Good day everyone! 

 

I wanted to step into the ring of gluten free items to offer to my clients that request them. I just have no ideas on where to start....and what products really work and etc. Any advice? I make cakes, cookies, brownies and etc.....I have a festival in April and I thought I would try out a few new recipes there.

 

Thank you.

 

Lisa

I just bought the book Gluten-Free & Wheat-Free Gourmet Desserts by Michael L. Eberhart on Amazon.com.  It is an excellant recipe book recommended to me by a co-worker that can only eat gluten free. It explains everything  regarding the flour you should buy. HTH

Thank you Roseyrod....I will have to check it out....

AUnless you will be going completely gluten-free, cross-contamination is a big issue so you'll have to design a process for baking and decorating accordingly (and make sure your suppliers do the same).

It took us several months to get our gluten-free recipes from good to great, so to be ready by April you'll need to dedicate a lot of time and money to R&D.

Soooo so true!  That's explained in the book.  Even I get afraid bc when I go to buy gluten free flour I see that it's stacked near regular flour and as you know when you buy flour some always "poofs" out of the bag.  You are going to have to find a specialty store that carries and separates them.  Also gluten free can be pricey.

I recently started offering gluten free myself and I really like the Allergen-Free Bakers Handbook. The recipes are pretty much everything free (no gluten, dairy, eggs, nuts, cholesterol, etc), so if you have customers that have a variety of allergies you are covered. I just figured if I'm going to buy specialty ingredients why not cover a bunch of allergies in one shot.

 

I've been offering the gluten free items mostly as cupcakes that way I don't have to worry about cross contamination from flour residue in my cake pans. I did do a cupcake tower with a small 6 inch round and I found that covering the cake in fondant was tricky because the structure isn't as sturdy, but it did work (you can see the result here). I keep a second set of some ingredients and equipment (sugar, baking powder, salt, measuring cups & spoons, etc) that are only used when I'm baking the Allergen free cakes. If I'm doing a combined order where only some if it is allergen free I make the allergen free cakes first and store them separately from the main cake.

Good luck!

Cross contamination is definitely the big issue here.  When possible, don't even bake the GF cakes on the same day you bake a regular cake.  Flour dust can hang in the air for several hours after you've used it, and even that is enough to make someone sick.  Use an entirely separate set of equipment.  If you can't do that, wash them really really really well.  As you're testing, have a brave GF person try them if you can, and be aware that symptoms don't usually show until at least several hours after they've eaten it, or even a day.  This makes it hard to know exactly what they ate that was the problem.

 

It might just be easier to doctor some mixes.  Amy's is always good but my favorite is the Namaste brand.  Be aware they don't go as far as a regular mix so you will need more of them, and they're far more expensive.  Everything GF is more expensive.  For flours, follow the rule of 3's and use 3 different flours, not just one (for example, sweet white rice flour, almond flour, and coconut flour).  Every single ingredient must be GF, including your vanilla, so watch out for that.

 

Both books I saw recommended above are good, but as someone else said, it takes a loooong time to get GF baking right.  It's also much more susceptible to changes in temparture, humidity, etc, than regular cakes.  You won't be able to carve a GF cake or put it through a lot of stress and stacking, it just won't hold together. 

 

I've been GF myself for 4 years and I offer regular cakes and GF.  I have to wear a mask whenever I start to use regular flour.  Good luck!

A

In our experience none of the GF mixes currently on the market are salvageable in terms of making a high quality cake with excellent taste and texture (mostly due to the presence of bean flours and/or potato starch). If you are satisfied with "good" you can get there with doctored mixes.

We ended up with a proprietary flour mix of white rice flour, tapioca starch, sorghum flour, and xanthan gum. Only the last two items in the mix are expensive, and they are present in much smaller amounts, so ingredients are only slightly more expensive. The added expense from limitations inherent in creating a process that safely handles products with different allergens is more significant.

AFrom some one who has been gluten free for 10 yrs now and just started decorating cakes. Betty crocker's gf cakes taste the best and hold up great to decorating. I substituted 2 flax gel/apple sauce eggs and 1 energy for my daughters cup cakes today and the vanilla cake still turned out one of the best cupcakes to date. My personal flour mix preference is 2-1 sorghum, potato starch( not flour it is not the same thing), tapioca starch or flour( same diff), rice flour. If you want a light coloured vanilla cake no sorghum 2-1 rice flour, potato starch, tapioca starch. 1 tsp xanthan gum for every cup of flour in your recipe. My newest recipe with sorghum had the best texture, is not dry and crumbly like so much gf. I learned a great tip a few years ago. Use warm milk it softens the grains. My cakes started turning out better. Gf does not hold up over time as well as wheat. Only my three year old is happy to eat it after 2 days. Gf free gets very dry quickly. Hope this helps.

Jason is right.  There is a lot involved to make a great GF cake.  Most are so so.  Cross contamination is a huge issue that must be addressed appropriately.  Food allergies and intolerance's are serious business. Not to be taken lightly.  You can open yourself up to lawsuits.  

 

I have Celiac and have been GF for years.  It took time, patience and practice to come up with great tasting GF recipes.  Lots of cash and trash was involved.  I won't take chances with cross contamination.  So I own and run a Strictly GF Cake and Cupcake Business.

 

Good luck with it.  It's not as cut and dry or simple as people will have you believe.

 

Take Care

MsGF 

i liked your post very much and need to do a reasonably easy and inexpensive cake for a gf 7 year old. I need to spend the time/money on decorating rather than baking.  Are you saying that Gluten free betty crocker cake mix is good as is out of the box? Also is fondant/gum paste gluten free? what about the crisco i may use to soften it?

 

not sure whether i need to turn down this job or not. the mother doesn't seem too concerned.

 

thanks,

Deborah

ACALLING ALL GLUTEN FREE-ERS!! try this amazing recipe: make your normal brownie recipe and pour into cupcake cups. Bake for 15 mins on 350. Then let cool in pan. Then remove from pan and store in container. Make a chocolate frosting. Extra chocolatey. Add sprinkles. Wait for frosting to settle!