I have learned that xanthan gum is what steps in for a "sorta like gluten" substitute when baking. Most recipes require it to make everything work and hold together. But I suspected that xanthan gum is what is giving the overly-springy texture that is bugging me in g-free baked goods. But I didn't want to just take it out--because experiments that ruin your ingredients are no fun. So I kept researching and finally found a g-free blog where someone said they found that skipping the xanthan gum, or reducing the amount (which is usually less than 1 teaspoon) will give a more gluten-like texture, instead of a weird texture to quick breads like muffins or biscuits. I just needed to see that statement in print! So I remade my biscuits from the other day, and left out the gum. They were good--much better I thought. However, I think next time I might add just a bare 1/8 teaspoon of xanthan gum and see how that does. It does seem that yeast breads absolutely must have the xanthan gum in them in order to make them work though. .
One other odd thing about baking g-free, is that you need to mix and stir a lot more than you would with wheat muffins or biscuits. When there is no gluten to activate and make the bread tough, it needs some air whipped into it to make things lighter--like biscuits dough needs to be worked a lot, rather than as little as possible like you would with a gluten flour.
My biscuit did make a nice sausage sandwich.
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