Gluten-Free vs. All-Purpose Flour in Chocolate Chip Muffins
Comparison of both muffins. Regular Muffin is on the left, and the gluten free muffin is on the right.
Does Gluten-Free flour really affect the taste of a delicious chocolate chip muffin? Read below to see the results and science behind gluten-free flour!
Process and Observations:
To test gluten-free flour, and how it compares to All-Purpose flour, I made two batches of chocolate chip muffins. The first batch followed the recipe exactly, but the second batch replaced the regular flour with Gluten-Free flour.
I followed the rest of the recipe precisely for both batches of muffins. The batter looked very similar for each batch. Although, before baking the muffins, I tasted the batter of each batch, and noticed a slight flavor difference in the Gluten Free muffins.
Gluten Free Muffin Batter
Regular Muffin Batter
I baked both batches of muffins the exact same. During the baking process, I noticed that the muffins with regular flour self-leveled, which created a smoother surface on top of the muffin, as opposed to the gluten-free muffins.
Results:
After all the muffins cooled, I brought them to my Gymnastics teammates the next day to get honest reviews of the muffins.
For this experiment, I created a new system to document people's opinions with a survey. This gave me clear quantitative data.
The following data is shown below:
“I ♥️ #2” - Nola Simoneaux
“#1 has a dry texture but flavor was more pronounced than #2” - Coach Stef
“#1 made my throat dry” - Emily Ingraham
Science:
Gluten-Free flour is a combination of rice flour, tapioca starch, potato starch, whole grain brown rice flour, and many vitamins and minerals. Compared to All Purpose Flour, which is unbleached hard red wheat flour. This shows that Gluten Free Flour is mainly starches and rice flour as opposed to regular flour.
Based on comments made during the taste-testing, this difference in ingredients made the Gluten Free muffins, muffins dryer, and crumblier, but gave the muffins a little bit more flavor.
Recipe: https://www.littlesweetbaker.com/bakery-style-chocolate-chip-muffins-2/
