gluten-free flour mixes

 

 

yeah, it's gluten-free!

These are the flour mixes we use, adapted for our favorite dishes.  

Why mix flours?

You certainly don't have to if you aren't doing much baking.  White Rice Flour + a bit of Xantum Gum works fine for most muffins, quick breads, gravy & roux.  But if you want to make your own breads, like an occasional pot pie & want to mix your own pizza dough, it's a good idea to have mixes around.  You want to balance out your proteins & starches so that the flour acts the way you expect it to in each dish.  This will keep your deserts fluffy & light while creating breads that are denser & chewy.

Mixing Exotic Flours

Purchase a box of the largest plastic zipper bags you can find, as well as one or two attractive, air-tight containers.  They should be large enough to hold at least 8 cups of flour, but short enough that you can store them on the main shelf of your refrigerator for easy access.  We always mix our flours in the plastic bags because it's fast & easy to shake it all together.  Then we transfer our "Everyday Flour" & Pastry Flour Mix into our refrigerator jars. Because flours go rancid at different times, it's a good idea to keep them cold.  We toss the extra amounts into the freezer.

Pie Smiths + Cookie Makers

If you want to really go deep with this stuff, we recommend Gluten Free Baking with the Culinary Institute of America & The Gluten Free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods.  If you're a baker, there's no reason you can't recreate the same foods - it's just a matter of knowing how your wheat flour was working for each dish.  Both books break it down while offering several fool-proof mixes.

Binders + Chew

Anytime I use recipes that call for wheat flour, I replace them with one of these mixes, then add 1/2 teaspoon of xanthum gum or 1 tablespoon of guar gum for every cup of flour.  These help add elasticity & act as binders in your bread.  You can add them ahead of time, but I prefer to add them at the start of each recipe, just to make sure I'm really getting the right amount.  I've listed the correct amounts for each mix below in parentheses if you want to mix them ahead of time.

Everyday Flour Mix

This is for most recipes.

Brown Rice Flour  2 cups

Potato Starch 2 cups

Corn Starch 2 cups

Masa Harina (x-fine cornmeal)    1 cup

Tapioca Starch 1 cup

(Xanthum Gum 4 teaspoons)

Pastry Flour Mix

Brown Rice Flour        1 1/2 cups

Potato Starch                    3 cups

Tapioca Starch    1 3/4 cup       

Fine White Rice Flour          2 3/4 cups

(Xanthum Gum 5 teaspoons)

Bread Flour Mix

Fine Brown Rice Flour 2 3/4 cups

Soy Flour (defatted) 3 cups

Tapioca Starch 2 1/2 cups

(xanthum gum 5 teaspoons)

No Time for Nothing Flour

4 cups Brown Rice Flour 

(2 teaspoons Xanthum gum)