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| How to make your own gluten-free flour blend |
Whether you're new to gluten-free cooking or not, creating your own gluten-free flour blend will be a vital part of your cooking strategy.
However, despite all the hype in the media about gluten-free foods lacking fiber, and therefore, being less nutritious, it's extremely difficult to find ready-made products and flour-based mixes that don't contain high-fiber ingredients, such as:
- whole-grain and legume flours
- flaxseed meal and other ground seeds
- psyllium husk powder
- sugarcane fiber
- cellulose
Pure white-rice flour and simple-starch formulated products are extremely difficult to find. And even if you could find one, the product itself would still be iffy, gluten wise, depending on the level of contamination at the factory.
In addition, many pre-made gluten-free flour blends have modified ingredients and specialty conditioners to make them act more like wheat flour. These extras make them shockingly expensive.
Plus, I have no idea how safe they are for super-sensitive celiacs.
Most popular brands will set you back a good 5 bucks a pound, or even more.
No gluten-free ingredient is ever 100-percent safe, even rice flour. But, I've been doing quite well with VitaCost brand white-rice flour and starches, along with a corn-based xanthan gum from Now Foods, so I have not had to go to a totally grain-free diet to experience relief from my celiac symptoms.
I did try going corn free a few years ago, but due to the prevalence of corn in our food supply, it wasn't sustainable.
This gluten-free flour alternative works well for me.
However, I don't bake with it every single week, nor even every month. But since it's at the heart of most gluten-free products, I want to talk about flour alternatives first and how to make a safe gluten-free flour mix that's cheap as well as easy to use.
In addition, many pre-made gluten-free flour blends have modified ingredients and specialty conditioners to make them act more like wheat flour. These extras make them shockingly expensive.
Plus, I have no idea how safe they are for super-sensitive celiacs.
Most popular brands will set you back a good 5 bucks a pound, or even more.
No gluten-free ingredient is ever 100-percent safe, even rice flour. But, I've been doing quite well with VitaCost brand white-rice flour and starches, along with a corn-based xanthan gum from Now Foods, so I have not had to go to a totally grain-free diet to experience relief from my celiac symptoms.
I did try going corn free a few years ago, but due to the prevalence of corn in our food supply, it wasn't sustainable.
This gluten-free flour alternative works well for me.
However, I don't bake with it every single week, nor even every month. But since it's at the heart of most gluten-free products, I want to talk about flour alternatives first and how to make a safe gluten-free flour mix that's cheap as well as easy to use.
Why a Gluten-Free Flour Blend Instead of a Single Flour?
Baking with gluten-free flour isn't like traditional baking.
If you use only one type of flour, such as rice flour, you'll end up with a pretty gritty cookie.
When I was new to gluten free, I found a recipe at Recipe Zarr for chocolate chip cookies that used only sweet-rice flour. Since that type of flour is easily available in the oriental section of most grocery stores, I immediately ran out and bought a box.
Recipe reviews were chock-full of praise for these little gems, with many reviewers telling me that I did NOT need to use a variety of flours and starches to bake gluten free.
Boy, were they ever wrong.
Hubby ate only one cookie and the rest went into the trash. They were just that bad.
For most recipes, you cannot use just one type of flour unless you're only using a tiny bit. If you're trying to create something worth eating, and something that is not just "okay for gluten free," you need to use a combination of flour and starches.
And the combination matters.
Each flour or starch brings a different property or quality to the mixture.
Since no single gluten-free flour contains all of the properties of wheat flour, combining different gluten-free flours, starches, and some type of binder like xanthan gum will give you the same effect as wheat gluten – most of the time.
What makes gluten-free products taste different is the fact that rice flour is bland. It doesn't "taste" like wheat flour. It has nothing to do with the item you're making. It's the rice flour itself that makes everything taste a bit off.
