Back when I first started baking gluten-free for my family, I didn’t realize you couldn’t substitute, say, a cup of rice flour for a cup of wheat flour. Gluten-free flour doesn’t work that way. You need to mix several ingredients together to make a flour mix that will approximate wheat flour in most recipes.
I used to make my own gluten-free flour mixes. I bought bags of various gluten-free flours, including rice, amaranth, millet, teff, garbanzo, almond, hazlenut, garfava, arrowroot starch, tapioca starch and others. I mixed up big batches of flour mixes in gigantic pickle jars I bought at Costco.
It was a messy job I didn’t enjoy. It was difficult to create consistent flour mixes without ending up with half- or quarter-filled bags of leftover flours I didn’t know what to do with. After learning that my youngest child couldn’t eat rice or almonds, both staples of gluten-free diets, I had to reformulate the flour mixes without either of those valuable ingredients. I experimented with many combinations, but in the end, settled on using Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Gluten-Free Baking Flour for most of my gluten-free baking and cooking.
Bob’s Red Mill GF flour mix is a lazy person’s friend because it’s reliable and easy to use. Add 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum to each cup of the flour mix, and you’re ready to use it in most recipes that call for regular wheat flour. I keep one bag in my pantry, and at least one in the freezer at all times. You should store gluten-free flour mixes and the ingredients for gluten-free flour in the freezer because, unlike wheat flour, they will spoil if left at room temperature for long periods.
Because it’s made with slightly beany-tasting garfava flour and garbanzo bean flour, Bob’s Red Mill GF flour mix can be a little too heavy for some recipes, such as lighter breads and cakes. When I need a lighter flour mix, say, for making a birthday cake, I cut the Bob’s Red Mill GF flour mix 50-50 with tapioca starch or arrowroot starch (not tapioca or arrowroot flour), both of which are very light. You can also use corn starch if you can tolerate corn. (My family avoids corn because most corn is genetically modified or drenched in pesticides. Corn is a high glycemic vegetable, and it’s relatively high in calories.)
Since I started cooking without gluten more than 15 years ago, many more gluten-free flours have appeared on the market. Coconut flour, coffee flour, quinoa flour, sweet-potato flour and others work fine in gluten-free mixes. Most are available online if you can’t find them locally. Experiment and come up with a flour mix that tastes good and works well for you.
Bette Hagman’s The Gluten-Free Gourmet is a good primer on gluten-free baking. It includes numerous recipes for gluten-free flour mixes. There are many more recipes online and in various gluten-free cookbooks. I’ve tried a number of them, but I always go back to Bob’s Red Mill GF flour mix because it’s easy and consistent and contains no rice, which my youngest child can’t eat.
Most premixed gluten-free flours have rice flour in them. I find rice flour a little grainy. I don’t have the time to mix up various gluten-free flour mixes for all my baking and cooking, so I stick to the mix I know works for me. Make your own mix or find a prepackaged mix that tastes good to you. The recipes on this blog should work with most gluten-free flour mixes, but you may have to make minor adjustments depending upon the mix you use.
Here's the recipe for the gluten-free flour mix I used for years. If you can tolerate rice, it works great in most cooking and baking. It's a little less expensive to make than prepared gluten-free flour mixes. It contains xanthan gum, so will work as a 1:1 substitute for wheat flour in most recipes. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl, stirring thoroughly with a whisk. Store in a sealed container in the pantry or in the freezer. Gluten-Free Flour Mix
Ingredients
Instructions
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