Two specific books you might want to take a look at are BraveTart and Alice Medrich’s Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies, because both authors are very reliable and test their recipes extensively, and while the books are not specifically about GF baking, both do include GF variations of some recipes (plus, there are a number of naturally GF recipes in the Medrich book). The links are to Eat Your Books, and unfortunately, the index to Medrich’s doesn’t break out GF recipes or variations (BraveTart’s does), but you can get a general impression of the kinds of recipes it includes. It’s probably pretty easy to access through local libraries.
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@MelMM might have some helpful resources or advice about pizza crusts, since I know she bakes GF yeasted breads of various kinds.
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I am not gluten free, but I’ve heard good things about this blog.
There are several gluten free recipes in the Passover section of Smitten Kitchen.
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Claire Saffitz is Jewish and, as such, has developed gluten free recipes for Passover. To be clear, gluten is not forbidden during Passover, but leavening is.
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Sorry to hear, @truman.
I cooked / baked GF for the first year of the pandemic as 3 of our 5 of the household (including both my nephews) had a suspected gluten issue. Because it was the peak pandemic timeframe, there was a lot of cooking and eating and limited outside options, so I experimented a lot.
I didn’t love any of the ready AP mixes that were easily available. Cup4Cup (which is supposed to be the gold standard) was finally available many months later, but I found it terrible for anything other than bread (it seized up into a giant glob instead of cake batter, for eg — but made great bagels).
KAF has ready brownie mix that’s pretty good, also muffins and things. Namaste makes a pancake mix that was also good (other mixes too, but I haven’t tried them).
For pizza, they preferred frozen Capello crusts to most box mix options (Bob’s, etc). I did experiment with homemade, but the kids were fine with frozen so we redirected that effort.
My best outcomes were from tinkering with my own flour combinations, so given that this is a permanent change for you, that’s what I’d recommend. I used jowar (sorghum), rice (brown rice flour for breads and flatbreads, superfine indian or thai white rice flour for some finicky stuff), cornstarch, tapioca starch, and cassava (different than tapioca starch even though the same plant). (I do NOT like besan / gram flour / chickpea flour — I can taste it in most things, and it tends to lean dry, so I didn’t even bother with any ready mixes that listed it first.)
Your choices will depend on the texture and flavor outcome you want. For Indian (and other) flatbreads, I had a very specific goal in mind, and the GF version was ultimately almost indistinguishable from the wheat version (just more work / components / tinkering). Ditto bagels - really good either with Cup4Cup or my own blend. Bread was a bit more challenging for rise and texture, but even not-best outcomes were good toasted. (The methods and mindset had to change for bread, which was the bigger challenge for me.)
I preferred psyllium husk (powdered) to xanthan or other choices for stretch / binding (xanthan results in a specific mouthfeel which I don’t like, ymmv).
I mostly googled to recipe shop, but you have to be careful to look at pictures and read descriptions, there are a lot of things that clearly don’t look or sound like they’ll be similar to the gluten version. I also borrowed Flavor Flours (Alice Medrich) but didn’t really bake from it, because what I wanted was an alternative to something the kids already loved, as opposed to a great recipe for a different flour like teff or sorghum. You may find it more useful.
If you’re looking for specific things, I’d be happy to look back for recipes I may have saved and notes made back then.
(As an aside, I’m guessing you already looked into whether einkorn, spelt, and certain indian wheats might work for you.)
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I think sorghum is one of the grittier subs used so I’d avoid flour mixes with it.
Also agree with seeking alternatives that are naturally GF. Flourless chocolate cakes, cheesecake, creme brulee/flan/puddings, ice cream, chocolates/caramels/candies, macarons/meringues, fool (fruit compote layered w/ whipped cream), mousses, rice-based sweets (mochi, bibingka, kheer) to name a few.
Good luck!
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I learned to bake gluten free before there were so many readily available flour blends. A member of the household is also allergic to two of the starches (tapioca and arrowroot) frequently used in many of the substitute baked goods and flour mixes. With those constraints, these were some of our favorites:
We love Alice Medrich’s Flavor Flours cookbook, mentioned above, especially for the ginger cookies, scone and biscuit recipes (if you don’t mind a cup of cream per recipe), dark and spicy pumpkin loaf, corn flour tea cake with currants and pistachios, carrot cake, corn flour cobbler with blueberries, coconut key lime tart. I could go on… Those items are on repeat here. The benefit of using this book is that you usually only need to have superfine white rice flour and one other flour on hand to bake any given recipe.