Honestly, there are some things I've never been able to duplicate like puffy buttermilk donuts or a chewy honest-to-goodness bagel, but for the most part, this basic gluten-free flour blend will pull you out of any depressive food funk you might be nursing.
It works close enough to real flour to make you some pretty tasty gluten-free baked goods. But before we get to the blend, here's a little primer about each ingredient in the mix:
Rice Flour
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| Rice flour is rarely used by itself when cooking and baking gluten free |
When you can't handle gluten-free whole grains, the best gluten-free flour will be based on a white-rice flour formula. However, not all celiacs have problems with whole grains.
I do, but I think that's because I might have some type of colitis going on. Or IBS.
Most white rice is enriched with iron and a couple of B vitamins that are stripped away during processing. Since white rice is missing the hard outer bran, it will produce a baked good that comes very close in texture to those made with all-purpose wheat flour without upsetting your digestive system.
Ground rice by itself can be gritty, though. Especially, after it cools down. For that reason, rice flour is rarely used alone.
Ordinarily, white-rice flour is mixed with other flours and starches to create a gluten-free flour substitute that closely mimics the texture of traditional baked goods.
However, since I don't do well with whole grains, my personal flour mixes do not contain whole-grain flours.
I do have a whole-grain soft-and-fluffy hamburger bun flour mix that I am planning on posting for those who are not as sensitive to whole grains as I am.
This blog is not all about me, so I'm also going to give you the original version of the recipe, in case you want to use that instead. You can also make the recipe using all brown-rice flour for the white-rice flour portion of the mix if you'd rather do that.
There are three different types of rice flour:
The finer the grind, the smoother the rice powder will be, and the less gritty the final baked goods will be, but fine flour soaks up more liquid, so you don't need to use quite as much flour.
Many bloggers will tell you that brown-rice flour can be exchanged with white-rice flour in recipes, cup for cup, but when I was using organic brown-rice flour from Arrowhead Mills a few years back, I didn't find that to be true.
There are three different types of rice flour:
- White-rice flour (made from medium or long-grain rice)
- Brown-rice flour (made from medium or long-grain rice)
- Sweet-rice flour (made from short-grain, sticky rice)
The finer the grind, the smoother the rice powder will be, and the less gritty the final baked goods will be, but fine flour soaks up more liquid, so you don't need to use quite as much flour.
Many bloggers will tell you that brown-rice flour can be exchanged with white-rice flour in recipes, cup for cup, but when I was using organic brown-rice flour from Arrowhead Mills a few years back, I didn't find that to be true.
In my experience, when using brown-rice flour, it took more xanthan gum and a little extra flour to make the recipe come out comparable to a standard-grind white-rice flour.
Sweet-rice flour is ground from short-grain sticky rice.
Its stickiness helps to hold baked goods together. Bakers who are sensitive to both xanthan gum and guar gum often use sweet-rice flour in their gluten-free mixes to help hold their baked goods together.
This type of rice flour is easily available in supermarkets in the Oriental section, in a white box, but you can't use it as the foundation for your flour blend. Sweet-rice flour is extremely gritty, even when mixed with gluten-free starches. Most mixes only add a tiny bit.
Tapioca Starch or Flour
Tapioca flour and tapioca starch is a white powder. They are exactly the same thing. It doesn't matter which term the manufacturer uses on the package. Both the flour and starch can be used in the following recipe.
This is not the small beads or pearls that are used to make tapioca pudding.
Tapioca starch is cassava or yucca root that has been dried and ground into a fine powder. Since tapioca is a root, you'll see tapioca flour used within the paleo and primal communities quite extensively because it isn't a grain.
Tapioca is easy to digest and adds moisture that gluten-free baked goods desperately need. However, if you use too much tapioca starch, your breads and cakes won't cook properly. They will come out gummy and underdone in the middle.
Potato Starch
Potato starch is not potato flour.
You will need to be very careful when purchasing either product. For a gluten-free flour substitute, you'll want to make sure that you are buying potato starch and not potato flour.
