One of the more challenging aspects of baking gluten free is
working with dough for breads and rolls. Many gluten free recipes call for
mixing the ingredients for the dough, then sort of plopping it all into a loaf
pan and letting it rise, or scooping blobs of it onto a baking sheet.
Gluten is what gives dough its lift, its cohesion, its
springiness. Without gluten, dough is sticky and glue-like, and kneading it is
next to impossible. It's a delicate balancing act to get just the right
combination of gluten free flour, leavening, and liquid to achieve a roll-able
dough.
Gluten Free Bisquick, though, does seem to produce less gummy
doughs and batters. I use it for my gluten free chocolate donuts and my TwoMinute Mini Cakes. But I've never used it as a flour blend for any kind of
yeast based recipe.
Betty Crocker's recipe for gluten free cinnamon rolls didn't
call for yeast, depending instead on the leavening agents already in the
Bisquick mix. I thought the dough would be too sticky to roll out, and the
rolls would be too dense due to the lack of yeast. Neither of those predictions
came true.
At the end of the video, I mention the cost of the Gluten Free
Bisquick Mix – in supermarkets a box can cost $5.99. With the additional
ingredients, the cost of eight rolls is just over a dollar a roll. That's
cheaper than paying $6 to $8 for four pre-packaged frozen rolls, but you can
still get that cost down.
I have a subscription with Amazon for this product, and I get
three boxes for about $11.00, which makes using the blended flour more cost
effective than having to buy it in a store. There's only three cups of flour in
a box, so it's still more expensive than wheat flour, but anyone on a gluten
free diet already knows the gluten free flours and pre-packaged goods are far
more costly. And Obamacare doesn't cover
the cost of treatment for celiac disease or gluten intolerance.
Overall, this recipe is a good, gluten free recipe for
cinnamon rolls. They taste great, and the dough is not only manageable, but
holds the moisture through the cooking process, another issue common to gluten
free baked goods. Betty Crocker and General Mills may consistently charge more
for their gluten free products, but they are quality products, and this recipe
produces a quality cinnamon roll.
