Gluten Free Dough for Bread

Breads and baked goods made from wheat flour have an airy texture; breads rise and baked goods are light and fluffy. One of the elements that brings this delicate quality to foods is gluten. Gluten is a protein found in wheat and subsequently in wheat flour.

When you knead bread dough made with wheat flour, the dough develops an almost silky finish to it and the dough is pliable, malleable, elastic. This is due to the presence of gluten.

When you bake with gluten free flours, the gluten is absent so the dough behaves differently. For those who suffer from gluten intolerance or celiac disease, it is essential they remove all gluten from their diets to avoid damaging their digestive tracts.

Common gluten-free flours include rice flour, tapioca flour, bean flour, soy, corn and potato flour and buckwheat. When using these flours along with yeast to make bread, you don't, as in yeast breads, knead flour into the dough until the texture is right.

Nor do you necessarily proof the yeast first; the yeast is added to the dry ingredients and water is slowly added to the mixture until it reaches a cake batter consistency.

If you routinely bake homemade breads using wheat flour, it may be difficult to gauge exactly when the gluten free bread dough is ready to be poured into the pan and left to rise.

Because the dough doesn't have the same elastic quality as that made from wheat flour, it shouldn't be left in a bowl to rise, and you don't allow for two risings either. Gluten aids in the fermentation of the yeast in dough; without the gluten, punching down the dough will result in flat dough, nothing more.

Instead, the dough is spooned into the pan and allowed to rise until it reaches the top of the pan. It's then baked according to the recipe.

Not all gluten free yeast breads follow this procedure, in which yeast is added to dry ingredients and the dough is 'kneaded' with a hand mixer or stand mixer and bread hook, but many recipes call for this "backward" process.

The familiar texture of wheat breads is a result of the relationship between gluten and yeast. If you need to learn how to bake with gluten free flours, you must first abandon all the tricks and techniques you've learned over the years. And you need to accept that your gluten-free bread will not have the same airy texture as wheat bread.

Gluten-free breads are denser and may be crumbly. The crumbly factor is reduced once you learn just how much water to add to the dough is the right amount. It depends on the type of flours you use, how humid the air is and the temperature in the kitchen.

Baking gluten free is a challenge, and one that if you or a loved one has been diagnosed with gluten intolerance or celiac disease, is necessary. A gluten free diet is the only treatment for these conditions.