Potato flour is also gluten free, but it is a very heavy flour. If you use too much of it, your bread won't rise properly.
I once bought a gluten-free flour mix that contained a lot of potato flour. We had to throw most of it away because it was so dense that I couldn't even use it for breading mashed potato patties. They came out too heavy.
Occasionally, bakers use potato flour in gluten-free bread recipes, but it is usually only a couple of tablespoons. Just enough to add a bit of potato flavor, similar to how traditional potato bread is made. Mashed potatoes lighten bread dough, so it has to be used in a very specific way.
The reason for this is that potato flour is made from cooked and dried potatoes, like instant potato flakes, whereas potato starch is extracted from raw potatoes and then dried into a light, fine powder.
The only caution with potato starch is that if you use too much in your gluten-free flour, your baked goods will dry out quickly.
If you are cooking for a family or entertaining a crowd, where the entire loaf of bread or cake will be eaten at a single sitting, you won't need to be as careful with potato starch as someone who intends on having leftovers the following day.
Cornstarch
However, not all brands of cornstarch are gluten free.
While corn itself is free of the gluten that celiacs react to, not all brands of cornstarch will meet the level of purity you need to keep from reacting. Many manufacturers package cornstarch in shared facilities or on shared equipment that has been used to package products with gluten.
When I worked as a culinary specialist for a couple of boys homes, we used to use a cheap brand of cornstarch. It always made me feel sick afterward.
I didn't realize that the cornstarch was contaminated with gluten until I started to wake up to the misinformation and misconceptions that are rampant within the gluten-free community today.
Cornstarch is very useful in gluten-free cooking, due to the way it can thicken your sauces and gravies. It also lightens your baked goods, so you'll often find it in homemade gluten-free flour mixes.
Don't just assume that your cornstarch is gluten free. Most brands are not. Popular brands, such as:
- Cream
- Hodgson Mill
- Rumsford
Some brands will reveal on the label that the cornstarch was processed in a facility with wheat, or was packaged on shared equipment, but most companies will not.
The only brand I am aware of that is safe for all celiacs is:
Argo started as a corn milling plant, which was later incorporated as Argo Manufacturing. In 1892, Argo launched their new product: Argo cornstarch.
At that time, they were in direct competition with Kingsford's. In 1899, Argo, Kingsford's, and a couple other starch factories merged together under the United Starch Company umbrella.
In 2008, the company came out with resealable containers for its cornstarch and launched a brand new product: Argo baking powder, which contained Argo cornstarch.
These are the only two products they make.
However, the cornstarch is sometimes sold in a yellow plastic container under the brand name Argo, and sometimes, under the brand name Kingsford's.
Both products are gluten free, according to the company.
I have had no problems with Argo and Kingsford's cornstarch, so today, Argo is the only brand I use.
A few weeks ago, my oldest son showed me that Kroger brand cornstarch now carries a "gluten free" label, and also comes in a yellow plastic container, but I have not tried it yet.
Bob's Red Mill cornstarch, on the other hand, is manufactured on gluten-free dedicated equipment. However, that equipment is also used to process their gluten-free oats.
At one time, you only had to steer clear of Bob's cornstarch if you were oat sensitive, but lately, the company has been using mechanically sorted oats mixed with some type of purity protocol oats, so the equipment is probably no longer strictly gluten free.
Argo and Kingsford's cornstarch
Argo started as a corn milling plant, which was later incorporated as Argo Manufacturing. In 1892, Argo launched their new product: Argo cornstarch.
At that time, they were in direct competition with Kingsford's. In 1899, Argo, Kingsford's, and a couple other starch factories merged together under the United Starch Company umbrella.
In 2008, the company came out with resealable containers for its cornstarch and launched a brand new product: Argo baking powder, which contained Argo cornstarch.
These are the only two products they make.
