GF flours

By kallen2302

Ingredients

• A Flour Combo Works Best
• The Flour Ratio Is Key
• The Flour Stretch Is Critical
• Rice-Potato-Tapioca Formula
• Bean Formula
• Fenster formula

Details

Adapted from theglutenfreelifestyle.com

Preparation

Step 1

GF FLOUR MIX MYSTERY CLUE #1: A Flour Combo Works Best
A combination of GF flours is important to making a transitional GF Mix for breads and pastries. Rice flour is a cornerstone ingredient for much of GF baking, but if you simply substitute rice flour for wheat flour, you can create a gritty mess that will produce a product resembling that of a brick. For example, brown or white rice flour works well in combination with potato flour and tapioca flour. The fine powdery quality of potato starch flour makes the dough lighter helping to balance and smooth out the gritty texture of rice flour while tapioca flour helps prevent crumbling, assists browning and provides a chewy quality to your bread.

GF FLOUR MIX MYSTERY CLUE #2: The Flour Ratio Is Key
When combining GF flours for your mix, the ratios are also important because each flour has a unique texture and quality of absorption. For your GF Flour Mix, rice flour serves as a good base flour to which you add potato flour starch and polish with tapioca flour. Not all GF flour blends have to be made with rice flour as the headlining flour, but according to Carol Fenster of Savory Palate, Inc., potato starch usually comprises no more than approximately 33% of the mix while tapioca flour typically accounts for about 20% of your mix. While ratios of these flours can vary depending on your recipes, when you are making a GF Flour Mix in bulk for multi uses these proportions serve as a general guideline.

GF FLOUR MIX MYSTERY CLUE #3: The Flour Stretch Is Critical
Baking with gluten-free flours requires additional tender loving care to make it work. Without gluten, you do not have the key factor of pliability that helps you work the dough and keep the bread together after it is baked. So, you must add extendibility to your dough with xanthan gum, the most widely used protein replacement. Guar gum is an alternative to xanthan gum. But, once again, the mystery ensues when you ponder how much xanthan gum to add to your GF Flour Mix. Thankfully, Bette Hagman has already cracked the stretch factor case and recommends a specific formula for adding xanthan gum to your GF Flour Mix. According to Hagman: add teaspoon per cup of flour for breads; teaspoon per cup of flour for cakes; and to teaspoon per cup of flour for cookies. Because GF flours lack the stretchy protein known as gluten, in addition to xanthan gum you will need to add more leavening or protein to your recipe such as egg whites, gelatin, or dry milk powder. (Source: The Gluten-Free Gourmet Revised Edition by Bette Hagman, page 39).

With these clues in mind, the GF Flour Mix mystery comes out of the dark and the following recipes for a GF Flour Mix are a great place to start in your GF baking adventure. As you uncover a variety of other GF Flour Mix options created by experts, youll find very basic flour blends to more complex ones. Discover which mix suits your tastes best and enjoy branching out to experiment with other flour combinations as you are guided by these basic principles. Is there one GF Flour Mix above all others that is coined the absolute ultimate? No. But, ultimately, the best GF Flour Mix is the one that pleases your palate and baking inclinations most while being suitable to any food sensitivities you have.

SUGGESTED WHEAT FLOUR REPLACEMENTS


Bette Hagman recommends the following two mixes in her book, The Gluten-Free Gourmet Revised Edition:

Rice-Potato-Tapioca Formula:
2 parts white rice flour
2/3 part potato starch flour
1/3 part tapioca flour

For 9 Cups:
6 cups white rice flour
2 cups potato starch flour
1 cup tapioca flour

Bean Formula:
2/3 part Garfava bean flour
1/3 part sorghum flour
1 part cornstarch
1 part tapioca flour

For 9 Cups:
2 cups Garfava bean flour
1 cup sorghum flour
3 cups cornstarch
3 cups tapioca flour

Source: The Gluten-Free Gourmet Revised Edition
by Bette Hagman, Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
Page 38


Carol Fenster recommends the following mix in her book, Gluten-Free 101 Easy, Basic Dishes Without Wheat:

1 cup sorghum flour
1 cup potato starch or cornstarch
1 cup tapioca flour
1 cup corn flour or almond flour or bean flour or chestnut flour

Source: Gluten-Free 101 Easy, Basic Dishes Without Wheat
by Carol Fenster, Savory Palate, Inc.
Page 41