Posts Tagged ‘coconut flour’

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Updated Gluten-free Flour Recipe(s).

Tuesday, June 5th, 2012
amaranth

amaranth... naturally gluten-free, essential to our flour blends

I don’t believe there has been one moment in the last several years, that our gluten-free flour blend recipe has not been in a transition. Trying to create a blend of flours to be an all-purpose substitute for the one thing you aren’t using… gluten. It get’s tricky. But, if only….

My conclusion is that one flour blend is not enough! Little by little, we abandoned the idea of one working blend to achieve a wide variety of results and textures. We currently use three  distinct formulas for different final results.

We are also conscious of that almost omnipresent gritty texture, commonly found in gluten-free baked goods, which we believe we successfully avoid or exploit in some cases. For example, brown rice flour is uniquely well suited to making gluten-free shortbread!

I encourage people to be very skeptical when they encounter recipes that suggest you substitute a gluten-free flour blend 1 for 1 to make a gluten-free version”.  For one thing, the amount of liquid absorbed by various gluten-free flours is going to effect recipes differently. Perhaps your results will be edible, but will they be exceptional? If your going to take the time to gather ingredients and bake, shouldn’t you feel like what you make is good, not just good enough. Or, worser, good for gluten-free!!!

BROWNIE BLEND

This a dense blend we use in our brownie recipes. The blend itself has flours that absorb moisture and make a nice fudgy brownie. The brownies also use buckwheat flour to reinforce that fudgy  texture. This blend is perfect for brownies, but little else.

  • 7.5 ounces garfava flour
  • 6 ounces brown rice flour
  • 6 ounces potato flour
  • 4.5 ounces tapioca flour
  • 4 ounces amaranth flour

LIGHT BLEND

This is an ultra light whole grain flour blend we use for more cakey muffins, layer cakes, cookies and tarts. This blend is super light and fluffy. It has the most neutral character of all our flour blends. In changing to this flour, I find I need to use a little more xanthan gum and a little extra flour. I am using maybe an extra 1/2 ounce per 8 ounces of flour. The results bake light and maintain their rise.

  • 6 ounces amaranth flour
  • 10 ounces garfava flour
  • 5 ounces brown rice flour
  • 12 ounces  tapioca flour
  • 12 ounces sorghum flour

HIGH PROTEIN FLOUR BLEND

I stumbled upon this recipe a few years back when I was researching our Irish Soda Bread recipe. The recipe referred to this blend as high protein, so we call it that.  We love this in cornbread and quick breads and breadier muffins. It bakes a little bit denser than the light blend and is really nice used in a 50/50 combination with the light blend.

  • 10 ounces garfava flour
  • 10 ounces arrowroot flour
  • 10 ounces tapioca flour
  • 10 ounce millet flour
  • 5 ounces amaranth flour

In addition to selecting the appropriate blend for each recipe, in most recipes, we add different flours, depending on the character of the final item. Some of the flours we use this way are quinoa, almond, coconut, oat flour…

So you see… this idea that you can take a cup of gluten-free flour and use it for a cup of “regular” flour in a “regular” recipe, is kind of an irresponsible statement. Experiment carefully. And beware of recipes that tell you to just use a cup of any gluten-free flour blend.

The key to successful gluten-free baking, in my experience, is finding a way to hide the characteristics of the flours you use in a way that produces a treat that tastes like what you remember. A challenge for sure!!

I hope my experiences help you! I love the challenge of getting to know and use all the different gluten-free flours that are available to us these days. Feel free to share your favorite flour stories.

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Posted in gluten-free, gluten-free baking, gluten-free flours | 3 Comments »

Irish Soda Bread Muffins (vegan and gluten-free)

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

With a little cross and everything. Sorghum flour on top.

I recently saw this recipe for Irish Soda Bread and I immediately remembered little Irish Soda Breads I made a loooong time ago. The flavor and texture and the smell of them baking! I must have caraway seeds and cardamom perfectly blended in a doughy slightly sweet bread. With plump little currants.

I did it! I did it! I love it! I love it!

The original recipe I found and made (with the addition of cardamom) is here.  They use a flour blend which resulted in a whole meal kind of bread. The bread really didn’t hold together well enough for my purposes.

Irish Soda Bread, as I recall it, is unabashedly white bread. I re-did the recipe a few times adding some of my flour blend and making a few other changes. The final result is super simple to make, once you gather all your ingredients.

I am playing with my version of their flour blend in other recipes. It makes a very different crumb when baked. The blend recipe is at the end of the post.

