Why Do Gluten Free Bread Recipes Call For So Much Mixing?!?

[valgal123]

I have tried soooooooo many gluten free bread mixes and recipes. I ruined one handheld mixer with one recipe so now i whip it with a whisk, but my arm gets tired. So yesterday i made another recipe egg free, gluten free, it called for 7-10 minutes of mixing. I mixed it for a minute and that was that. It rised like no other bread before, so my hope was up. Once it came out of the oven it collapsed to the level where the batter was when i put it in the pan. So the bread is gummy. I have never had a gluten free bread though be more than 2 inches high that was homemade. Is this from not mixing enough? I also have relaxed on the mixing because every time i would mix away my bread wouldn't rise well. I use good yeast and it works even if you use cold or HOT water so its not the yeast. Thank you

[camoflauge]

I found an amazing recipe online from gluten.net follow this link. Open Original Shared Link . I have suffered with "ok" bread for the past year, until I found this recipe online. I decided to try only recipes that had many good reviews.

I did not follow the "flours" exactly though. Here's my substitutions.

Instead of 1 1/2 cups of rice flour, I did 1/2 cup each of white rice flour, millet flour, and buckwheat flour.

For the starch, I didn't have enough tapioca, so I decided to use 1/2 cup each of tapioca, potato starch, and corn starch.

Instead of the apple cider vinegar (because for some reason it adds a funky taste to everything I've made using that even though it shouldn't) I used a plain "rice vinegar" which should be just as safe.

Otherwise I followed everything exactly. I did have to be careful since I just have a sunbeam mixer, I had to use a rubber spatula to keep the batter down in the bowl.

I let it raise in the oven-I warmed it up to 350 and then turned it off. I let it raise about 1/2 an hour-it was about to the top of the pan-but not quite. As for cooking, my bread only took about 45 minutes to cook-but from experience, my oven seems like it cooks hotter than most. I stuck a knife in and nothing came out.

As far as the mixing time is concerned, from what I've read, my unprofessional opinion is that it is used to whip air into the baked product-which would normally be added to regular baking through the gluten.

I'm not sure if it was the buckwheat flour or what, but this is the best bread I have ever had-and I think that even includes my pre-gluten free days. My family did not even know it was gluten free. I do have to warn you though, don't try to remove the bread from the pan when it is hot and definately remember to butter it-it says it will get chalky and crumbly-which the bottom of my bread was sort of like that, so I think next time instead of just using a spray I might try using some crisco or something like that.

Bread was good right out of the oven, and still good later-which has been my problem. I love bread right out of the oven with some butter melted on it, but I also like to use it for sandwhiches later. No other breads have tasted great both ways, until now. Now I can have bread whenever I want. I'm not sure how it would taste with other substitutions, but it got good reviews with just the white flour and the tapioca starch. I just wanted something with a little more flavor.

Good luck.

Heather

[SevenWishes]

My guess (and this is only a guess) for why the recipes ask you to mix so much is because some of the non-wheat flours don't seem to like to absorb moisture as much as "normal" all purpose flour. In my admittedly very limited experience with this sort of cooking and baking, rice flour seems to be the flour most often used across the board. Even though it's pulverized into tiny little particles when it's flour, think of a dried rice grain and how much cooking it takes to get rice to take up water and hold it. My bet is that rice (and some of the other gluten free flours) doesn't particularly like grabbing onto that water, so the longer you mix it, the more time it has to absorb that moisture, and the more exposure it has to water, by being moved around and around the water molecules in the dough. Most of the doughs I've worked with rice flour present seem pretty darn wet and loose when compared to wheat flour doughs with roughly the same proportions of water and flour. My guess is that the rice flour takes more encouragement to grab the water.

When you knead wheat flour doughs for bread, you're actually encouraging the development of gluten strands, which gives the bread both structure and chew. Since with non-gluten breads, you're obviously not doing that, I can't think of another reason you must mix/knead for a long amount of time. I don't think kneading does anything in particular for xanthan gum, guar gum, or other binders to do anything...does it?

Am I way off on my science here? I could be! I'm just guessing...I'm an utter newbie at this stuff!

[lpellegr]

I have never seen a recipe that calls for that much mixing. I use mostly the Bette Hagman recipes, which call for 3 minutes of mixing in a stand mixer. If you're going to make bread frequently it would be worth the investment to get a Kitchenaid mixer to do the hard work for you. Once the xanthan gum gets wet, these doughs are very hard to mix by hand or even with a lightweight mixer. Lately I have been having better luck with my bread not falling by following these steps - I turned the oven down to 375 where the recipe calls for 400. I make sure the short end of the bread pan faces the door, not the long side - this keeps the bread rising evenly as it bakes. I use recipes that only call for 2 cups of flour - I have worse luck with 3 cup recipes. I only add 3/4 of the water until I can judge the consistency of the dough - it should not form a ball, but be just wet enough to not do that. If it looks too dry I add water a spoonful at a time and see if it "unballs" while it mixes. I only let it rise till the highest point is at the top of the pan, and heat the oven while that happens so it is really truly at temperature when the bread goes in. When the time is up I tap on the top - if it gives at all, I give it 5 more minutes, and more if it still needs it after that. It has taken me a while to start getting good results consistently - keep trying and keep track of what works and note it on your recipe. Good luck and remember you can always use your failures for croutons and bread crumbs.

[jerseyangel]

I use The Gluten Free Pantry French Bread Mix--it calls for only 2 minutes of mixing. I use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, but it would be doable by dividing the batter into two bowls and doing each with a hand mixer.

[MySuicidalTurtle]

I find that a bread machine yields better loaves. It might be something to think about.