Master gluten free flours and how they work together in gluten-free baking
Can’t figure out which gluten-free flour to use? Almond? Coconut? Rice? Do they all work the same? In this post you’ll learn about the various gluten-free flours, starches, and gums, and how they work together in gluten free baking. You’ll also learn how to make your own all-purpose gluten-free flour mix!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase, but you will not be charged a penny extra! And mama, I never recommend products I don’t love or believe in.
I find it ironic that in my gluten-free journey I started off by thinking “there’s nothing I can eat!!” Because I then quickly found myself wondering, “which gluten-free flour do I use? There are so many!”
Apparently I can be a whiner…and maybe a touch dramatic.
But it feels dramatic! Food changes can be a very real, hard thing.
Ask anyone who wrestles with weight issues (on either side of the scale). Embarking on a new diet is just that. New.
But as it is with all things new, the newness fades into a very comfortable norm as you get to know it and find a rhythm.
My goal today is to help you simplify your gluten-free flours and know exactly how to make your own gluten-free flour mix.
When you start baking and cooking with gluten-free flours, you quickly find out there are a lot of flours. A lot of starches.
But not all “flours” can be used as regular flour would be used.
Here’s why:
Regular wheat flour has many components in the wheat itself, including gluten, that act as a one-in-all for baking. Gluten-free cup-for-cup flours mimic that wheat structure by building in grains, starches, and gums.
You need all of these components to mimic the wheat flour structure.
The Best Gluten-free All-purpose Flours are Blends
This means that they contain more than one ingredient.
To get the right balance you’ll need (remember from above?) grains, starches, and gums.
The lists below are not extensive, but these are some very common gluten free flour options that are found in most grocery stores these days.
Grains You Can Use
- Oatmeal flour
- Millet flour
- Sorghum flour
- Brown rice flour
- White rice flour
- Quinoa flour
- Teff flour
- Cassava flour (cassava is technically a root, but it works more like a grain than a starch)
- Buckwheat flour
Starches You Can Use
- Potato starch
- Arrowroot starch
- Cornstarch
- Tapioca starch
Gums You Can Use
- Xanthan gum
- Guar gum
- Psyllium husk (though not an actual gum, it works like one from my research)
- Flava water (also not an actual gum, but again, works like one)
Nut Flours (Grain Alternatives)
- Almond flour
- Coconut flour
- Hazelnut flour
Bean Flours (Grain Alternatives)
- Garbanzo bean/flava flour
If you love to explore in cooking and try various blends, by all means, buy various flours and ingredients and play around with combos!
The Basic Ratio for Grains and Starches
A simple, basic ratio for your grains to starches is (drum roll, please)…
1 part starch, 2 parts grain (a 1:2 ratio).
For example, if you have 3 cups of starch, you want 6 cups of a grain flour.
Then add in your gum (typically only about .1% or less). If you’re using xanthan gum, you’ll add 1 teaspoon for every 3 cups of grain/starch.
If you’re using psyllium husk powder, do not add it to your flour blend. You’ll add it per recipe.
Here’s a good starting point for a cup-for-cup gluten-free all-purpose flour:
66% grain, 33% starch, >.1% gum
Here’s a picture for you visual peeps:
This can be made up of various grains and starches of your choice to equal these percentages.
Keep it simple
To keep things very simple, I stick to a smaller gluten-free collection of flours (have I mentioned I’m a mom to four kids?). These are the staple ingredients I keep on hand for all of my gluten-free baking:
Note: Anthony’s Goods brand is quickly stealing my gluten-free heart. They have some of the best ingredients for the best prices. I’m not sponsored by them, but I love them whole heaps. You can search all of their products on Amazon by going HERE
That’s it. I don’t keep sorghum or millet flours anymore.
After a lot of playing with various flours, I decided on just these for a few reasons.
- They’re versatile in recipes
I can use these in practically any recipe that I like to make. - They’re easy to find in the grocery store or online
All of these ingredients are so easy to locate! My local grocery store (shout out to WinCo) has all of them in the bulk section. But before they did, I was able to purchase them through Amazon for a very reasonable price. - They’re cost-effective
I won’t use the word “cheap” since that can mean something different to different people, but these are the flours that also save me the most money. Other flours are often more expensive and/or not as versatile so they don’t get used as quickly.
Read next: The Best Fluffy Bread Rolls Recipe
My favorite all-purpose gluten-free flour blend looks like this:
Here is the exact recipe for my all-purpose gluten free flour mix
If you would like a free printable label for this gluten free flour blend, head over to this post.
- 6 cups brown rice flour
- 2 cups potato starch
- 1 cup tapioca starch
- 1 tablespoon xanthan gum
How to use millet, oat, and sorghum flours
I have found these grains work best when mixed with rice flour. These are “thick” flours, and give a great structure to muffins and scones. But they are too thick, in my opinion, to replace all of the grain in a gluten free flour blend.
Your recipes should include 2/3 rice flour, 1/3 “thick” flour.
- 4 cups brown rice flour
- 2 cups sorghum, millet, or oat (or any combination)
- 2 cups potato starch
- 1 cup tapioca starch
- 1 tablespoon xanthan gum
How to use grain-free flours
To mix things up, I also keep almond and coconut flour on hand. I like them for paleo recipes and to add some grain-free days or meals every so often.
Almond and coconut flour
These flours work very differently than grain flours.
Almond flour is very dense and tends to only work well in recipe with eggs to bind it. Gums aren’t quite strong enough to hold it together for cakes, cookies, or breads, etc.
You can safely use about 1/4-1/3 replacement of almond flour in place of an all-purpose gluten free blend in a recipe. If the recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups gluten free flour, you can use 1 cup of gluten free flour blend, and 1/2 cup of almond flour.
You can also use 1 cup of almond flour in place of brown rice flour in the gluten free flour blend if you want to add more of a multi-grain, textured taste.
Coconut flour is tricky to work with as it expands quite a bit, absorbing a lot of moisture. So therefore it can quickly make things dry and crumbly. Coconut flour also needs eggs…and a lot of them…to help it bind well. It often pairs well with almond flour.
If you’re wanting to use almond and coconut flour in recipes, I highly suggest following solid recipes that specifically utilize these flours. They don’t work well in place of regular flour or even “gluten free flour” in recipes.
How to use bean flours
As I stated above, bean flours are not my favorite.
They taste like beans to me.
And usually when I’m baking cookies, I’m not after a bean flavor (call me crazy).
With that said, I know many people like to incorporate garbanzo bean flour into their baking.
A gluten free blend should look like this:
- 1 cup garbanzo bean flour
- 5 cups brown rice flour
- 2 cups potato starch
- 1 cup tapioca starch
- 1 tablespoon xanthan gum
Paleo Dutch Baby Pancake recipe is included in this FREE download: 7 Gluten & Dairy Free Breakfasts E-book
To summarize:
- Flour is just something finely ground, but to mimic wheat’s profile you need to incorporate starches, grains (or nuts), and gums.
- A good all-purpose blend included 60% grain flour, 39% starch, and 1% gum
- Almond and coconut flour are excellent flours to use in gluten-free baking, but need tailored recipes to adjust to their properties
Resource: Texanerin is one of my favorite gluten-free bloggers. Her recipes are amazing, and she came up with the best coconut flour brownie recipe ever. You can check out her coconut flour brownie recipe here.
