Baking is a fun (and delicious) way to treat our loved ones and ourselves. Being gluten-free doesn’t mean you have to give up on this tasty activity. It can be a little trickier than traditional baking, but with the help of some basic gluten-free baking tips, you’ll be on your way to whipping up delicious gluten-free desserts in no time. It all starts with having the right ingredients on hand. If you keep these basic gluten-free baking pantry staples handy, you’ll be able to bake a number of dessert treats for any occasion.
Being able to bake your own desserts is more cost effective for those living gluten-free on a budget and it’s also healthier as you know all the ingredients and can adjust them to your taste and diet preference (like use dairy-free milk, or vegan butter, etc). Being in control of the ingredients, also helps you avoid hidden gluten or alternative sources for gluten, and removes the need to figure out complex labels and what contains vs main contains means.
With this list of basic gluten-free baking pantry staples, you can easily bake any of our gluten-free dessert recipes that includes cakes, cookies, pies, and treats.
Basic Gluten-Free Pantry Staples for Gluten-Free Foodees
We have included brand suggestions, based on our personal baking experiences, but feel free to choose your favourite brands.
Gluten-free flours, Starches and Agents:
- Gluten-Free Flour (Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 Baking flour and Robin Hood Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour Blend are great options as they are readily available)
- Rice Flours (white, brown, and glutenous)
- Almond Flour
- Potato Starch
- Tapioca Flour
- Corn Starch
- Baking Powder
- Baking Soda
- Xantham Gum*
- Cream of tarter
- Almond meal
*In gluten-free baking, we rely on xanthan gum to provide elasticity and stickiness in our doughs and batters. Since there isn't gluten present, we need something that acts as the binding agent for the flour, and helps hold onto some moisture, which helps provide the baked goods with structure.
Gluten-Free Chocolate
- Milk Chocolate chips
- Dark Chocolate chips
- Semi-Sweet Morsels
- White Chocolate chips
- Semi-sweet Bakers Chocolate
- Nutella
Nuts and Mix-ins
Sugars/ Sweeteners
- White sugar
- Light Brown Sugar
- Icing Sugar (powdered sugar)
- Corn Syrup
- Stevia
- Maple Syrup
- Honey
- Coconut sugar
- Krisda Monk Fruit Sugar blend
Dairy
- Sweetened Condensed Milk (Regular or low-fat Eagle Brand® sweetened condensed milk)
- Evaporated milk
Flavourings
- Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Vanilla Extract
- Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon vanilla bean paste (which is gluten-free )
- Orange Extract
- Club House Imitation Almond Extract
- Nielsen-Massey Coffee Extract
- Anise Extract
- Club House Pure Cinnamon Extract
- Instant Espresso Powder
- Cocoa powder
- Peanut Butter
- Pumpkin puree
- Pure Raspberry or Strawberry Jam
- Pure Grape Jam
Oils, Vinegar, and Fats
- Vegetable oil
- Butter or butter substitute
- Cooking spray
- Apple Cider vinegar
Spices
- Salt (Himalayan pink salt)
- Ground Cinnamon
- Ground Ginger
- Ground or freshly grated Nutmeg
- Ground Cloves
- Pumpkin Pie Spice
- Ground Black Pepper
This list may seem overwhelming but it can be bought in stages when making your shopping lists. Shopping lists are an essential step to de-mystifying gluten-free shopping. For extra help, you can use any of these 5 gluten-free apps to make your shopping life easier.
Use this list of basic gluten-free baking pantry staples as a guideline. Feel free to swap in substitutions of items to suit your diet/palate preference. The goal is to replace the same ingredients that you previously used (and enjoyed) with its gluten-free version. We want to make it as easy as possible.
What are some of your favourite basic gluten-free baking pantry staples? What would you add/remove from our list? Leave us a comment below and let us know. By sharing our lessons learned with each other, we can make our collective baking experience a little sweeter 🙂
Happy gluten-free Baking y’all!