The ATK cookbooks have been great for chocolate cupcakes (you won’t notice the difference), chocolate chip cookies (not sure how these compare to the NYT recipe referenced above), lemon pound cake, lemon bars, lemon madeleines, classic sandwich bread, millet sandwich bread, and cheddar cheese bread. It has been a while since I’ve baked any but the above recipes, and frankly, I don’t eat many sandwiches so usually just buy Schar bread at the grocery. You may use commercially available blends for these recipes, but ATK suggests that they turn out better if you use their blend. I just substitute for the allergens and generally have a bag of this blend in my freezer.
In case you can’t tell from my lists above, I generally bake sweets rather than savory items. We buy the Schar pre-made pizza crusts but also at one time had a good experience with a corn flour crust that has since disappeared from our local grocery.
Happy baking!
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Sorry to hear that, Truman! My best friend has Celiac and it can be tough. The range of GF products available has vastly expanded in the past 5 years or so - which is excellent news! I even found a GF stroopwafel for her at Shoprite last week! She eats at my house once a week and we host her family regularly for dinner, so I am constantly on the look out for good GF recipes/products. We love the peanut butter cookie below, as it’s naturally GF so there are no weird flour substitutes. Trader Joe’s has a plain frozen pizza crust that is pretty decent that I seek out whenever I am there. Aldi has a variety of GF products that are pretty good too - the seedy crackers, the tortillas, pretzels, the Asian dumplings, pea/lentil lasagna sheets, etc. The dumplings and lasagna may be limited time items.
Whenever I need a quick, easy, sure to please GF dessert, I often look to “ice box” type desserts using things like the GF Tate’s cookies. I’ve made the Atlantic Beach Pie using, I believe, Schar’s Ritz type cracker. I will look back at some of my notes, and add some more links and ideas if I find anything noteworthy!
I haven’t tried the recipes below, but they are on my list:
https://alicemedrich.com/recipe/olive-oil-rice-flour-and-almond-sponge-cake/
https://buttermilkbysam.com/oat-flour-chocolate-chunk-cookies/ - She has several oat flour based recipes
https://alexandracooks.com/2014/03/21/gluten-free-peasant-bread
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I keep saying I’m going to make this rice-bread recipe that someone [edit = @Shellybean] posted here a while back, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. It’s in Korean but has English subtitles and the recipes are in the description in English as well. She has some other potato-based items that look good, too.
As for flours, we like both the KA 1:1 and the KA AP flours. Bob’s 1:1 is good but their AP was not good at all. My #1 yardstick after buying the Bob’s AP is not to buy any GF flour having the #1 or #2 ingredient being garbanzo flour - too strongly flavored and too gritty. Maybe Bob’s has changed their recipe now; I haven’t checked recently.
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Thank you all! I now have a ridiculously long list of things to try. I’m actually super psyched to try the peasant bread that @adawks linked - I have Bread Toast Crumbs and can’t believe I didn’t think to check if she had a GF variation.
(And thanks for the sympathies on the diagnosis… I was surprised because it was not what I was expecting, but also not surprised since I have several relatives with celiac. Yay genetics!)
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You might also want to check out Alice Medrich’s ”Flavor Flours” which got revised/renamed to ”Gluten Free Flavor Flours”.
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Just remembered one naturally gluten free bread recipe that is really delicious:
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I’ve been cooking and baking exclusively gluten-free for 22 years, thanks to celiac disease. Now, even before going GF, I was the kind of baker who would formulate my own recipes, and I still do that. But I can definitely give you some tips and point you to some resources.
Let’s start with the flours. I don’t usually use the flour mixes that are on the market, but when I do buy them, I go for the King Arthur all-purpose blend or their measure-for-measure. These are are not the same. The all-purpose blend does not have xanthan gum in it. I do some recipe testing, and when I test, I will use one of these blends because they are readily available at supermarkets. I do not use either of them for breads, but they work fine in cookies, pastry, pancakes, and such.
As for the individual flours, I buy Authentic Foods flours almost exclusively. This is especially important for the rice flours, as they grind theirs finer than other brands. These flours are not easy to find in stores, so I mail order them. You can order directly from Authentic Foods or get them on Amazon, or some of the sites that specialize in GF ingredients. If I could make you follow just one piece of advice, it would be to buy Authentic Foods flours. And no, I don’t work for them.
