THE SCIENCE OF GLUTEN FREE BREADS

The core of gluten free breads consist of grain flours, starches, fats, emulsifiers and binders, sugars, salts and yeasts. The trick is to find the right combination of all your ingredients to get the tastiest, softest most flexible longest lasting product.

As a usual rule, you need a combination of 2 parts grain flours and 1 part starch. The grain gives you the taste and structure while the starch gives you softness and flexibility. Starch is insoluble and in a crystalline state before it is baked. When you add water and heat the starch it becomes soluble and in a gel state, flexible and soft. As the bread ages and stales, the water evaporates leaving just the starch molecule back in its original dry fragile crystalline state. This is known as retrograde. You can reheat stale bread to somewhat re-gel the starch molecule and revive it but without water, it will be stale when it cools.

The fats add flavor, softness and help keep the water close to the starch therefore keep it fresh longer.

The emulsifiers help, unlike ingredients (such as water and oil) join. Eggs are a typical emulsifier but other ingredients have emulsifying traits. Binders, such as xanthan gum, help join all the ingredients. Sugars feed the yeast and produce co2 and salt helps regulate the co2 and promote taste.

COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS

* Why does gluten free breads need to be in the freezer?
Gluten free breads have a high starch content so stale very quickly. There are added anti staling aids in factory breads that help their shelf life.