GLUTENFREE IRISH SODA BREAD

  • ½ cup currants, soaked/drained or well rinsed

  • 1 cup gluten-free  Hi Protein Flour Blend*
  • 2 tablespoons coconut flour
  • 6 tablespoons gluten-free flour blend
  • 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon sorghum flour
  • 3  tablespoons vegan sugar
  • 1 tablespoon  baking powder
  • 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • ¾ teaspoon xanthan gum
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt

  • 6  tablespoons coconut oil

  • 2  tablespoons apple sauce
  • 1/2 cup So Delicious PLAIN coconut yogurt or vegan sour cream
  • 1 cup So Delicious organic coconut milk (unsweetened)
  • 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice

  • 1 Tablespoon caraway seeds
  • 1/8  teaspoon cardamom

Combine the wet ingredients and set them aside.

Put all the dry ingredients in your mixer bowl.
Turn it off and on a couple of times to blend them.
Add coconut oil by the tablespoon to the flour mixture.
Let the coconut oil break up in the flour mix until you have
a fairly uniform almost cornmeal like mixture.

Add the cardamom and caraway seeds.

Add the liquid ingredients in two stages. Mix minimally.
When almost evenly mixed, add the drained currants.
Mix just until the dough is blended.

The dough gets firmer as it sits.

I made 12 muffins. I’m sure it would make a nice little loaf too.

This is a lovely, slightly starchy, dense dough. I flattened the muffins with wet hands. Then I sprinkled on some sorghum flour and cut crosses in them. The dough was extremely easy to work with.

Bake muffins at 375 degrees for 20 – 25 minutes.

If you made muffins like I did, you could be eating hot Soda Bread now!

I made a loaf too! It was possibly even more delicious. I did the loaf with coconut yogurt so it was soy free.

Hi Protein Flour Blend:

(This is my version of the original blend. You can see the original blend in the original article.Original….)

1 cup garfava flour
1 cup arrowroot starch
1 cup tapioca flour
1 cup millet flour
1/2 cup amaranth flour

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Posted in Holiday specials, Recipes, gluten-free, gluten-free baking, gluten-free flours, vegan cooking | 7 Comments »

The best and second easiest vanilla macaroon recipe ever – Which happens to be vegan and glutenfree

Friday, November 19th, 2010

All gussied up with chocolate frosting

A while back I remembered seeing a macaroon recipe in Jennifer Katzinger’s “Flying Apron’s Gluten-free & Vegan Baking Book”. The recipe haunted and scared me. It seemed so simple and delicious sounding. To my mind, it seemed almost too simple and defied logic – I just couldn’t see how it would hold together.  I recently went back to it and changed it up quite a bit – complicated it just a tad – and made a GonePie version. Yum!

When I work on a recipe, I write the original, then maniacally mark my changes.  The second time I went to make the recipe I had trouble reading it and accidentally made something very close to the original recipe in the book.  It was quite good and it certainly worked.  But the changes I include here, take it up a notch from good to divine!

This recipe is super easy and super quick to make.  It uses multiple coconut ingredients to give the most amazingly full and rich coconut flavor, which is lifted by a generous measure of vanilla.

VANILLA MACAROONS

  • 1/4 cup brown rice flour
  • 2 tablespoons tapioca flour
  • 1/3 cup coconut flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 5 1/3 cups shredded unsweetened coconut
  • 1 cup agave nectar
  • 1/3 cup brown rice syrup
  • 1 cup + 2 tablespoon coconut milk
  • 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon coconut oil, melted
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sift together rice flour, tapioca flour, and salt.

Combine with remaining dry ingredients.

Combine wet ingredients.

Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients.  The dough is odd and almost doesn’t seem right.  It doesn’t hold together easily.

I used an ice cream scoop and made 18 to 20 macaroons. You should pack the scoop tightly with the dough. It helps them hold together during the baking. I space them well on the sheet even though they don’t spread so I can work on them with wet hands to make them smooth.  This really makes them look so elegant and also helps them stay together when baking.  With hands moistened, gently shape them into perfect little rounds.

Bake for 20 minutes.  They need to sit a minute before you move them.  Try one as soon as you can.  They are almost too rich hot.  They are best the second day, as the character of the coconut comes out more.

Hope you like this recipe as much as I do!  I sent a batch over to Integral Yoga yesterday and the staff was literally moaning as they tasted them.  I got 19 out of that batch.  They got 18 and the last one is mine.  Right now…..

