The Best Gluten Free Flour Mix


Gluten free baking is not for the faint of heart or the timid of soul. The tried and true baking results that come from the familiar use of wheat flour are substantially difficult to reproduce without our old friends, wheat, rye, and barley. With some experimentation and a little tenacity, you can find a good gluten free flour mix, and still have some of the same baked treats you once enjoyed before you relinquished all gluten related items.

In my three years of learning to cook and bake gluten free, I've tried numerous combinations of flours and prepackaged mixes. Some were pretty good, but most spanned the spectrum between OK and outright terrible. I looked for gluten free flours in recipe books, in online searches, and throughout the blogosphere, and finally found the best all purpose flour mix in a cookbook - Gluten Free Baking Classics by Annalise Roberts.

Of the many cookbooks I've read over the years, Gluten Free Baking Classics is one of my favorites. It's simple and straightforward, and has recipes that I frequently utilize. After locating a gluten free flour mix that made a good loaf of bread, I put it through its paces and made everything from cornbread to coffee cake, and it held up better than any of the other mixes I tried.
The gluten free flour recipe is:
  • 2 cups brown rice flour (extra finely ground)
  • 2/3 cup potato starch (not potato flour)
  • 1/3 cup tapioca flour
I usually mix up triple the recipe above (it comes out easily to 6 cups brown rice flour, 2 cups potato starch, and 1 cup tapioca flour) and store it in a large glass container. The flours have various textures, and since the brown rice is a bit grittier it settles a bit on the bottom of the jar, so the container must be shaken well before every use.

If you're a Celiac sufferer or eat gluten free you should also check out a delicious Gluten Free Granola and a very tasty recipe for Neatloaf - A Gluten Free Vegetarian Fake Meatloaf.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Neatloaf - Gluten-Free Vegetarian Fake Meatloaf Recipe

Image
When I lived in San Diego, one of my favorite places to eat in town was Jyoti-Bihanga, a tasty vegetarian/vegan restaurant run by the Sri Chinmoy folks. If you aren't familiar with them, I'll tell you this - they make a fantastic fake meatloaf, they call it Neatloaf. You can imagine how excited I was a few years back when a friend of mine e-mailed me the recipe, so now I can have delicious Neatloaf in the comfort of my own home. The recipe as it stands is vegetarian, you'll need to replace the eggs with an equivalent amount of egg substitute to make it vegan, and switch the ricotta cheese with soy cheese (th e Tofutti "cream cheese" works well) or silken tofu. We also use Mom's Place Onion Soup Mix as is sold as Gluten Free . This recipe makes enough for plenty of leftovers (though I usually double or triple the recipe), and reheating my lunch at work the next day has led many people to inquire about this dish.  I can proudly say that several people...
Read more

Heavy Duty DIY Tomato Cages

Image
Like many gardeners, I used to struggle with how to support my tomatoes. My cherry tomatoes, Roma/paste, and heirloom/eating tomatoes got so large and heavy that they quickly wound up dragging on the ground and entangled in a huge mess. I used store-bought tomato cages, but quickly found that these small wire tomato cages are useless. The large "sturdy" ones are a little bit better but they still eventually collapse under the weight of all the delicious fruit by mid summer. My solution to this common gardening dilemma? Homemade tomato cages, using concrete reinforcing mesh (the stuff they use to lay on the ground to pour concrete over). At my local hardware store I bought a roll of 5' x 50' 10 gauge concrete re-mesh, some baling wire, and a medium-sized pair of bolt cutters to snip it with. Construction actually went faster than I anticipated and I got two completed in about 45 minutes. Subsequent ones went much faster. To assemble the cages, ...
Read more

Homemade Raspberry Currant Jam Recipe

Image
We spend a good amount of time during the summer on preparations to help us get through the winter months. Preserving, canning, and freezing the bounty of the garden not only helps utilize the sudden influx of berries that all appear at once or the dozens of tomatoes that ripen at the same time, but makes winter more tolerable down the road. When you’re in the midst of a long cold winter, like we get here in North Dakota, one thing that helps me cope is to have just the smallest taste of summer. For my money there’s nothing better than the flavor of summer raspberries and currants captured at their mid-summer peak.  It sure helps stave off those winter blues. Raspberry currant jam is simultaneously, sweet and tart and tangy, and both raspberries and currants are nutritionally dynamic foods that should be a part of a properly balanced diet. This simple jam recipe will ensure that you have the fresh picked flavor of summer berries at your fingertips all year lon...
Read more