A new fad is sweeping the nation’s fancier food stores: gluten-free baking. Most people have never heard of gluten unless they’ve gotten wind of this trend. However, for those who are allergic to gluten, it’s much more than a trend.
People who are allergic to gluten abstain from eating it; they don’t want it in their food. Yet they still like the taste of regular baked goods. So they turn to gluten-free baked goods, which look just like regular ones. Then what makes them different? In order to understand the nature of gluten-free baked goods, it is necessary to examine the nature of gluten itself.
Gluten, often thought of as a matrix or scaffolding, is a protein present in wheat. In order to make flour, a necessary ingredient in almost any type of baking, one must grind up wheat. But when wheat is ground into flour, the gluten doesn’t disappear. It’s still there. So, the challenge lies in the removal of gluten from wheat flour.
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to remove gluten from wheat. But don’t despair! Many substitutes for flour exist, and since these aren’t made of wheat,
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How does a cake become big and fluffy? Flour certainly isn’t big and fluffy—it sits packed densely in a heavy sack. A cake only rises because a leavening agent is present in the batter. A leavening agent is any substance that leavens something, or makes it rise by producing bubbles. Yeast and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) are examples of leavening agents. They produce bubbles that get caught in the gluten matrix while the cake bakes. So, similar to the inflation of a fancy air mattress, the air fills the first section quickly. When that section is full, the air continues on to fill the next section. This process continues until the mattress is full. The new matrix must be able to trap air in a way similar to the fancy mattress. This is the only way to make the cake