Oil Makes It Lighter

If you’ve been disappointed with your results in baking quick breads, muffins and cakes, the answer may be vegetable oil. Often gluten-free flours when used in unadjusted recipes tend to produce dry, gritty breads or cakes that fall apart.

Substituting vegetable oil for butter or margarine will not make gluten-free breads heavy, instead, it will make them lighter, moist and help to hold them together.

In regular (with gluten) dense cakes and breads, oil more rapidly coats the protein molecules in wheat flour which prevents the formation of gluten, resulting in a moister and more tender product. With gluten-free flours, oil helps to bind ingredients and helps to keep the baked product moist for days after it has been baked.

So next time you try an unadjusted quick bread or muffin recipe, try adding vegetable oil, for a standard quick bread recipe we use 1/2 cup, your bread will turn out much closer to the gluten variety and stay moist much longer.