However, the cornstarch is sometimes sold in a yellow plastic container under the brand name Argo, and sometimes, under the brand name Kingsford's.
Both products are gluten free, according to the company.
I have had no problems with Argo and Kingsford's cornstarch, so today, Argo is the only brand I use.
A few weeks ago, my oldest son showed me that Kroger brand cornstarch now carries a "gluten free" label, and also comes in a yellow plastic container, but I have not tried it yet.
Bob's Red Mill cornstarch, on the other hand, is manufactured on gluten-free dedicated equipment. However, that equipment is also used to process their gluten-free oats.
At one time, you only had to steer clear of Bob's cornstarch if you were oat sensitive, but lately, the company has been using mechanically sorted oats mixed with some type of purity protocol oats, so the equipment is probably no longer strictly gluten free.
At least, not for people who react to mechanically sorted oats.
In an email to Tricia Thompson, November 12, 2015, BMR stated that they are using both purity protocol oats and mechanical sorted oats in their gluten-free products. To find that entire email, after clicking on the above link, scroll down to the comment section of the Gluten-Free Watchdog Blog where Tricia posted it in full.
Xanthan Gum
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| NOW Foods brand xanthan gum is grown on corn, not wheat |
Along with a specific combination of gluten-free flours and starches, some flour blends add xanthan gum to the mixture for convenience.
I don't do that personally.
I'd rather be able to fine-tune the amount of xanthan gum I use for each recipe, but I'm sharing information about this vegetable gum because this product used to be a real sore spot for me.
Xanthan gum and guar gum are the two vegetable gums you'll typically see in gluten-free recipes.
I do not use guar gum at all because I didn't like how my baked goods came out when I tried it. They were heavy and wouldn't rise.
Vegetable gums are used to help mimic some of the properties of gluten that you can't get even from using a gluten-free flour blend.
Although some gluten-free bloggers claim you can bake without gums, provided the flour and starch proportion of your substitute is correct, that theory didn't hold up for me.
I don't do that personally.
I'd rather be able to fine-tune the amount of xanthan gum I use for each recipe, but I'm sharing information about this vegetable gum because this product used to be a real sore spot for me.
Xanthan gum and guar gum are the two vegetable gums you'll typically see in gluten-free recipes.
I do not use guar gum at all because I didn't like how my baked goods came out when I tried it. They were heavy and wouldn't rise.
Vegetable gums are used to help mimic some of the properties of gluten that you can't get even from using a gluten-free flour blend.
Although some gluten-free bloggers claim you can bake without gums, provided the flour and starch proportion of your substitute is correct, that theory didn't hold up for me.
The muffins I tried to make using a so-called fool-proof formula crumbled into a million pieces. I have heard similar complaints from others.
I have not tried to use flaxseed meal and psyllium husks in my gluten-free recipes. Both are supposed to improve the texture and softness of your baked goods. I used to react to these ingredients, even in products that have been certified to contain less than 5 ppm of gluten; but today, I can handle them once in a while.
I have not tried to use flaxseed meal and psyllium husks in my gluten-free recipes. Both are supposed to improve the texture and softness of your baked goods. I used to react to these ingredients, even in products that have been certified to contain less than 5 ppm of gluten; but today, I can handle them once in a while.
Just not all the time.
I'm not completely sure what's going on with that. It might be the fiber content, rather than gluten contamination, because these are almost strictly fiber products.
Xanthan gum is used to thicken and hold baked goods together after baking. It also helps the batter expand in a similar way to how gluten behaves, and maintain its shape, so air and gas created by baking powder or yeast become trapped in air pockets during the expansion.
This trapped air, or gas, allows gluten-free baked goods to rise and stay risen like traditional baked goods. However, the structure of gluten-free breads and cakes without gluten's strength are extremely fragile.
Xanthan gum is said to always be gluten free. However, I have not found that to be true.
