Gluten Free Eating

Pumpkin cheesecake bars solve two Thanksgiving problems at once. They need no pie crust to roll out, and the crust they do have is gluten-free by nature: almond flour, chopped pecans, a little sugar and melted butter pressed into a pan. No flour blend, no xanthan gum, nothing to go crumbly. Why almond flour works here A cheesecake crust only needs to hold together and taste toasty. Almond flour and pecans do both, because the fat in the nuts binds the crumbs once the butter goes in. Stir the mix until it looks like wet sand, press it firmly into an 8-inch square pan lined with parchment, and bake it for 12 minutes at 325F until it turns light gold. Let it cool for 10 minutes before the filling goes in. Almond flour is made from almonds, but it is often milled in plants that also handle wheat. Buy a bag that says gluten-free, and check the pecans for the same reason. Mix the filling slowly Cracks in the top of a cheesecake usually come from air. A mixer on high whips bubbles...

Pumpkin bread is the first thing I want to bake once the mornings turn cold, and it is one of the friendliest quick breads to make gluten-free. Pumpkin puree brings moisture and structure that wheat-free batters often lack, so the loaf stays soft for days instead of drying into a brick by the second morning. A few small habits decide whether your loaf comes out tender or gummy. Start with the right pumpkin Buy pure pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling. The cans sit next to each other on the shelf and look almost the same. Pie filling already has sugar, spices, and sometimes thickeners mixed in, which throws off the balance of the batter and can add ingredients you did not plan for. Pure puree is one ingredient: pumpkin. If you roast your own, drain it in a fine strainer for 20 to 30 minutes, because homemade puree holds more water than canned and will make the center of the loaf wet. Know what is in your flour blend Gluten-free all-purpose blends are not interchangeable. Some i...

Thanksgiving baking starts earlier than you think. The pies and rolls need oven time on the day, but a good quick bread can be baked up to a week ahead and nobody will know. This is the one I make every November: a gluten-free cranberry walnut bread that slices clean, toasts well, and survives a crowded holiday table. Cranberries are the star, and they are picky in quick breads. Fresh ones burst and bleed pink streaks through the crumb. Frozen ones hold their shape better and give you little jewel-like pockets of tartness. Either works, but do not use dried cranberries without soaking them first. Dried fruit pulls moisture out of an already lean gluten-free batter, and you end up with a dry loaf and chewy spots. The flour blend matters more here than in a muffin. A simple rice-flour-and-starch blend gives this bread a tender crumb, but I add a spoonful of psyllium husk powder to the dry ingredients. Psyllium builds the structure gluten would normally provide. Without it, fruit-laden...

Thanksgiving is five and a half weeks out, which means pumpkin pie season has already started in my kitchen. It is the one dessert where a gluten-free version either wins the whole table over or gets politely left on the plate. Most gluten-free pumpkin pies fail in the crust, not the filling. The filling is easy: pumpkin, eggs, evaporated milk, sugar, spice. It barely knows the difference. The crust is where the trouble lives, because gluten is what keeps a wheat crust from falling apart. Without it, you need a plan. Start with a crust you can roll without a fight Cold fat is the first rule, same as any pie. Cut your butter or shortening into the flour mix while everything is still cold, and work fast. Warm fat melts into the flour instead of making pockets, and those pockets are what turn into flakes. The second rule is rest time. Gluten-free flour needs longer to hydrate than wheat flour does. Mix your dough, shape it into a disk, wrap it, and give it at least 30 minutes ...

Gluten-Free Sugar Cookies That Hold Their Shape October is the month the cookie cutters come out. Halloween is three weeks away, and if your house is like mine, the pumpkins and ghosts start showing up on the kitchen counter long before the 31st. Decorating sugar cookies with kids is one of those simple pleasures that should be easy. But gluten-free sugar cookies have a reputation: they spread. You cut a pumpkin, you get a blob. You cut a ghost, you get a puddle. The shape is the whole point of a cutout cookie, so this matters. The problem is structural. Wheat flour forms a gluten network that holds the cookie's edges while the butter melts in the oven. Without gluten, the butter wins. The cookie spreads before the structure sets, and intricate shapes blur into circles. Start with the flour. A 1-to-1 gluten-free baking blend works, but check that it contains xanthan gum, or add about half a teaspoon per cup of flour yourself. The gum replaces some of the binding power that glut...

  It starts with a simple idea: swap wheat flour for oat flour, one to one, and keep baking like nothing changed. Sometimes that works. A lot of the time, the loaf comes out gummy in the middle or crumbles when you slice it. Oat flour has no gluten, so it cannot build the stretchy network that holds a wheat dough together. It also drinks up more liquid. When a recipe depends on gluten for structure (yeast breads, pizza dough), a straight swap fails. When the structure comes from eggs, fat, or leavening instead (muffins, quick breads, pancakes), oat flour usually does just fine. A few rules make the swap work. Replace no more than half the wheat flour on your first attempt. Let the batter rest for ten minutes before baking so the flour hydrates. And use certified gluten-free oat flour: ordinary oats are routinely contaminated with wheat in the field and at the mill. The best results come from recipes built around oat flour from the start. This gluten-free honey oat bread treats ...

October is pumpkin season, and gluten-free pumpkin bread is one of the few quick breads that can taste better without gluten. Pumpkin puree does the heavy lifting: it keeps the crumb moist in a way that gluten-free flour blends struggle to do on their own. The flour blend matters more than the recipe card suggests. A 1-to-1 gluten-free blend that already contains xanthan gum gives the best structure. Skip the rice-flour-heavy mixes, which dry out by day two. If you bake with your own blend, add a quarter teaspoon of xanthan gum per cup of flour. Use canned pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling. Pie filling comes pre-sweetened and pre-spiced, which throws off the sugar and spice balance. Let the puree come to room temperature before mixing so it blends evenly and you avoid streaks of raw flour. The doneness test is where most people go wrong. A toothpick should come out with moist crumbs, not clean. Clean means the loaf baked past its peak. Pull it when the top springs back lightly and...