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nicole hunn gluten free on a shoestring

FAQs

I’m really and truly glad you’re here. You took time out of your day to visit with me, and I’m grateful. I may kid, but I never lie, so that’s the truth.

However, as reader questions & comments have evolved over time, so has this page of Frequently Asked Questions. When I found myself worn down by some bloggy unfairness, I decided it would be smart to insert some ground rules into these questions and answers.

Please Note: My content – recipes, text, and photos alike – all protected by copyright. You may not use it on your site. It’s very flattering if you make one of my recipes and would love to tell your blog readers about it, but please do not post my photos or recipe verbatim. Simply link back to my site, so your readers can find the recipe in its original form. For more guidance on Recipe Attribution, please visit the Food Blog Alliance.

It comes down to this: Be nice & be respectful, and we’ll be a-o-kay. Otherwise, feel free to explore the rest of the Internet. No hard feelings.

I made [insert recipe name], and it didn’t work! I’m freaking out, and it’s up to you to fix it for me!

It’s not. If you’re freaking out, I don’t consider it my responsibility. This is my stock response when a reader hysterically blames a failed recipe on me, as all of the recipes in my book and on my blog are tested, and work if made as written: “So sorry it turned out that way for you. That must have been frustrating. I hope the next time you try the recipe it goes much better because it is a tested recipe and will work.” That is my only response.

If you can relax a bit, we can move on to a more productive stage, and I will say, “If you would like to tell me in detail what you used for ingredients and how you prepared each step, I’m happy to review it to see where you differed from the original recipe as written. Let me know, and again, so sorry it didn’t work for you.”

Would you post the nutrition/fat/calories/points/diet/health information on [this] recipe?

Nope. I don’t do that. There are plenty of sources all over the web for to hunt down the information you seek. Please see the Resources Page for a head start on that.

I see that your recipes call for all-purpose gluten-free flour. What all-purpose gluten-free flour do you recommend?

I talk about this quite a bit in my cookbook, Gluten-Free on a Shoestring. I use and recommend Better Batter all-purpose gluten-free flour. It is very reasonably priced, and has the qualities I look for in a flour: fine grain, total versatility, consistent quality, and excellent taste and smell (even when raw). If I could, I’d date and potentially marry, Better Batter. I do not receive compensation from the company for my endorsement. I have a wonderful, mutually beneficial, relationship with the company and its lovely owner, Naomi Poe, but when I use her flour, I pay for it just like you do. I simply believe in the company, its founder, and its mission.

Another couple of notes about gluten-free flours:
1. Bean flour blends, like Bob’s Red Mill all-purpose gluten-free flour, are NOT true all-purpose gluten-free flours. They do NOT behave the same as rice-based GF flour blends. If you use a bean blend in my recipes, they will NOT turn out as either of us intended or hoped. And the batter will smell bad. It’s not the xanthan gum. It’s the flour.
2. Pamela’s Baking Mix is NOT an all-purpose gluten-free flour. It is a baking blend similar to Bisquick, as it contains many other ingredients, including baking soda and baking powder. If you use it as an all-purpose gluten-free flour, you will be creating an entirely new recipe, with entirely new proportions and, potentially, new ingredients. It is a good product, but use Pamela’s recipes that call for it – not mine. It won’t work, and you’ll be mad. And maybe you won’t know that that’s why it all went wrong. Now you know.

My yeast bread didn’t rise! What happened?

Baking yeast breads is no big thing. You just need to get the hang of it. At the start of the chapter on Breads in my cookbook, there is a section entitled “Arise Fair Gluten-free Bread.” There you will find lots of tips and tricks. Some of that information is also here on the blog.

The bottom line? You need to create a warm, moist environment for your gluten-free bread to rise. A 200 degree Fahrenheit oven may be what you used for proofing bread Before Gluten-Free, but it’s not going to produce consistent results for you now. It’s too dry, and most ovens do not reliably regulate temperatures 200 degrees F and below. It might work sometimes, but not all the time. And nothing is more expensive than wasted ingredients.

Why do only your most recent recipes include weight measurements?

I have been measuring my dry ingredients by weight for a long time now, but I know that many American cooks are troubled by the thought of baking by weight. I didn’t want to be all bossypants about it, so I just wrote recipes with volume measurements and translated them to weight measurements for myself – and back again. Only recently did I realize — I could just include both volume and weight measurements. So I did. And I will going forward. Your choice which you follow, but if you are using an all-purpose gluten-free flour other than Better Batter, I strongly suggest you measure by weight or it’s not a true equivalency.

How were you able to write a cookbook? How can I do that?

It was a bit of a fluke. You can read the story in the “About” section. I would suggest you choose to do something you really really love, and work super hard at it. If it’s right, it’ll likely blossom. What you love tends to get bigger when you lavish attention on it.

I’m new at this. Better Batter all-purpose gluten-free flour works as a cup-for-cup substitution. Can I just start converting my old recipes straight away?

You absolutely can do that, & you should have a goodly amount of success. I believe that you should outgrow the need to use my recipes over time. You may want to see more recipes (& I hope you do – I so enjoy talking to you), but you shouldn’t need them if you’re looking to learn. If you would rather just follow recipes, and many people are like that, then do that. There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel. But if you enjoy going rogue, you should be able to do that after working with at least a few of my recipes in various categories. You will learn what gluten-free bread dough should look like when it’s for a loaf of bread as distinct from a shaped bread; you will see what special care gluten-free cakes and cupcakes require. Soon enough, you’ll be ready to start converting your old recipes.

Can I contact you directly?

Unfortunately, I can no longer offer an email address for you to contact me, as I am stretched pretty thin these days. And I don’t like the idea of providing an email address, and then not responding when they are sent to me, since that is rude. But we do have a fabulous Q&A Community set up, so feel free to ask your questions (and search for answers) there.

I have a blog, too, and I’d really like to exchange links. Are you interested in that?

I do not do link exchanges, as I defer to Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen and her well-spoken advice on Food Blog Alliance. If you use the “Advertising page” contact information for that reason, I won’t respond. And I’ll be mad, because it’s unfair to do that.

I don’t have [missing ingredient] in the house. Can I still make [a particular recipe]?

You’re best off taking a little trip-ey-poo to the store. You can always sub in something, but if it doesn’t work (like really, really doesn’t work), you’ve wasted ingredients. Maybe try selecting another recipe for now, and make a note to go pick up some [eggs] next chance.

Can your recipes be made dairy free? Free of all 8 common allergens?

It really depends. In most cases, dairy free will work just fine. In my book, unless I have indicated otherwise, all recipes can be made with nondairy substitutes. Going forward, I will do the same on this blog with respect to dairy-free. The rest, I’m sorry to say that I’m out of my depth. Post a comment asking the question. Maybe someone else knows. I can venture a guess, but take it with a grain of salt. Unless you can’t have salt. In which case, I’m not sure what to tell you.

I’m British! How do I translate your recipes from American English — and what GF “plain flour” should I use?

Although I’m not entirely fluent in British baking terms (we Americans have done some damage to the Queen’s English), this website does a fair amount of translating.
For flour, I have heard good things about Dove’s Gluten Free Plain White Flour, but I’ve never tried it myself, as it’s not available on my continent.

I have another question that’s not answered here.

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Feel free to post any other questions you have in our Q&A Community.