After purchasing a huge package of Bob's Red Mill Xanthan Gum at our local grocery store a few years ago, I started to have violent gluten-like symptoms.
I'm not completely sure what's going on with that. It might be the fiber content, rather than gluten contamination, because these are almost strictly fiber products.
Xanthan gum is used to thicken and hold baked goods together after baking. It also helps the batter expand in a similar way to how gluten behaves, and maintain its shape, so air and gas created by baking powder or yeast become trapped in air pockets during the expansion.
This trapped air, or gas, allows gluten-free baked goods to rise and stay risen like traditional baked goods. However, the structure of gluten-free breads and cakes without gluten's strength are extremely fragile.
Xanthan gum is said to always be gluten free. However, I have not found that to be true.
After purchasing a huge package of Bob's Red Mill Xanthan Gum at our local grocery store a few years ago, I started to have violent gluten-like symptoms.
Upon further investigation, I discovered that at that time, Bob's Red Mill Xanthan Gum was being grown on wheat starch.
When I went to their website, so I could link to their information on it, I noticed that they are now saying that the bacteria is fed sugar. There is no mention of wheat on the product page. Their statement about wheat starch has been taken down.
When I went to their website, so I could link to their information on it, I noticed that they are now saying that the bacteria is fed sugar. There is no mention of wheat on the product page. Their statement about wheat starch has been taken down.
After searching a bit more deeply, I ran onto a page about xanthan gum on the BRM site. On that page, they were calling the wheat starch: wheat glucose.
There is no such thing as wheat glucose.
I had to search pretty deeply to find the page, but today, that page is no longer available either.
While the company claims there is "no" gluten in the product after production, because wheat starch doesn't contain any protein, their statement was blatantly false.
Unless wheat starch has been specifically processed to remove its gluten content, wheat starch can contain anywhere from 5 ppm of gluten to over 10,000 ppm!
Awhile ago, many gluten-free bloggers used Bob's Red Mill xanthan gum exclusively, and with a heavy hand, because it made their breads turn out more wheat-like and soft. Apparently, Bob's xanthan gum was adding wheat-starch properties to these bloggers' gluten-free baked goods.
While the company claims there is "no" gluten in the product after production, because wheat starch doesn't contain any protein, their statement was blatantly false.
Unless wheat starch has been specifically processed to remove its gluten content, wheat starch can contain anywhere from 5 ppm of gluten to over 10,000 ppm!
Awhile ago, many gluten-free bloggers used Bob's Red Mill xanthan gum exclusively, and with a heavy hand, because it made their breads turn out more wheat-like and soft. Apparently, Bob's xanthan gum was adding wheat-starch properties to these bloggers' gluten-free baked goods.
If Bob's xanthan gum was truly as gluten free as they claimed, it wouldn't be able to do that.
Since I violently react to xanthan gum grown on wheat starch, I switched to NOW Foods brand Xanthan gum in my recipes. However, there are other corn-based brands that are also gluten free. I just find it easier to stick with one brand.
*NOTE: Today, Bob's Red Mill claims that their xanthan gum is grown on corn.
The gluten-free flour mix you use in a recipe matters.
Most recipes created by recipe curators have been fine-tuned and dialed in to work with a particular flour mix. In fact, all of the ingredients in a recipe have been adjusted and readjusted until they work perfectly with that mix.
If you substitute any of the ingredients in the flour mix or make any changes in the recipe itself, you may or may not get the same results.
I've seen a lot of people online complain about gluten-free recipes not working, and most of the time, the individual didn't follow the recipe.
Gluten-free flour mixes are not all-purpose blends.
Although manufacturers and gluten-free bloggers advertise their product or recipe to be a cup-per-cup replacement for traditional wheat flour, that claim isn't true. Certain adaptions have to be made to the recipe to get the baked good to turn out the best it can be.
While some people do replace the flour called for in their favorite recipes with whatever gluten-free flour substitute they have on hand, and others will substitute one type of gluten-free flour or starch for another, with no difficulties, whenever I have tried to do that myself, the outcome was never the same.
