Do you have a friend who is continually amazes you with the things that she creates? That’s my good friend Heather Crosby from YumUniverse.
In addition to her two wildly popular plant-based cookbooks and plant-based recipe website, Heather just launched The Gluten-Free Baking Academy (affiliate) that teaches you how to bake gluten-free bread, tortillas, sandwich bread, and even sourdough bread at home with no gluten, dairy, eggs or preservatives.
Heather’s gluten-free bread baking course is even for amateur-bakers like me. There’s no kneading, no dry cardboard texture. The bread and nutrient rich with whole grains and 2–5 g protein & 2–5 g fiber per serving. It’s nutritious, plant-based, homemade goodness. And who doesn’t want their home to smell like a bakery?
We are talking homemade bread with actual air bubbles – not that dense, heavy stuff. I mean, check out this homemade sandwich bread!
The Gluten-Free Baking Academy outfits you with the tools, recipes, and know-how to confidently bake in the comfort of your own kitchen, even if you claim that you “can’t bake.”
My long-time readers know that I only share things that I am totally 100% behind. Here’s a little course preview:
Want to hear more about it? I asked Heather some questions about her bread baking course.
Kathy: Your course offers such a range of breads – quickbreads, tortillas, sandwich breads, even my favorite, sourdough! So which bread recipe is your personal favorite? Which one makes you the most proud?
Heather: Oh wow, tough question to ask since all of these recipes feel like my babies. I rely heavily on the tortillas for wraps and tacos throughout the week, but my proudest recipes are the biologically leavened gluten-free breads. That’s where the magic is. Regular active-dry yeasted loaves are great when you want bread fast (3 hours rise to baked) but nothing beats the flavor, texture, and bond you have with a loaf of sourdough. The care, time, and love that go into it is something you can taste.
Kathy: You spent almost two years perfecting the recipes. Tell us about your biggest surprise, something unexpected that you discovered.
Heather: Some of the biggest surprises can be the challenges that come with baking—it is an art and it is a science. You can live in a home with a convection oven, baking up brown, crusty loaves for years, then you move to a place with a gas oven and the EXACT recipe and techniques translate very differently. The uniqueness of each loaf is something very special. Recognizing and honoring this as I developed recipes was a nice surprise.
And I wouldn’t say this next one was a surprise, because I believed in my bones there was another way, but figuring out how to replicate the gas-trapping qualities of gluten with simple, clean ingredients that actually add nutritional value to gluten-free bread was a game-changer. Most gluten-free breads and recipes rely on highly processed crutch ingredients like sweet white rice flour, potato starch, xanthan gum, guar gum, carageenan, and others. Gluten-Free Baking Academy breads are dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free, egg-free, and only use wholesome ingredients.
Kathy: My kids are bread lovers. Tell us how you taste-tested the recipes to get the flavor and texture just right.
Heather: I tested the breads on a variety of bread-loving kids and adults by sharing baked goods with them. I even ran some R&D testing with folks where I shipped out the yeasted bread ingredients for at home baking/testing. I will say, that if anyone is used to flavorless white bread, they may be surprised how rich and layered flavors can be with breads made from whole grains. This kind of toast is a whole new level of delicious.
Kathy: Sourdough is my favorite – what’s your favorite sourdough sandwich?
Heather: My Sweet Tooth is jumping in here to say “salted cashew butter or almond butter with jam—and toasted!”
Heather will send you a free deep-dive course tour so you can see it yourself. Happy baking!
