Where to Start with Nicole Hunn
Nicole Hunn is a cookbook author, recipe developer, and the founder of Gluten-Free on a Shoestring, one of the longest-running and most trusted gluten-free food blogs. She started the blog in 2009 while working as a lawyer and attending graduate school for social work, driven by the need to feed her family well on a gluten-free diet without spending a fortune on specialty products. Her practical, budget-conscious approach resonated immediately, and she has since published five bestselling cookbooks. Her recipes and advice have appeared in the New York Times, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents magazine, Parade, and on the Today Show. Hunn is especially known for her work on gluten-free bread, a notoriously difficult category where her systematic approach to flour blends and dough handling has helped thousands of home bakers achieve results they thought were impossible.
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Gluten-Free on a Shoestring Bakes Bread
Nicole Hunn · 304 pages · 2013 · Easy
Themes: gluten-free bread, budget-friendly baking, bread techniques, flour blends
Hunn’s third cookbook is entirely dedicated to the toughest challenge in gluten-free baking: bread. With more than 100 recipes for loaves, biscuits, bagels, flatbreads, rolls, and enriched doughs, the book tackles every style of bread you might miss on a gluten-free diet.
Why Start Here
While Hunn’s first book, Gluten-Free on a Shoestring, covers a broad range of recipes, Bakes Bread is where her expertise is most focused and most useful. Bread is the category where gluten-free baking fails most often, and Hunn’s systematic approach to flour blends, hydration, and shaping techniques gives you the best chance of consistent success.
The book covers four custom flour blends designed for different purposes: bread flour for structure, all-purpose for versatility, whole-grain for nutrition, and pastry flour for tender results. Understanding when to use each blend is the key skill the book teaches, and it transfers to any bread recipe you encounter in the future.
What to Expect
A 304-page paperback with a warm, encouraging tone. The opening chapters cover flour blends, key techniques, and troubleshooting in detail before moving into the recipes. Hunn writes with the budget-conscious home baker in mind, so the ingredients are affordable and widely available. Best for someone who specifically wants to master gluten-free bread rather than baking in general.