I Made Yucky Bad Stuff.

[Juliebove]

I am not faulting this bread mix. I think it was because I couldn't use eggs. I made it before but can't remember what I used as an egg sub. However when I made it before, someone wrote to me and said there was a mistake made in the formula for the mix. I could not bake it as bread and instead had to bake it as bars. They sent me the modified ingredients I needed to use to make it work. And it did work for bars. But I really didn't want bars so I threw out the rest of the mix that I bought. I could have sworn that the first time I made it, I made both pumpkin and cranberry bread.

This time when I placed the order, there was no cranberry bread. But there was cranberry muffin and pancake mix. I also ordered some apple muffin and pancake mix. I haven't tried that yet.

I used a mix of applesauce, ground flax and water. I never measure. I just do it till it looks right. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not. This time not! The pumpkin came out very thick. When I baked it, it rose up beautifully and smelled great. I stuck a toothpick in it and it came out clean but greasy. I used coconut oil in it. But literally as soon as I pulled it from the oven, it sank! As it cooled, it sank some more to the point where it was sunk almost to the bottom. Then when I cut into it today, I realized that only the very top was baked through. The rest was sticky dough. I had to throw it all out.

I made a mistake when mixing up the cranberry muffins. I read the part to make cranberry coconut muffins. Had I realized I could have made them without the coconut, I surely would have. I had no coconut milk so subbed in rice milk. I did have the coconut though so added that. They too rose beautifully, but sank very badly. The end result was sticky and the texture was goopy. Didn't really taste like a muffin at all. Nobody wanted the rest of them so I threw those out as well.

I seem to have no luck at all with the gluten-free baking, with a few exceptions. Betty Crocker brownies come out well but daughter doesn't like chocolate stuff very much. And the zuchinni bread from this website works well most of the time. Once it was just too light and airy but I got lazy and didn't measure the baking powder...or was it baking soda?...and I think I put in too much.

I can do pancakes if I sub in applesauce for the eggs, but they do tend to stick if I don't pull them up immediately when they are done. Daughter still seems to like them though.

I have tried the Ener-G egg replacer but it doesn't seem to work well even when I use twice as much like my friend suggested. I read elsewhere that to use baby food as egg replacer, but it didn't say what kind. Anyone have any suggestions?

I am about ready to give up on baking. I got a recipe tonight from the diabetes food newsgroup for cookies that call for chickpea flour and an egg yolk. It said that the dough was very short and required a lot of kneading. It said to make it less short, to leave out the egg. I am not really sure what that means. I was thinking something like shortbread. I used to make that a lot because it was quick to do but I don't remember doing a lot of kneading with it.

[ravenwoodglass]

With a lot of stuff you can wing it measuring but usually with baked goods you are better off measuring your ingredients. One thing I have seen with many gluten-free baked goods is that I always need to leave them in the oven longer than the recipe states. Do you have an oven thermometer? If not you may want to pick up an inexpensive one and see if your oven heats to the temp it says it is. Mine is about 5 degrees off so I have to set the temp 5 degrees hotter than the recipe calls for.

[Takala]

I am sorry. I grew up baking and it seems to be a knack. I got a gluten-free cookbook and worked a few of the recipes and said, oh, okay, I get it.

If you substitute for eggs, you have to use additional leavening to replace the lift you're going to be missing. This can be baking powder, or baking soda and a small amount of vinegar, in addition to the applesauce or flax gel with water or whatever. Some people will add a bit of yogurt because the acid and the calcium will give it further "fizz" and uplift, and the protein helps to bind it.

Like ravenwg said, most of these recipes are going to be have to bake longer. I always test using a big flat bladed table knife and see if the tip comes out clean or not, easier to see that way. If they are not done, they won't stand up.