The best I could say was that the finished product was edible.
It was not optimal.
Each gluten-free flour or starch brings a different property to baked goods, so substitutions will always affect the texture and taste of the finished baked good.
The thing to remember about gluten-free recipes is this:
When a blogger claims they've perfected the recipe they're sharing with you (and this includes me):
If you use a different gluten-free flour mix than they did, if you live at a different altitude than they do, or if your humidity that day was higher or lower than theirs was, the recipe might not turn out as expected.
If you use a different sized egg, don't fill your measuring cup as full as they did, or use a different sized pan or technique, your recipe can fail.
Gluten-free baking is just that picky.
That doesn't mean you should never do something different. I almost never use the same gluten-free flour mix called for in a recipe. I always use my favorite gluten-free flour, which was originally posted by Jen in the Celiac Support Group at the Delphi Forums back when I first went gluten free in 2009.
Sometimes, things work on the first try, and sometimes, I have to play around with the recipe's ingredients to get the baked goods to come out more to our liking. The key is to not expect the recipe to come out perfect on the very first try.
Problem with Gluten-Free Flour Mixes in Recipes
The gluten-free flour mix you use in a recipe matters.
Most recipes created by recipe curators have been fine-tuned and dialed in to work with a particular flour mix. In fact, all of the ingredients in a recipe have been adjusted and readjusted until they work perfectly with that mix.
If you substitute any of the ingredients in the flour mix or make any changes in the recipe itself, you may or may not get the same results.
I've seen a lot of people online complain about gluten-free recipes not working, and most of the time, the individual didn't follow the recipe.
Gluten-free flour mixes are not all-purpose blends.
Although manufacturers and gluten-free bloggers advertise their product or recipe to be a cup-per-cup replacement for traditional wheat flour, that claim isn't true. Certain adaptions have to be made to the recipe to get the baked good to turn out the best it can be.
While some people do replace the flour called for in their favorite recipes with whatever gluten-free flour substitute they have on hand, and others will substitute one type of gluten-free flour or starch for another, with no difficulties, whenever I have tried to do that myself, the outcome was never the same.
The best I could say was that the finished product was edible.
It was not optimal.
Each gluten-free flour or starch brings a different property to baked goods, so substitutions will always affect the texture and taste of the finished baked good.
The thing to remember about gluten-free recipes is this:
When a blogger claims they've perfected the recipe they're sharing with you (and this includes me):
If you use a different gluten-free flour mix than they did, if you live at a different altitude than they do, or if your humidity that day was higher or lower than theirs was, the recipe might not turn out as expected.
If you use a different sized egg, don't fill your measuring cup as full as they did, or use a different sized pan or technique, your recipe can fail.
Gluten-free baking is just that picky.
That doesn't mean you should never do something different. I almost never use the same gluten-free flour mix called for in a recipe. I always use my favorite gluten-free flour, which was originally posted by Jen in the Celiac Support Group at the Delphi Forums back when I first went gluten free in 2009.
Sometimes, things work on the first try, and sometimes, I have to play around with the recipe's ingredients to get the baked goods to come out more to our liking. The key is to not expect the recipe to come out perfect on the very first try.
I almost always have to do a bit of tweaking.
This is my go-to gluten-free flour recipe that I almost always use. Although it is not an all-purpose gluten-free flour, it's the very best gluten-free flour blend I've tried and works for most recipes, except yeast breads.
However, each recipe that I'll be posting here at Affordable Gluten Free has been tweaked to make them optimal. I don't see a point in making “just okay” gluten-free food.
Before I knew I was super sensitive to gluten, I experimented with pre-made gluten-free flour mixes because I thought it would be easier and give a better result -- despite the cost.
Unfortunately, most of my recipes didn't work very well with those purchased flour blends because they had been fine-tuned to work with my own gluten-free flour.
