Gluten Free Savoury Muffins | Gluten Free Cheddar Muffin Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why didn't my gluten free muffins rise? ›

Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature.

If your ingredients are cold, that will reduce the warmth and your dough may not achieve the rise it needs. Conversely, make sure that your mix isn't too warm/hot either. Yeast likes it to be warm and cozy.

Gluten-free muffin base ingredients:

avocado oil, or neutral oil of choice. milk of choice at room temperature - If you're dairy free, use dairy free milk. vanilla extract. 1:1 gluten-free flour - Buy a gluten-free flour blend with xanthan gum added.

Unless you have no other option, you really should use a leavening substitute. Other baked goods that rely more on rising — like cakes, muffins, and breads — cannot be made without baking soda or an acceptable alternative.

Brown rice flour contains one single ingredient—brown rice. And while all brown rice flours are naturally gluten free, it's essential to check that the one you're using was made in a gluten free facility. In recipes, brown rice flour works best in bread, muffins and cookies.

But if you're looking for a good store-bought gluten-free blend, I recommend Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 baking flour. This is based on sweet rice flour, and it makes a good sub for sweet rice flour in my recipes if you don't have any on hand.

Many muffin recipes use cooking oil instead of butter. Oil, being a liquid, distributes easily in the quick-mix batter and is readily absorbed into the baked muffin, producing a light non-greasy texture. Vegetable oil is ideal because its mild flavour doesn't compete with the main flavour of the muffin.

The best bakery-style crumb muffins start with cake flour

Cake flour is more finely ground and has less protein, which leaves the muffins with a fine, light crumb and soft texture. Using cake flour is an easy way to avoid heavy, dense muffins even if you end up stirring just a bit too much.

Rest the Muffin Batter

The first, most hands-off way to make your muffins pop (literally) is to let the batter rest. Make the batter, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let the batter rest at room temperature for about 1 hour. If you're short on time, just 30 minutes can make a difference.

When all-purpose flour won't cut it, stock your pantry with additional gluten free flours, like oat flour, nut flours, bean flours, even powdered dry milk and others. You'll also need binders, like xanthan gum or psyllium husk, to adjust the structure in what you're baking.

Can I substitute gluten-free flour in muffins? ›

When to Swap All-in-One Gluten-Free Flours for Regular Flour. These gluten-free flour blends substitute well in batters that use baking powder and/or baking soda to leaven—such as cookies, muffins, and cakes—along with batters that are wetter in texture, like pancakes and quick breads.

But if you want super domed muffins with seriously tall tops, rest the batter for an hour! This will allow the flour to hydrate and absorb the liquids in the batter more fully, leading to taller domes.

Baking soda is most commonly used in cookie and muffin recipes. Baking powder, however, already contains an acid and a base and has a more neutral taste, which works great when baking cakes and bread.

Flat or Sunken Muffin Fixes:

Don't open the oven door until the muffins are baked. Be careful to measure your ingredients correctly to avoid using too much liquid. Every gluten free flour blend will need varying amounts of moisture depending on the starch-to-grain ratios and if they have dried milk powder in the mix.

2 teaspoons of baking powder per cup of gluten-free flour is necessary to ensure proper leavening. Baking soda and buttermilk can be used to leaven instead of baking powder, but 1-1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar should be added for each 1/2 teaspoon baking soda used.

Gluten-free flour blends don't have the same elasticity as flour containing gluten so often the cakes don't rise as much or will sink after rising. To combat the flat cake problem, I add ½ tsp of bicarbonate of soda to the recipe even when using a self-raising gluten-free flour blend.