Gluten-Free Flour Blends: What are they, and which ones work best?

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There are a lot of reasons to get into gluten-free baking right now. Maybe you’ve recently discovered that you have a wheat allergy or gluten intolerance, or maybe you know someone who has. Or maybe you’re just so desperate to find flour during the COVID-19 pandemic that you’ll try anything. (Fair warning: that might not go quite as planned, and there will be more posts about successful GF baking in the future, but I’ll at least try to point you in the right direction.)

The very existence of gluten-free flour feels like some kind of miracle. Or maybe we’ve just been a little too obsessed with wheat, and haven’t given rice and beans nearly enough credit. (Seriously, my mind is still being blown by aquafaba — how does that work? But that’s another article.)

Don’t get me wrong; as I’ve been baking more and more, I’ve come to absolutely love the smell and feel of wheat dough. There’s still nothing like it. Gluten-free baking is a major adjustment, and it doesn’t quite replace everything you can do with wheat. But what you can do is still pretty amazing.

There are a lot of other differences between regular baking and gluten-free baking (such as the fact that you generally only shape the dough once instead of separate “rise” and “prove” phases) but for now, we’re going to focus on gluten-free flour. Specifically, flour blends which are meant to more or less mimic the taste, texture, and feel of wheat flour. These are a relatively recent innovation, and much easier to substitute into traditional recipes than something like almond flour or coconut flour, which require totally different approaches.

Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of gluten-free flour blends:

1. “All-purpose”
   The main thing to know about these is that they do not contain any xanthan gum*; you’ll need to measure it out separately for your recipe, because different ratios work better for different batters/doughs. Essentially, xanthan gum is filling in for the gluten, which would normally be developed during the mixing, kneading, and/or rising. Now, that may sound intimidating, but it really just means you have to keep one more ingredient in your pantry. You can buy powdered xanthan gum pretty much anywhere that also sells these flour blends. And it’s easy to find a chart of which ratio to use for what you’re baking. (Here’s one courtesy of Bob’s Red Mill.) Once you’ve done that, you don’t have too far to go to make your recipe gluten-free, but it’s less of an exact science. But if you’re making bread or any of its cousins, this is the way to go.
   
2. “1-to-1” or “Measure for measure”
   These are designed to be easily substituted into basically any recipe that calls for wheat flour. They contain a pre-mixed amount of xanthan gum in the ratio most appropriate for a broad range of uses. Therefore, it’s a great starting point for developing gluten-free recipes, and works perfectly for things like cookies, cakes, or pancakes. (Check out our pancake recipe!) However, it can come up short in yeasted doughs and other recipes where the gluten requirements are very unyielding.

*There’s also a different option called guar gum, but we haven’t tried it yet. It sounds like it works pretty much the same way.

To summarize: if you’re making something that would be described as a “batter”, a 1-to-1 blend should be pretty easy to substitute. If you’re making a “dough”, things get a little more complicated.

Generally, both of the above are some combination of the following ingredients:

• white rice flour
• brown rice flour
• sorghum flour
• potato flour and/or starch
• tapicoa flour and/or starch
• garbanzo bean flour
• fava bean flour
• cellulose

As you can see, there are virtually no common allergens here. However, there are some brands that include powdered milk. While I’d imagine that makes it quite nice to bake with, it is of course a deal-breaker for us.

So let’s take a closer look at some of the brands we have used.

TOP PICK: Bob’s Red Mill

The first I ever tried or heard about, so I have to give them a lot of credit. Bob’s is always the go-to brand when you want high-quality, hard-to-find ingredients. And their GF flour blends are no exception. They’re a little on the pricey side, but not too extravagant, and you can find them in most grocery stores. So far, the best GF bread I’ve ever made has been with their All-Purpose GF blend.

RUNNER UP: King Arthur

One of the most well-respected flour brands in the business, and now they have their own GF blends too. Their stuff is always really high quality, and this is no exception. They use a different blend of ingredients than Bob’s Red Mill, so I’m guessing with enough experimentation, you could find differences. But they’re both excellent choices that I’ve found to work equally well in recipes. So if you have a choice between the two, I would just go for whichever is cheaper.

BRONZE MEDAL: Pillsbury

The cheapest, but unfortunately, you can tell. Most of what we’ve made with this has turned out decently enough at first, but whatever we didn’t eat right away ended up extremely dry and crumbly the next day. I’m no food scientist, so I couldn’t tell you for sure what makes it different. But I did notice that compared to the above blends, this has a less diverse combination of flours/starches. It’s also the only one that contains pea fiber, whatever that is.

To their credit, I’ve found that this flour still works pretty well for pancakes. In a pinch, it’ll do the trick. Just know that it’s not a great option if you want to bake something that will retain its texture for more than a few hours.

These are still only a few of the brands that are out there. We’ll be trying others as we come across them, and updating this post as needed. There seem to be more options popping up on store shelves all the time!