Gluten-Free Vegan Gingerbread Cookies - Rhian's Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep gluten-free cookies from falling apart? ›

Chilling helps the flours and xanthan gum absorb liquid, which makes the dough sturdier and easier to handle. Without a proper rest, your cookies are likely to crumble. Think of mix-ins as the Spanx of the cookie world. They are a sly way to ensure that your cookies look like cookies, not misshapen gluten-free blobs.

Add oats or nuts: Adding oats or nuts to the dough can add texture and help it hold its shape better. Use a different type of liquid: Substituting a different type of liquid, such as milk or cream, for some or all of the water or other liquid called for in the recipe can help the dough thicken and hold together better.

Use a Binder. Binders like xanthan gum and guar gum provide structure in gluten-free baking to make up for the missing gluten. This prevents cookies from being too crumbly plus it also helps with freshness.

One of the most common gluten-free baking tips is “let your batter rest”. Letting the batter rest gives the gluten-free flours and starches more time to absorb the moisture. In theory, it will turn your dry, crumbly cakes into delicious, moist masterpieces.

Using xanthan gum helps provide some of the stickiness that gluten free goods lack, replacing some elasticity. Xanthan gum mimics some of gluten's most essential properties by sticking to flour and its moisture. This helps create moist goods that hold their shape after being baked.

Gluten's elasticity allows batters and doughs to trap air released by leavening agents (yeast, baking powder, or baking soda), which is how they're able to rise. Without this protein, gluten-free baked goods have the potential to be grainy, dense, and crumbly, but they don't have to be!

What's the best gluten-free flour for baking? Bob's Red Mill gluten-free 1-to-1 baking mix is my favorite gluten-free all-purpose flour blend for baking. It has a mild texture and plenty of "stick" thanks to a blend of sweet rice flour, brown rice flour, and sorghum flour, plus some starches and xanthan gum.

As I mentioned, you'll need a 1-to-1 / measure-for-measure gluten-free flour blend to make this gluten free sugar cookie recipe. When you see the term “1-to-1” or “measure-for-measure” it usually indicates that the flour contains a binder such as xanthan gum to keep your baked goods from falling apart.

Gluten-free cookie dough is stickier than standard cookie dough, but chilling it can help. This is because cold dough is less sticky, and it doesn't spread as easily, too.

Gluten-free baked goods often benefit from extra liquid to hydrate the flour blends, eliminate grittiness, and achieve a less dense or dry texture. However, it's very important to drive off this extra moisture during baking, or you'll wind up with a gummy texture. The best way to do this? Longer baking times.

Does gluten-free flour make a difference in cookies? ›

Most gluten-free baked goods look a little bit different than wheat baked goods. The breads usually don't rise quite as high, and cookies and other desserts may be flatter.

Yes, pure, uncontaminated oats are gluten-free. The U. S. Food and Drug Administration considers oats a gluten-free grain under its gluten-free labeling regulations and only requires that packaged products with oats as an ingredient contain less than 20 parts per million of gluten overall.

Moisture – for some reason gluten-free cakes tend to get a little dry. Any gluten-free cake will dry out super-fast and get hard on the outside if it's not properly refrigerated and covered. I swear by always using buttermilk and adding a little more fat into the batter to compensate for the dryness.

If you think vegan baked goods are dry and crumbly, you probably haven't had one that's been made with the right fat (or the right amount of fat), according to Konya. Butter is what makes traditional baked goods so darn tasty—as well as helps keep it all together—so you can't merely eliminate it and hope for the best.

Any taste differences also depend on which flour or flours are used and in what proportions. The variety of gluten-free flours is advantageous in that they can be blended to achieve the results that bakers want. Baking with gluten-free flour will produce some slight differences in taste or texture.

Dry, crumbly loaf- you may need more liquid (see above), fat or binder. Gluten free bread dough needs more fat than wheat bread dough whether it's oil, butter or something else. So if your bread is dry, simply add more fat to get a better crumb.

If your blend doesn't have a binder a good rule of thumb is to add ¼ teaspoon of xanthan gum for every 1 cup of gluten free flour. This changes depending on the type of recipe you're making so it's simply a guide.

Boiling too long will cause the cookies to be dry and crumbly. However, if you don't boil long enough the cookies will not set and will be runny. Some folks say bring the mixture to a rolling boil and then count to 60, while others swear by counting to 90.