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Posted in Recipes, gluten-free baking, vegan baking | 2 Comments »

Gluten-free Lemon poppyseed cake – updated

Friday, June 18th, 2010

Bathed in sunlight, lemon poppy and chocolate spice mini-cupcakes

Since I first posted this recipe, I have learned a few good tips that have made this recipe far superior to the earlier version.  I definitely used WAY too much xanthan gum originally.  And guess what?  The original recipe also had palm oil!  Yup.   I, too, had to learn of the evils of palm oil.

Here is the recipe again.  This time, I believe it is nearly perfect!

I make this recipe in a mixer.  Here is the most organized way I have found to make a semi-complicated recipe.  It is actually quite simple, if everything is organized properly.

1)  Process the following ingredients until extremely smooth and well aerated, then set aside.

  • 1/2 cup So delicious coconut milk (unsweetened)
  • 1     cup soured non-dairy milk
  • 1/2 cup silken tofu
  • 1/2 cup maple syrup
  • 1/4 cup lemon rind
  • 1T1t vanilla extract
  • 2T lemon extract
  • 2T lemon juice

2) Put the mixer bowl on top of a pot of hot water – double boiler style and combine these ingredients.

  • 1/4  cup coconut oil
  • 1/4  cup mild oil
  • 1 3/4 cup vegan white sugar

3)  Combine and sift dry ingredients.  Then add in poppy seeds.

  • 2 1/2 cup gluten-free flour mix
  • 2T quinoa flour
  • 2T coconut flour
  • 2T amaranth flour
  • 2t baking powder
  • 1/2t baking soda
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 1/2 t xanthan gum
  • 1/2 cup poppy seeds

4)  Take melted oils and sugar and whip them until they are homogeneous.  Add a small amount of the tofu liquid – again whipping until everything is well incorporated.  The mixture should be smooth and light.

5) Alternately add dry and remaining wet ingredients, scraping bowl well and often.  Do not over mix.  Once all ingredients are added, remove bowl from mixer and give it a good mix by hand to make sure the batter is evenly blended.

6) I made adorable tiny cupcakes, but you can bake this in any shape you like.  Scoop into your chosen mold, flatten the batter with wet hands and bake at 350 degrees.  The mini-cupcakes baked 25 minutes.  A larger mold will require longer baking.  The final product is firm to the touch.

I glazed the cupcakes with lemon and sugar and they were quite a hit!

Happy baking!

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Posted in Recipes, gluten-free baking, gluten-free flours, palm oil, vegan baking | Comments Off

Gluten-free/vegan Chocolate Spice Cupcakes

Monday, March 29th, 2010

Chocolate spice cupcake with a modified version of our very own rich dark chocolate frosting, then topped with chopped filberts and crystallized ginger.

I have a new favorite blog these days – An Opera Singer in the Kitchen.

One day, when perusing this ultra-tasty looking blog, I found a recipe, which inspired the above creation. Here is the recipe for the Gone Pie version of the cupcake. I recommend topping it with your favorite vegan ganache with a bit of cinnamon added.  There is a ganache recipe on the original post that seems nice (although I urge you to replace the Earth Balance with coconut oil).

Liquid ingredients:

  • 2/3 cup non-dairy milk (gluten-free)
  • 1/3 cup ginger syrup*
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 T coconut oil (melted)
  • 1 t vanilla
  • 1 t cider vinegar (gluten-free)
  • 3/4 cup vegan sugar

* ginger syrup is a delicious bi-product of crystallized ginger making. You can replace it with maple or agave and a touch more ginger powder.

Dry ingredients

  • 2T gluten-free flour blend
  • 1/3 cup coconut flour
  • 1/4 cup buckwheat flour
  • 1/3 cup sorghum flour
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  • 3/4 t baking soda
  • 1/2 t baking powder
  • 1/8 t salt
  • 1/4 t cinnamon
  • 1/8t ginger
  • dash cloves
  • dash cardamom
  • 1/4 t xanthan gum

    • Whip up the wet ingredients until they are well mixed and fluffy.

    Sift together dry ingredients.

    Fold dry ingredients into whipped wet ingredients.  Do not over mix.

    Scoop into muffin tins (I got 10 cupcakes) and bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

    Depending upon how much you pack your flours into measuring cups, particularly the coconut, this will either make a perfectly domed cupcake or a slightly concave one.  I prefer the concave as it leaves a little crater for more frosting!

    Enjoy!

