CiCi · Foods · Gluten-free baking

Gluten-free baking

The short answer

Baking soda, baking powder, cornstarch, cocoa, vanilla, sugar and yeast are all gluten free. The two things worth knowing are that gluten-free flour needs a binder to replace the structure gluten provided, and that a shared kitchen surface undoes an otherwise perfect recipe.

In baking, the gluten-free question is less about safety and more about how a batter holds together without gluten.

A woman and a child sieving flour into a bowl at a kitchen counter

The rule: gluten was doing a structural job, and something has to replace it

The binders are xanthan gum, psyllium husk and guar gum, all gluten free. Xanthan is fermented from sugar by a bacterium and is the default in commercial blends; psyllium is a seed husk and works better in bread; guar is a legume gum. A rough starting point is a quarter teaspoon of xanthan per cup of flour for cakes and about a teaspoon for bread, though any blend labelled 1:1 already contains one.

Yeast is worth clearing up, because the names cause trouble. Baker's yeast and nutritional yeast are gluten free. Brewer's yeast is a beer byproduct and carries barley protein. They are different products with confusingly similar names.

Baking powder is almost always corn-starch based and gluten free, but the starch carrier is worth a glance in unfamiliar brands. Baking soda is a single compound with nothing to hide.

Cross-contact in a home kitchen is the underrated risk here. Airborne flour settles across a kitchen and stays on surfaces for hours; a wooden spoon, a scratched plastic board, a toaster, a colander and a flour sifter all retain gluten through washing. In a mixed kitchen, dedicated versions of those specific items solve most of it.

Check it in the aisle instead

Point CiCi at the barcode and get this same reasoning in about two seconds, plus the carbs and whether it has been recalled. 360,000+ packaged foods are already read and waiting.

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At a glance

Sorted by what the answer actually is, rather than alphabetically — because the useful question in a shop is “which pile is this in.”

⛔ Contains gluten

Brewer's yeast
A beer byproduct that carries barley protein. Not the same as the two above.
Cake mix, pancake mix, bread mix
Wheat unless labelled gluten free.
Vital wheat gluten
Isolated gluten. Sometimes added to gluten-free-looking artisan flour blends.
Shared toaster, sifter, wooden spoon, colander
These specific items retain gluten through washing. Dedicated versions solve most home cross-contact.

✓ Gluten free

Baking soda
Sodium bicarbonate. Single compound.
Baking powder
Nearly always corn-starch based; the carrier is worth checking on unfamiliar brands.
Cornstarch
Corn. A common thickener substitute for flour.
Baker's yeast, active dry yeast
Saccharomyces cerevisiae grown on molasses.
Nutritional yeast
Deactivated yeast grown on sugarcane or beet molasses.
Xanthan gum, psyllium husk, guar gum
The structural replacements for gluten.
Cocoa powder, vanilla extract, sugar
Vanilla extract is vanilla in alcohol; distilled alcohol carries no gluten.
Icing sugar / powdered sugar
Anti-caking agent is cornstarch in nearly all markets.

Common questions

Is baking powder gluten free?

Almost always. Baking powder is an acid, a base and a starch carrier, and the carrier is corn starch in the overwhelming majority of brands. Wheat starch is possible in principle, so an unfamiliar brand is worth a glance.

Is yeast gluten free?

Baker's yeast and nutritional yeast are. Brewer's yeast is not. It is recovered from beer production and carries barley protein. The three have similar names and different answers.

Do I need xanthan gum in gluten-free baking?

You need something doing that job. Gluten provided the elastic network that holds gas, and without a binder the result is dense and crumbly. Xanthan gum, psyllium husk or guar gum all work; flour blends sold as 1:1 replacements already include one.

Check it yourself

CiCi is not the authority on this. These are. Every link below goes to the regulator, charity or paper the answer above rests on.

Standard for Foods for Special Dietary Use for Persons Intolerant to Gluten (CXS 118-1979)FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius CommissionThe international standard most national rules are built on: "gluten-free" at no more than 20 mg/kg, and a separate "reduced gluten" band of 20–100 mg/kg that may not be called gluten-free.
21 CFR 101.91 -- Gluten-free labeling of food.U.S. National Archives — Electronic Code of Federal RegulationsThe binding US regulation itself: it defines "gluten-containing grain", sets the "gluten-free" claim at less than 20 ppm, and states how manufacturers must demonstrate compliance.
Food Labeling; Gluten-Free Labeling of FoodsU.S. Federal Register (Food and Drug Administration)The 2013 final rule as published, with the full preamble explaining why FDA chose the 20 ppm figure and how it weighed evidence from people with coeliac disease.
Food Labeling; Gluten-Free Labeling of Fermented or Hydrolyzed FoodsU.S. Federal Register (Food and Drug Administration)The 2020 rule covering yoghurt, sauces, beer and other fermented or hydrolyzed foods, where gluten cannot be reliably measured, so compliance rests on records kept before fermentation.
Food AllergiesU.S. Food and Drug AdministrationHow the nine major allergens (including wheat) must be declared under FALCPA — useful because wheat-free allergen labelling is a separate legal duty from any gluten-free claim.
Gluten and Food LabelingU.S. Food and Drug AdministrationFDA's consumer explainer of what gluten is and which products the rule does and does not cover, including its 2017 survey finding only one of 702 samples out of compliance.