Eventually, I gave up trying to find the perfect mix and went back to making my own gluten-free flour mix, and hubby has been very happy ever since.
Just as well, I suppose, since I can't use pre-made mixes these days due to their whole-grains and high-fiber ingredients, anyway.
Originally, this gluten-free flour blend called for 1/2 cup of brown-rice flour, which I've now replaced with additional white-rice flour instead.
If you have a safe brand of brown-rice flour and can eat whole grains without reacting to them, your baked goods will taste better if you subtract 1/2 cup of the white-rice flour called for in the recipe and replace it with brown.
I know that 1/2 cup doesn't sound like much, but it makes a noticeable difference in taste and texture.
It's the same for the cornstarch in the recipe.
It only calls for 1/2 cup for the entire mix, but if you try to leave it out, your gluten-free recipes won't work as well. I tried for 3 years to come up with a good, workable, corn-free flour mix that worked for a variety of recipes, and I finally gave up.
Gluten-Free Flour Mix Ingredients:
*If you don't have a stand mixer, you will need to cut the recipe in half and make two batches. That is the only way to make sure the different flours and starches get thoroughly mixed together by hand.
Over the years, the brand of gluten-free flours and starches that I've used has drastically changed.
When I was new to a gluten-free diet, I could handle Bob's Red Mill products just fine. While I didn't like their stone-ground flours, often they were the only brand I could find in our small, rural community.
I tolerated them, even though I didn't like them.
As time went on, I became more and more sensitive to gluten and started reacting to Bob's Red Mill products. After having a violent reaction to their gluten-free oatmeal, I stopped using all of their products completely.
Bob's Red Mill gluten-free products are not certified to be gluten free. The company does their own testing, but they refuse to share the data. All they will say is that they test to less than 20 ppm, the legal limit for “gluten free.”
Since BRM has admitted to Gluten-Free Watchdog that they have been mixing their gluten-free oats with mechanically sorted oats, that explains my violent reaction and why all of their gluten-free products make me sick now.
Bob's is a huge company. They have contracts in hundreds of supermarkets, if not thousands. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that a lot of gluten-free companies use their ingredients in their own products, so please be aware that this is a very strong possibility if you're reacting and can't figure out why.
Today, I buy my specialty flours and starches online from VitaCost or Amazon.
When I first switched to the VitaCost brand, the flours and starches came in paper bags, but they were tightly compressed and ground superfine, exactly like Authentic Foods products.
On later orders, the starches came in two-pound boxes instead of paper bags, similar to how Ener-G packages their gluten-free starches. These are certified to be gluten free.
I don't know if VitaCost is using the same dedicated gluten-free facility supplier that Authentic Foods is using for their white-rice flour, but I have never reacted to VitaCost flours and starches, including the newer boxes.
Since I'm super sensitive to gluten, I don't like jumping from brand to brand, although I will use Authentic Foods if I need to, since they are produced in a gluten-free facility.
They just cost a little more.
My Favorite Gluten-Free Flour Recipe
This is my go-to gluten-free flour recipe that I almost always use. Although it is not an all-purpose gluten-free flour, it's the very best gluten-free flour blend I've tried and works for most recipes, except yeast breads.
However, each recipe that I'll be posting here at Affordable Gluten Free has been tweaked to make them optimal. I don't see a point in making “just okay” gluten-free food.
Before I knew I was super sensitive to gluten, I experimented with pre-made gluten-free flour mixes because I thought it would be easier and give a better result -- despite the cost.
Unfortunately, most of my recipes didn't work very well with those purchased flour blends because they had been fine-tuned to work with my own gluten-free flour.
Eventually, I gave up trying to find the perfect mix and went back to making my own gluten-free flour mix, and hubby has been very happy ever since.
Just as well, I suppose, since I can't use pre-made mixes these days due to their whole-grains and high-fiber ingredients, anyway.