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    Posted in Recipes, gluten-free baking, gluten-free flours, palm oil, vegan baking | 6 Comments »

    The evolution of my glutenfree baking/flour choices

    Sunday, March 28th, 2010

    Cassava root, the source of tapioca flour

    Cassava root, the source of tapioca flour

    Gluten-free/vegan baking is a very unique process!  Those that have tried their hand at it,  know I have said a mouthful right there!

    It seems to me that the biggest challenges arise in selecting what flours to use for what items.  This is the challenge for all gluten-free baking, but is a somewhat more pronounced problem when baking vegan as well.  For the most part I have settled on a blend of flours that works in most recipes.  It contains enough *carrier* flours and *functional* flours to yield good results. I have tried to avoid making it a blend of nutritionless white starches and flours – a common problem in gluten-free flour blends.

    GLUTEN-FREE BLEND

  • 2 cup brown rice flour
  • 1 1/4 cup garfava flour
  • 1 cup potato flour
  • 3/4 cup tapioca flour
  • 1.5 cup sorghum flour

    • Why these flours?

    Rice flour: Rice flour was the first gluten-free flour I started experimenting with 10 years ago so I am kind of attached to/used to using it. When used in combination with other flours, it has great baking properties. On its own it is pretty gritty and. in my opinion, dreadful! I have, at times, substituted millet flour for all or part of the rice flour very successfully.

    Garfava flour: Garfava flour, I love you. You are light, not too beany and super fun to say. If you avoid beans, a combination of quinoa and amaranth can be substituted here.

    Potato flour: Potato flour is a not so secret, secret passion of mine. When used in combination like this it gives a very unique lightness to everything.  I first encountered it in French chocolate cakes.  That’s a little bit of knowledge that has served me well for years!

    Tapioca flour: Tapioca flour is where most of the *glue* in the mix is coming from. In this blend it is well aerated by the *carrier* flours. Tapioca is a root starch derived from cassava.

    Sorghum flour: Sorghum flour has a very neutral flavor and adds lightness to the blend. The blend also works just fine without the sorghum. If you opt to use it this way, you will use less in a recipe and can add the sorghum as part of your other flours in the recipe.

    I like to use this blend for 1/3 to 1/2 of the flour in a recipe. I use more in cookies and brownies than cakes. The most common flours I use along side the mix are buckwheat, coconut and additional sorghum. I like quinoa and amaranth as well. It is kind of up to you, how many different flours you want to keep around. Sorghum is by far the most neutral, but too much leads to a pasty texture. I like coconut a lot. It has a sweet flavor and is very light – both in color and in texture. It has to be used carefully or everything will taste like coconut. Buckwheat has a great almost nut-like flavor, but is very dark and can effect the color of your final product. Quinoa and amaranth have distinct flavors and can overwhelm if not used moderately.

    It is often a good idea to increase the flavoring in a given recipe to mask some of the flavors. For example, increase the lemon, vanilla, spices, etc. After texture, flavor is the biggest drawback to many gluten-free flours.

    …… and don’t forget the xanthan gum!

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    Posted in gluten-free, gluten-free baking | 2 Comments »

    Gluten-free ginger cookies

    Thursday, January 21st, 2010

    yummy ginger cookies!

    Photo by

    This is an adaptation of a recipe sent to me by a friend who thought these cookies would be a great way to feature the Gone Pie vegan crystallized ginger. With a few tweaks, and my usual over abundance of ingredients, I think I have a real winner here.

    GINGER COOKIES

    Flours: I am using a lot of different flours here.  I think doing this really does make a more interesting final product.  But if you don’t keep all these flours around,  substitute more buckwheat or sorghum for the quinoa and amaranth.  I think the blend of flours and the coconut flour are musts to include.*

    1/4 c gluten-free flour mix #2

    1/4 cup sorghum flour

    1/4 cup buckwheat flour

    2T coconut flour

    3T quinoa flour

    3T amaranth flour

    *A simplified version I might try would be 1/2 gluten-free flour mix #2, 1/2 cup plus 2T sorghum flour, 2T coconut flour

    Other dry ingredients:

    • 1/2 tsp baking powder
    • 1/4 tsp baking soda
    • 1/4 tsp  salt
    • 1/2 tsp ginger
    • 1/8 tsp cinnamon
    • dash allspice
    • 1 T tapioca flour
    • 1/2 cup vegan sugar

    Wet ingredients:

    • 3T coconut oil
    • 1T coconut milk
    • 1T lemon juice
    • 1 tsp lemon rind
    • 1/4 c applesauce
    • pinch fresh ginger
    • 1/8t vanilla
    • 6T ginger syrup

    2 ounces of chopped crystallized ginger

    Sift and combine all dry ingredients EXCEPT tapioca flour and sugar.