The scanner

Reading a page is fine. Standing in the aisle is the hard part.

This site answers the question you knew to ask. The app answers the one you didn't: the barley malt in a rice cereal, the wheat starch in a gummy. Scan the barcode, or photograph the panel when the barcode isn't in any database, and CiCi shows which words on the label produced the answer.

360,000+ packaged foods already read. Ingredient statement, allergen declaration and nutrition panel, each one assessed by the same rules you can see working on this page, so most scans are an instant answer rather than a lookup.
Unlimited scanning, about two seconds an answer. Fig and Spoonful both cut you off at five scans a month.
Carbs and the full nutrition panel on every scan. Total and net carbohydrate with the arithmetic shown. For the roughly 6% of people with type 1 diabetes who have coeliac disease too, that is two apps collapsed into one.
Your glutening log. Record a reaction and CiCi shows what those days had in common. It counts overlaps and never tells you what caused it.
Saved products. The regular shop in one place, so next week is not a re-scan of the same forty items.
Scanning happens on your device. No scan is ever attached to you, sold, or sent to an analytics service.

Try it free for 14 days →See pricing

14 days free, then $29.99 a year. Cheaper than Fig, and it does what three separate apps do. This website stays free forever either way: every answer on it, permanently, with no account.

Other food categories

Gluten-free breadThe bread aisle is where the most gluten exposures start. More of its marketing language sounds health-adjacent than in any other category, and none of that language means gluten-free.Gluten-free beerThis is the one category where a legal label distinction maps onto a real medical distinction, and almost nobody explains which is which.Gluten-free soy sauceSoy sauce is the highest-frequency accidental exposure in restaurant eating, because it is in almost everything and almost nobody thinks of it as a wheat product.Gluten-free oatsOats are the only common food where the correct answer depends on which country you are standing in, and where a meaningful minority of people react even to perfectly clean oats.Gluten-free candyCandy is a good category to learn on, because it is small, the failure modes are few, and they recur everywhere else.Gluten-free sauces and condimentsA meal built entirely from naturally gluten-free ingredients is routinely undone at the last step by a spoonful of something from a jar.Gluten-free pastaThe noodle aisle is unusually forgiving once you know which base grain you are looking at, with one systematic exception.Gluten-free breakfast cerealCereal is the clearest demonstration of why an ingredient-list scanner that only looks for the word "wheat" is dangerous.Eating out gluten freeA published study found that a substantial share of restaurant food ordered as gluten free tested positive for gluten, with pizza and pasta the worst offenders by a wide margin.Gluten-free flourFlour is the category where a naturally gluten-free ingredient most often arrives contaminated, because milling equipment is expensive and rarely dedicated.Gluten in medications and supplementsThis is the category where the honest answer is most often "ask the manufacturer," and where scanners that give a confident verdict are least defensible.Gluten-free snacksA category where the base food is nearly always safe and the flavouring nearly always decides the answer.Gluten-free dairy and cheeseDairy is one of the safest aisles in the shop, which is why the few exceptions catch people off guard.Gluten-free meat and deliThis is the aisle where the regulatory technicality has real consequences, and almost no consumer guide mentions it.Gluten-free coffee, tea and drinksA category where the base drink is almost always fine and the additions decide the answer.Gluten free for kids and schoolWritten for parents, and more about systems and social situations than about ingredient lists.Gluten free travelThe most useful travel tip is that a good translation card explains cross-contact rather than just naming gluten.Gluten-free frozen and convenience foodThe freezer aisle is where a naturally gluten-free food most often arrives with something added that nobody would have predicted.Gluten in cosmetics and household productsThis category is dominated by marketing, and the honest version saves people a great deal of unnecessary expense and worry.

Keep going

Every ingredient, A–ZLook up any single ingredient and see its classification, the reasoning, and the regulation behind it.ListsHidden sources of gluten, safe foods that sound risky, and more.LearnHow labels work, what cross-contact evidence shows, why oats are contested.Look up a product by barcodeEvery barcode CiCi can resolve has its own page.