Another note on rice flour. I buy brown rice flour and sweet rice flour, both from Authentic Foods. I do not bother with white rice flour, because I have found that IF you buy the Authentic Foods flour, you can get by using the brown rice flour 100% of the time when white rice flour is called for.
For authors, I will keep it simple and recommend only one: Jeanne Sauvage. She has two books out and a blog, Art of Gluten-Free Baking. I have found that most authors who do not bake GF all the time do not create recipes that are as good as dedicated GF authors. That includes the famous people like Peter Reinhart, and yes, Alice Medrich. I get much better results converting recipes on my own, but then, I’ve done a whole lot more GF baking than they have.
A note on xanthan gum. Some people will tell you it’s an absolute must for GF baking. It IS very useful, but I don’t use it in everything. Some things just work perfectly well without it. Think about a traditional Southern cornbread. Naturally GF and no gums in sight. Same for a Brazilian pâo de quiejo. For yeasted breads, I prefer to psyllium husk. It is a little tricky to work with, because it takes some time to hydrate, so your dough mixture will stiffen up over time. You have to mix it to be thinner than you think you want. But using psyllium, you can actually get a kneadable dough. Not that kneading is necessary for GF breads, but still…
Pizza crust: I will give you my formula. I will preface this by saying that yes, I do have a scale in my kitchen and often weigh my ingredients, but I don’t for this. You simply do not need to be that precise here. It’s a very forgiving recipe.
1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup garbanzo flour
2 Tbs psyllium husk powder
2 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp salt
To these dry ingredients, whisk in some water. This part I do by feel, but for this quantity, start with 1 1/4 cup. You need to do this quickly, and you are looking for a thick batter. You let that dough sit for about 15 minutes, and it will thicken to where you can work it. Dump it onto a piece of parchment and with oiled hands, press it from the center outwards into a disc of the size and thickness you want. Let it rise for about an hour, then top it and bake. I preheat a stone in my oven placed about 4" from the top element at 500F, then when I put the pizza in, I switch to broil and cook for 12 minutes. Sometimes my oven complains about this, and you will definitely need to experiment. This recipes also makes a great flatbread, with just some salt and za’atar sprinkled on top. As I said, this is a very forgiving recipe and you can mess around with the flour mix, specifically the brown rice flour. I will sometimes replace 1/2 of the brown rice flour with millet or sorghum. Millet is good if you are looking for a lighter texture. I will often use it if I’m making focaccia.
I guess I should say something about the garbanzo flour. Some people do not like the taste. In my pizza crust recipe, I not only don’t mind it, but I like it. Once again, the brand matters. Besan from the Indian market will have a stronger taste. And I can also taste Bob’s Red Mill chickpea flour in small quantities, and don’t particularly like it. But the Authentic Foods garbanzo flour is pleasant to me. YMMV.
I have adapted a ton of stuff to be GF, so if you have questions about a specific dish, just ask. Oh, roux… sweet rice flour works perfectly as a 1:1 sub for wheat flour.
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Thank you!! Step 1 is definitely something yeasted, as that’s what I find myself missing the most. I promise to report back…
As I’ve mentioned, I’m not gluten free.
However, I’m a big fan of chestnuts. Whenever I Google recipes that call for chestnut flour, most of them are gluten free.
I recommend that you buy an Italian brand.
As chestnut flour goes rancid easily, it should be stored in the freezer.
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Alton Brown’s cornbread is gluten free and is my favorite cornbread.
I don’t like cornbread to be soft and/or sweet. I like it to be a little gritty and have no sugar, not even a teeny bit.
If your taste in cornbread lines up with mine, you will really like this recipe.
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Ha… my tastes align with yours, but I live in a household of Jiffy cornbread lovers. Maybe we need separate cornbreads from now on? 
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I get you. I’ve been working on training my husband’s tastebuds for thirty-four years.
He still prefers soft cookies. Crunchy cookies, my preference, taste stale to him.
He likes soft, sweet cornbread. I like gritty, savory cornbread.
He dislikes dislikes bitter food. I love bitter food. I’m even a fan of bitter melon.
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Pizza tonight! I bought some Caputo GF flour - it’s a blend of corn, buckwheat, and rice flours, with wheat starch added. I used this blogger’s recipe but left the crusts on parchment for the whole baking time. The verdict: 4 stars, definitely worth making again.
The first photo is the parbaked crust (slightly crazy looking), second is half of a plain cheese pizza.
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