    Combine all wet ingredients EXCEPT coconut oil. The ginger syrup is an amazing residual of making the crystallized ginger. It is so deliciously spiced and sweet at the same time. If you don’t have any, agave would be a fine substitution. I think you might want to add a little more ginger in this case.

    Put coconut oil, sugar and tapioca flour in mixer and whip until very well combined.

    It is a little tricky to get the coconut oil well combined with the sugar.  The tapioca helps a lot.  You need to scrape the bowl a lot and be careful the coconut oil is fully incorporated into the mix before moving on with the preparation.

    Alternately add remaining wet and dry ingredients, making sure to scrape bowl often.  When the mixutre is uniformly mixed , quickly mix in the crystallized ginger.

    I made 24 of the most lovely and rich little cookies.  I rolled them in cinnamon sugar and baked them for 11 minutes at 350 degrees.

    They were amazing!  One friend said they melted in her mouth!

    Thanks to Kylie for this awesome recipe!

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    Posted in Special orders, gluten-free baking, vegan baking | 1 Comment »

    The never ending search for the perfect gluten-free flour blend

    Sunday, December 6th, 2009

    Sweet sorghum growing

    Sorghum growing

    THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED HERE

    For the most part, in gluten-free baking I have settled on a blend of flours that works in most recipes. It contains enough *carrier* flours and *functional* flours to yield good results. I generally use this blend for about 1/2 to 3/4 of the flour in a recipe and combine a few favorite flours for the balance of the flour. I find myself using a lot of buckwheat, additional sorghum, coconut, quinoa, amaranth and oats in various combinations, as suits the recipe.  The decision of what to use is based on the desired texture and flavor of the final product.  Most of these flours do not have flavors you want peaking through in your baked good.  Coconut flour in moderation, buckwheat flour and sorghum flour are the obvious exceptions.  Both coconut and buckwheat add a great flavor element to a recipe.  Sorghum is fairly neutral in flavor, while giving a great lightness of texture.  Introducing these flours into a recipe also enhances the nutritional value of gluten-free baked goods, which with lots of starches can be quite low.

    In some cases, I find the flour mix without the sorghum is preferred. The choice is really just a way to vary textures in the final products. Often in recipes with this blend, I add sorghum in on its own in larger quantity than in the sorghum mix. Sometimes I use the concentrated starch properties of this blend in combination with other “carrier” flours to carry out a recipe.

    So here for your consideration are the two gluten-free blends I have been using. I keep some of each made up at all times. I use far more of the second blend which is really just a sorghum enriched variation of the first.

    GLUTEN-FREE BLEND #1

    • 1 1/4 cup brown rice flour
    • 1 cup white rice flour
    • 1 1/4 cup garfava flour
    • 1 1/4 cup potato flour
    • 3/4 cup tapioca flour

    GLUTEN-FREE BLEND #2

    • 1 1/4 cup brown rice flour
    • 1 cup white rice flour
    • 1 1/4 cup garfava flour
    • 1 1/4 cup potato flour
    • 3/4 cup tapioca flour
    • 1.5 cup sorghum flour

    And don’t forget the xanthan gum!

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    Posted in gluten-free baking, gluten-free flours | 2 Comments »

    An exercise in expanding on a recipe

    Monday, October 5th, 2009


    We are so proud of this recipe we had to share it and how it came to be. If you want to try our version, you can order them here (for a limited time only).

    Once upon a time, a small vegan bakery had a cookie order to fill. When the vegan baker arrived at work on the baking day she realized she had committed a big baking sin. She had not inventoried her ingredients the night before. And this led to the development of this recipe for… THE ULTIMATE VEGAN AND GLUTENFREE PUMPKIN COOKIE.

    This recipe provided the basis for a little early morning Gone Pie magic. Here it is with a little discussion of the changes we made and why. At the end of that is the new recipe.

    This is the original recipe:

    1/2 c. shortening
    We substituted 1/4c coconut oil and 1/4c mild vegetable oil
    We did this to omit the shortening, which contains palm oil. We do not consider palm oil vegan. (See this recent post on veganism to read more on that.) Coconut oil is deliciously rich if used in moderation. Vegetable oil (we used sunflower) is used to add a bit more oil for texture.