Originally, this gluten-free flour blend called for 1/2 cup of brown-rice flour, which I've now replaced with additional white-rice flour instead.
If you have a safe brand of brown-rice flour and can eat whole grains without reacting to them, your baked goods will taste better if you subtract 1/2 cup of the white-rice flour called for in the recipe and replace it with brown.
I know that 1/2 cup doesn't sound like much, but it makes a noticeable difference in taste and texture.
It's the same for the cornstarch in the recipe.
It only calls for 1/2 cup for the entire mix, but if you try to leave it out, your gluten-free recipes won't work as well. I tried for 3 years to come up with a good, workable, corn-free flour mix that worked for a variety of recipes, and I finally gave up.
Gluten-Free Flour Mix Ingredients:
- 5-1/2 cups white-rice flour (can substitute 1/2 cup brown-rice flour to replace 1/2 cup white-rice flour)
- 2 cups potato starch (not potato flour)
- 2 cups tapioca flour or starch
- 1/2 cup Argo & Kingsford's cornstarch
*If you don't have a stand mixer, you will need to cut the recipe in half and make two batches. That is the only way to make sure the different flours and starches get thoroughly mixed together by hand.
How Much Does This Gluten-Free Flour Blend Cost?
Over the years, the brand of gluten-free flours and starches that I've used has drastically changed.
When I was new to a gluten-free diet, I could handle Bob's Red Mill products just fine. While I didn't like their stone-ground flours, often they were the only brand I could find in our small, rural community.
I tolerated them, even though I didn't like them.
As time went on, I became more and more sensitive to gluten and started reacting to Bob's Red Mill products. After having a violent reaction to their gluten-free oatmeal, I stopped using all of their products completely.
Bob's Red Mill gluten-free products are not certified to be gluten free. The company does their own testing, but they refuse to share the data. All they will say is that they test to less than 20 ppm, the legal limit for “gluten free.”
Since BRM has admitted to Gluten-Free Watchdog that they have been mixing their gluten-free oats with mechanically sorted oats, that explains my violent reaction and why all of their gluten-free products make me sick now.
Bob's is a huge company. They have contracts in hundreds of supermarkets, if not thousands. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that a lot of gluten-free companies use their ingredients in their own products, so please be aware that this is a very strong possibility if you're reacting and can't figure out why.
Today, I buy my specialty flours and starches online from VitaCost or Amazon.
When I first switched to the VitaCost brand, the flours and starches came in paper bags, but they were tightly compressed and ground superfine, exactly like Authentic Foods products.
On later orders, the starches came in two-pound boxes instead of paper bags, similar to how Ener-G packages their gluten-free starches. These are certified to be gluten free.
I don't know if VitaCost is using the same dedicated gluten-free facility supplier that Authentic Foods is using for their white-rice flour, but I have never reacted to VitaCost flours and starches, including the newer boxes.
Since I'm super sensitive to gluten, I don't like jumping from brand to brand, although I will use Authentic Foods if I need to, since they are produced in a gluten-free facility.
They just cost a little more.
(*NOTE: On my last Vitacost order, they were out of Vitacost white-rice flour but did have Authentic Foods white-rice flour, which I purchased instead.)
After doing the math, I discovered that this 10-cup batch of flour blend, which comes to almost 4 pounds of mix, costs us about 7 dollars using VitaCost flour and starches. On the average, that makes the flour mix about $1.75 a pound for us.
While that is certainly more pricey than an all-purpose wheat-based flour, it's far less per pound than what most online gluten-free flour blends will cost you.
After doing the math, I discovered that this 10-cup batch of flour blend, which comes to almost 4 pounds of mix, costs us about 7 dollars using VitaCost flour and starches. On the average, that makes the flour mix about $1.75 a pound for us.
While that is certainly more pricey than an all-purpose wheat-based flour, it's far less per pound than what most online gluten-free flour blends will cost you.
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