenience factor. I saw somewhere--maybe this site--that in a few more years they think the number of diagnosed Celiacs will be 1 in 50. Maybe when we reach that point there will be more choice in products, and the competition will force the price down.

[dbmamaz]

Part of the reason the baked good cost so much is the economy of scale. if you're making 100's of thousands of loaves of bread, you can have batches running 24/7, so you have a lot more profit to cover the cost of your overhead (rent, paying off the equipment, etc). Most of the gluten-free bakeries are fairly new, and making smaller batches, so every loaf has to cover a significant amount of the cost of overhead, employees, printing labels, etc. Also, if you buy larger quantities of stuff (flours, packaging), your suppliers give you a discount. So its not just that there's no competition, they are incurring a lot more cost to make that loaf of bread, compared to as single loaf of wonder bread.

[itchygirl]

Most wheat bread ends up being donated or discarded. I found this out when I lived in Portand and had a friend who worked at a major grocery store there and was in charge of taking the bread to the donation place. A ton of bread ends up not getting sold. Big bread companies can afford that because they deal in quanity... Also I need to remember never to get in the truck she used to haul all that bread ever again

[larry mac]

confessions of a rogue gluten-free baker:

I have never put Xanthan gum ... in anything.... It's more out of sheer laziness than anything else, and not having bothered to buy some.... I am an extremely daring baker...I was at my dads a few weeks ago, and the only gluten-free flour we had was soy flour.... overripe bananas... and a little bit of cornstarch and cornmeal that I found, I made up a recipe. And it came out really good.....

That's amazing. Every gluten-free cookbook I've ever seen says to only use soy flour in very small quantities, added to other gluten-free flours.

You are an extremely daring, yet very lazy, rogue gluten-free baker, prone to confessions. I would go so far as to say you are a gluten-free rebel, that can't be bothered to follow the rules.

BTW, apropos of nothing, I'm reading a book titled "My Confession - Recollections of a Rogue" by Samuel Chamberlain (1829-1908). It's a wicked, monstrous book, published by the Texas State Historical Association. It has the original pages, which are very difficult to read, and the transcriptions. Also contains many very interesting color illustrations of Chamberlains watercolors and paintings made on his journeys, expeditions, and military campaigns. He fought in many famous battles in the war with Mexico in 1846-48. Was a hero of the Civil war. A gold seeker. Round the world traveler, and tough prison warden. He also joined up with John Glanton and Judge Holden's vicious band of scalphunters. Their reviled misadventures later inspired an infamous book "Blood Meridian", a 1985 Western novel by American author Cormac McCarthy. A movie based on Blood Meridian and directed by Ridly Scott is to be released in 2009.

There's a website detailing some of this.

best regards, lm

[lcbannon]

A tip I read somewhere and have used to save lots of money.

Not too much calls for potato flour but when it does I just whizz some instant potato flakes in my little coffee grinder and it works great...