    1/2 c. granulated sugar
    1/2 c. firmly packed brown sugar
    We also added some brown rice syrup, which is great for making cookies more chewy.

    1 c. 100% pure pumpkin puree (NOT pie filling)
    More pumpkin please!

    1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
    1 c. chopped, toasted pecans

    2 c. all purpose flour
    In selecting flours to use, we wanted to consider the properties needed for taste and texture. The goal was a hearty gluten-free cookie and so we selected some really substantial flours. The usual Gone Pie gluten-free flour blend is a good base to build on. We added buckwheat and amaranth to make a heartier cookie. We added coconut for a background richness of flavor and tapioca for chewiness.

    1 tsp. baking powder
    1 tsp baking soda
    We cut both of these ingredients for less rise amd more chew!

    1 tsp cinnamon
    1/2 tsp. ginger
    We cut the ginger because the baker is obsessed with crystallized ginger and wanted to add some.

    1/4 tsp. nutmeg
    1/8 tsp. cardamom
    We messed with the spice quantities and types a bit.

    pinch salt
    We added more salt.  Pumpkin recipes NEED salt.

    That is it for adapting the recipe. But then to make it a bit more Gone Pie, we added some pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, chopped apricots, crystallized ginger and more spices.

    This is the final recipe:

    1/4 cup coconut oil
    1/4 cup vegetable oil
    1/2 cup vegan white sugar
    1/2 cup vegan brown sugar
    1 t vanilla

    Combine this in a mixer until smooth and creamy.

    1 1/2 cup pumpkin
    1/2 cup brown rice syrup

    Combine these two ingredients.

    3/4 cup gluten-free flour blend
    1/2 cup sorghum flour
    1/2 cup buckwheat flour
    4T tapioca flour
    2T amaranth flour
    4T coconut flour
    1/4 tsp ginger
    1 tsp cinnamon
    1 tsp nutmeg
    1/8 tsp cardamom
    1/8 tsp mace
    1/8 tsp allspice
    3/4 tsp baking powder
    3/4 tsp baking powder
    1/8 tsp salt
    1 t xanthan gum

    Combine all the dry ingredients.
    Add the remaining liquid and dry ingredients alternately.
    Bake at 350 degrees for 14 minutes. Our yield was 20 BIG cookies.
    Fold in nuts and fruits and seeds and whatever you want. Now make it yours!

    I think it is nice to start with a recipe as a point of departure. From there, have some fun and express yourself!!!!

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    Posted in Recipes, gluten-free baking, gluten-free flours, vegan baking | 1 Comment »

    Gluten-free flour redux

    Friday, August 21st, 2009

    When I first started to get more creative with my gluten-free baking, I had the thought that I could create a basic all-purpose flour to use in any recipe. Make baking simple. Who was I kidding? That has never been my way of baking. I like combined flavors more than simple flavors. For gluten-free baking, there are certain properties you want to promote — mostly lightness and cohesion, so a basic mix that accomplishes this is a great idea. It has been a whirl wind of experimentation and researching and tasting! My basic formula has gone through quite a few formulas. I am pretty stuck on the most recent one that I posted recently (July). It is quite bland (in the good sense) and versatile.
    Here it is again:

    Gluten-free flour blend

    • 1 cup white rice flour
    • 1 1/4 cup brown rice flour
    • 1 1/4 cup garfava flour
    • 1 1/4cup potato flour
    • 3/4 cup tapioca flour
    • 1 1/2 cup sorghum flour

    This provides a great foundation for most of the recipes I do. Having experimented with several other flours — buckwheat, quinoa, amaranth, millet, coconut, gluten-free oat — I have found that if I bake a recipe with at least 50% of this blend, I can then select other flours based on the item I am creating. This blend has good binding properties and is quite light in flavor. It is a lot like all-purpose wheat flour. On its own, it doesn’t have a great flavor profile, but it does a great job holding all the tasty bits together. In most baked goods, I like to boost the flavor with tasty flours or spices or coconut oil!!! The flour on its own works really well in brownies and fruit breads — pumpkin, banana, zucchini, applesauce. As I re-read that sentence, I find myself thinking out loud about trying it in the pumpkin brownies for the fall.
    I recently used a combination of buckwheat and coconut flours, along with the blend to make a really tasty chocolate chip cookie. I had been making the cookie with just the flour blend, but it really needed a little more flavor depth. The coconut flour, used in moderation, added a lightness and sweet/rich flavor. The buckwheat also provided a flavor depth, and the cookies baked up really light.

    That’s all for now……

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