If somebody is saying use baby food they may be confused as mean it as a oil or butter substitute instead of an egg substitute. It won't work any better than the applesauce did. When the low fat craze was in full swing there were a lot of recipes for cakes using jars of baby food fruit instead of oil or butter. Well, baby food has CHANGED, too, and now a lot of it has added starch, and I'd be real careful before assuming the starch was safe. I used to make a killer homemade plum sauce for chinese food of just canned baby plums puree and gluten-free soy sauce, but alas, finding just PLAIN canned baby food plums is almost impossible now.

[Juliebove]

With a lot of stuff you can wing it measuring but usually with baked goods you are better off measuring your ingredients. One thing I have seen with many gluten-free baked goods is that I always need to leave them in the oven longer than the recipe states. Do you have an oven thermometer? If not you may want to pick up an inexpensive one and see if your oven heats to the temp it says it is. Mine is about 5 degrees off so I have to set the temp 5 degrees hotter than the recipe calls for.

I don't have an oven thermometer. I will look for one. I lived in a couple of places that had really old ovens. I found with those, if I used cookbooks from the 40's and 50's the cooking/baking time was always accurate. With newer cookbooks I often had to leave the stuff in longer.

The gas stoves they provided us with in the military housing were notorious for taking much longer too cook. Sometimes I would have to leave things in there for twice as long as the recipe said.

This oven is about 6 years old and seems to cook as it should but sometimes I do have to leave things in longer.

The odd thing about the bread is that the toothpick came out clean. Perhaps with gluten-free stuff it just will come out clean, even when it is not done?

[Juliebove]

I am sorry. I grew up baking and it seems to be a knack. I got a gluten-free cookbook and worked a few of the recipes and said, oh, okay, I get it.

If you substitute for eggs, you have to use additional leavening to replace the lift you're going to be missing. This can be baking powder, or baking soda and a small amount of vinegar, in addition to the applesauce or flax gel with water or whatever. Some people will add a bit of yogurt because the acid and the calcium will give it further "fizz" and uplift, and the protein helps to bind it.

Like ravenwg said, most of these recipes are going to be have to bake longer. I always test using a big flat bladed table knife and see if the tip comes out clean or not, easier to see that way. If they are not done, they won't stand up.

If somebody is saying use baby food they may be confused as mean it as a oil or butter substitute instead of an egg substitute. It won't work any better than the applesauce did. When the low fat craze was in full swing there were a lot of recipes for cakes using jars of baby food fruit instead of oil or butter. Well, baby food has CHANGED, too, and now a lot of it has added starch, and I'd be real careful before assuming the starch was safe. I used to make a killer homemade plum sauce for chinese food of just canned baby plums puree and gluten-free soy sauce, but alas, finding just PLAIN canned baby food plums is almost impossible now.

The bread did call for vinegar. I can't use yogurt because we can only have dairy twice a week. Daughter and I were once allergic but outgrew the allergy. We were told we could not have it too often because that could make the allergy come back. So on things that I think might have leftovers, I try to leave the dairy out.

The thing that really gets me is that I used to be known for my baking and candy making. People used to order things from me. A plate of my cookies once sold for $50 at an auction. I made tons and tons of fancy cookies every Christmas. I could decorate cakes very well.

I can still make most of the candy I used to make because for the most part that is gluten free. Perhaps not nut free though. And because I have diabetes, I just don't make it. Due to daughter's nut allergies, I did used to make her fancy chocolates for holidays. She didn't know I made them because I hid the molds and foil wrappers and things very well. Just recently she climbed up above the refrigerator and found the rest of my molds and my cookie press and things I no longer use. The molds I used for her were hidden elsewhere. She is old enough now not to believe in Santa. But I digress.

Regular baking came very easy for me. I could make anything except for pie. I could never seem to get the pie crust right. I did get a few right but then sometimes the filling wouldn't be right. No matter since I don't really like pie. But I made my own bread and rolls, pizza, cookies, cakes, pastries, you name it! I even made my own ravioli.

But then we learned of the food allergies, and... Forget about it! Mostly I concentrate on making things I know I can make well. But I do feel bad for my daughter around the holidays and want her to have special things too.