Gluten Free Flour options

When baking is a passion or even just a hobby and gluten free dietary needs come into play it can get a little overwhelming (to say the least). My mom is a fantastic baker and she, unlike me, is willing to try new things. She has made some fabulous desserts, cakes, squares, muffins - all gluten free! Like all of us, she has also made some baked goods that were unloved (aka turned into trifle). According to Wikipedia Trifle is "a dessert dish made from thick (or often solidified) custard, fruit, sponge cake, fruit juice of gelatin, and whipped cream. These ingredients are usually arranged in layers with fruit and sponge on the bottom, and custard and cream on top."

In our family a trifle is a mish-mash of different bits and pieces of various unused or unloved gluten free dessert creations. After all when the cost of gluten free foods is markedly different from so-called “normal” foods, one has to make use of them; unless of course they are deemed so retched that they cannot be served in any fashion.

           

The point here is that my mom is well versed in cooking as well as baking and her comfort level with trying new things is always astounding to me. Since my mishap aka frustration with baking was so profound AND we received numerous questions and requests for information about different gluten free flour blends, I thought it was only logical to ask my mom for help. Here’s what she told me:

“The book I’ve been using is called Gluten-Free Baking with the Culinary Institute of America by Richard J. Coppedge Jr. The books has recipes for 5 different blends using white rice flour, brown rice flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, guar gum, albumen, soy flour and whey powder. The various blends use a combination of 4 of 5 of these ingredients. It depends on what you are making as to which blend you should use. Some recipes may even call for 1 part of a particular blend and 1 part of another particular blend. I have everything for each blend in the freezer and have Ziploc bags with some of the blends set to go. I keep it all in the freezer because the ingredients have a short shelf life and you may not use it all up at once. It’s really a great book and well worth the money. I got it through Chapters online and I believe it was about $20 Cdn.

It offers quite a variety of recipes for breads, sweets and savories like pot pies. I chose this book because the Culinary Institute of America has an excellent reputation as a cooking school and therefore I trust them to put out a book that would be realistic and practical. I have also used Bob’s Red Mill gluten free flour blend and found it to be good as well, but generally more expensive in the long run and more limited in diverse use than the Culinary Institute of America gluten free flour blends.”

Thanks mom for all of your help and information. I must admit that while I am not feeling quite adventurous to be going out to buy all of those flour blend ingredients, I will consider starting with the book (or maybe just borrow it from mom). Now you can too. Click here to go to Chapters to buy the book.

Gluten Free Edmonton - A Celiac guide and resource for gluten free information in Edmonton, Alberta