Celiac Flour Mix
This celiac flour mix makes the best gluten-free cakes, cookies, and pie crusts. It produces a tender, moist end product that I have not found with any other formula. Triple the measurements to have a large batch supply on hand for all your baking. It should be refrigerated in an airtight container to keep the brown rice flour fresh.
Multi Blend Wheat- and Gluten-Free Flour
Available at www.authenticfoods.com look for Multi Blend Gluten Free Flour Mix
(also
known in the book as Wendy Wark's Gluten-Free Flour Substitute)
1 cup
brown rice flour
1 1/4 cup
white rice flour
1/4 cup
potato starch flour
2/3 cup
tapioca starch flour
3/4 cup
sweet rice flour
1/3 cup
cornstarch
2
teaspoons xanthan or guar gum
Notes:
- For a healthier mix: use all brown rice flour-2 ¼ cups- and omit the white rice flour
- Keep refrigerated
- Tapioca starch flour, sweet rice flour, and cornstarch have similar characteristics. If you cannot tolerate corn, substitute with either of the other two flours.
- For heavy cakes such as pound cake, make your own flour mix and use Ener-G Foods' brown rice flour, the finer grind of this flour is ideal for heavier cakes.
Celiac flour
mix recipe originally from Wendy Wark’s book Living
Healthy with Celiac Disease (AnAffect, 1998).
Guar Gum or Xanthan Gum
You
always need to add guar gum or xanthan gum to gluten-free flour, it is an
essential ingredient that binds our baked goods. Over the past few years, I
have used guar gum exclusively and prefer the results (and it is about 1/3 the
price). The Multi Blend mix has some guar gum in it so you can make pancakes, waffles, some cookies etc without adding
extra but if you are going to bake a cake or bread, use the following:
Bread
1 teaspoon per cup of flour mix
Cakes
1/2 teaspoon per cup of flour mix
Cookies
1/4 teaspoon per cup of flour mix
Alternative Celiac Flours
There are a variety of
healthy gluten free flour substitutes that you may use. Be certain they
are free of cross contamination from the field to the package by contacting the
company and asking detailed questions. Each of these flours offer the
vitamins and nutrients many celiacs lack in their diet and they provide much
better tasting bread, pancakes, waffles, pizza crust, and sweet breads.
Avoid purchasing flour from bulk bins in stores as cross contamination can be a
problem.
Substitute up to 50% of the
flour called for in a recipe with buckwheat, millet, amaranth, teff, or quinoa flour.
Other Substitutions
One can
generally find non-dairy substitutions for milk, sour cream, cream cheese,
yogurt, or butter in a natural foods market made from soy or rice. For
buttermilk, use either a cup of soy or rice milk and add 1 tablespoon of lemon
juice or cider vinegar.
Substitutions for eggs and dry milk powder can be tricky but the following ideas
work very well:
Egg-Free
Flax seed
is a great egg substitute: grind 1 tablespoon flaxseed and add 3 tablespoons
boiling water, let set for 15 minutes then whisk with a fork-- this mixture will
replace 1 egg in a recipe. A clean coffee grinder works well to grind the small
flaxseed.
Flax seed has many health benefits such as high-quality protein, fiber, B and C
vitamins, iron, and zinc, anti-cancer properties, omega-3 fatty acids, and many
other benefits.
Dairy-Free
Whenever a
recipe calls for dry milk powder, I substitute with finely ground almonds
(almond meal) cup for cup.
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