Topic 1: Flours
As you might imagine, the challenge of gluten-free baking is recreating the structure, taste, and dynamism of traditional wheat flours with gluten-free replacements. Your days of choosing from just cake, all purpose, or bread wheat flour are gone; in the realm of gluten-free baking, you must choose and combine well over a dozen different types of flour. Some of these types include:
Rice Flour
Bean Flour
Pea Flour
Amaranth Flour
Corn Flour (I’m allergic to corn, so you might not see much about this one on this blog)
Millet
Oat Flour
Sorghum Flour
Teff Flour
Buckwheat (aha!)
Almond Flour
And so on.
At first, the variety of different types of flour can be overwhelming. Couple that with the reality that each flour can serve a very specific purpose and the complexities of gluten-free baking can be positively mind blowing! For example, here’s a quiz: If you want to make a Pie Crust, would you use 30% Almond Flour or 30% Pea Flour? Or could you blend both?
If your reaction to the pop quiz was something like “uhhh…”, then you’re reacting perfectly normally. As I said, gluten-free baking requires a much more thorough understanding of the chemistry of baking if you want your products to blow those store bought gluten-free cookies right out of the water. Fortunately, there are a ton of resources to help you shore up your understanding of traditional and gluten-free baking. One of my first books was Gluten-Free Baking for Dummies (review to come soon enough), which gives a pretty decent explanation of the basic composition of flour and how that composition helps to create a finished baked good. As Baking for Dummies starts, let me explain the basics of wheat-based flour to help you better understand the logic behind how bakers select gluten-free flour substitutes.
The Basics of Wheat-Based, Glutenated Flour
Wheat flours are, on average, 70% starch and 30% protein. This proportion changes depending on what your baking. For example, when baking crispy pizza crusts, flexible pie crusts, or dense breads, bakers use flour mixes that boast a higher protein-to-starch ratio (sometimes up to 50% protein). For softer cakes and cookies, starch content is higher. This is true of both wheat-bakers (who would choose between cake flour (high starch), all purpose flour, or bread flour (high protein)) and of gluten-free bakers, who would substitute the aforementioned options.
Starch and protein are two of the three important elements of wheat-flours that enable successful baking endeavors. The third element is mischievous gluten, the wonder protein that formulates an airy web as baked goods rise. Gluten holds these baked goods together by creating bindings between protein fibers throughout the flour while rising as leavening agents (baking powder, etc) release gases. The baked good rises as escaping air forces the bound gluten/protein structure skyward. Most of the structure of the baked-good comes from these links between protein and gluten. Starch, however, prevents these linkages from becoming too plentiful by interfering with the binding process and trapping in moisture. Starch, in other words, determines how soft and moist a baked good will be by preventing rampant gluten/protein linkages from allowing the product to become solid as a rock!
As you can see, striking the subtle balance necessary for each individual type of recipe can be quite the challenge. But fear not! As mentioned before, the options to accomplish this feat are plentiful. All you need is a little practice :]
First, you’ll need to become familiar with what types of recipes call for what types of flours. Remember this rule of thumb: the denser the product, the higher the protein. So for anything like pizza crust, dense breads and spiced cakes, and pie crusts, up the protein. For fluffy cakes, light cookies, and other airy desserts, you’ll what to use proteins with higher fat content, such as almond flours. Listed below are descriptions provided in Living Without’s Gluten-Free Baking: Spring 2013 magazine in an article entitled Flour Power: How to Choose and Use Gluten-free Whole-Grain Flours. This article gives a decent breakdown of the pitfalls of each flour, when to use them, and what to watch out for.
Types of Gluten-Free Flour
Bean Flours: High in protein, bean flours are great for baked goods that need some structure and elasticity (pie crusts, rich breads, etc.). Most bean flours can be used interchangably; if you can’t find soybean flour, you can substitute garbanzo (fava) bean flour. Some bean flours leave a noticeable after-taste, so if you find yourself disliking this feature, try to use pea and green pea flour. These flours generally don’t have an aftertaste, but they will turn your product green!
Grain Flours: Grain flours are flours like Amaranth, Corn, Millet, Oat, Sorghum, and Teff flour. These are all high protein/fiber flours with lots of nutrients and vitamins that you can’t find in most other flours. They’re also the closest you’ll come to the nutty taste of traditional wheat flour. Like Bean Flours, you’ll use these in higher proportions when you’re trying to create crispy cookies or dense breads. For softer cookies and breads, you’ll use these more sparingly.
Nut and Coconut Flour: Almond Flour, Chestnut Flour, and Coconut Flour fall in this category. They are all low in protein, and Almond and Chestnut flour are fairly high in fat. High fat flours are used to retain softness and moisture in finished products. Use these when trying to create soft, fluffy cakes and cookies.
When converting baking recipes to gluten-free baking recipes, or even when substituting different flours (like I do, because I’m allergic to corn starch!), you really should measure by weight, not by volume. That means you’ll need to buy a kitchen scale ($35 at target for a digital scale). I’d say that this is optional, but it’s really not. These flours have all different densities, which means 1 cup of teff flour might take up less space by volume than one cup of millet flour. Be sure to check out the Flour Weight Conversion Chart for information on how to properly convert recipes to substitute your preferred flours. It can be found on the resources page.
Starches
As mentioned above, wheat flour is 70% starch. That means most pre-configured mixes that you see will be some mix of 70% starch and 30% of the flours listed above. For the most part, starches are fairly interchangable. The most common starches are Tapioca, Potato, and Corn starch. Tapioca can sometimes cook stiff goods, so, unless that’s what you’re going for, you generally want to mix it with other starches if you plan to use it in a recipe.
General
Remember, this is all about experimenting. My advice is to find a few baking books that you like and pay close attention to the different mixes that the author uses for different recipes. As you bake more and more recipes, you’ll get a handle on what works for you. You just need to keep practicing.
Here is an all-purpose list of flour mixes appropriate for various types of recipes. Remember, the higher the protein, the stiffer and denser the product! There are probably infinite variations of gluten-free flour combinations, but this should help you understand an outline of flour mixes!
All-Purpose Flour Mix:
50% Rice Flour (Brown or White), 25% Tapioca Starch, 25% Corn or Potato Starch. (This is by far the most common flour mix you’ll find in gluten-free goods. It’s a good place to start, but it’s also probably the least complex and rewarding mixes).
High-Protein Flour Blend:
1.25 Cups bean flour, 1 cup arrowroot/corn/ potato starch, 1 cup tapioca starch, 1 cup white/brown rice flour (Use this blend in wraps, pie crusts, and anything else that requires elasticity.)
High-Fiber Flour Blend:
1 cup brown rice or sorghum flour, 1/2 cup teff flour, 1/2 cup millet flour, 2/3 cup tapioca starch, 1/2 cup corn/potato starch (Use this for breads, pancakes, snack bars and cookies with chocolate. Not suitable for recipes with refined and delicate flavors).
On a final note, you can find many of these flours at places like Whole Foods (Publix even carries a few alternative flours!), but I’ve had the best luck at local health foods stores. Just google “health food store” and there must be ONE in your area. There’s even one in Gainesville! If not, I’d wager you can buy all of these online, but it won’t be quite as fun as geeking out at the store over all of the gluten-free products available. You will, however, be more likely to save some money (if you’re anything like me, and you compulsively buy gluten-free cookies!).
BUCKWHEAT 