Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Hi friends... I know there was a thread about this, but I can't find it. I'm making goodies for the farm sanctuary bake sale this weekend, and I need a good gf flour mix. I think I'd better do it oat-free, for the sensitive types out there! :) I don't want anyone to walk away sad and hungry. I don't mind buying various kinds of flour, because I do xgfx baking pretty regularly. But I used up my big premixed bag, and I don't remember which recipe I used.
Thanks for your help!

Hi Amey! Here is Cybele Pascal's recipe. She calls for Authentic Foods superfine brown rice flour, which is awesome and fluffy stuff. You can sub a regular brown rice flour, but it can make a little difference in texture.

4 cups superfine brown rice flour (Authentic Foods)
1 1/3 cups potato starch
2/3 cup tapioca flour/starch

Another good one is from the book Cooking With Isaiah by Silvana Nardone.

3 cups white rice flour
1 1/2 cups tapioca flour
3/4 cup potato starch
1/2 tablespoon salt (I omitted this)
1 tablespoon xanthan gum

This is really helpful, thank you so much!!!

I bought regular brown rice flour for the bake sale. If I whiz it up in my blender will it get superfine?

i think this one is the best, amey!

you know, i've always wanted to try that out - if you do, let us know. i think it wouldn't hurt the flour and if it's not superfine it'll at least be more fine after being blended again. i know this happens when i make oat flour - i give it a few more goes and it's much finer.

maybe try a coffee grinder? i think it makes better flour than my blender.
xo
kittee

Thanks! I'll give it a go and report back.

ugh. this stuff totally didn't work for me. Granted, I couldn't find the superfine br flour, but I did grind the regular br flour for 1 minute on high in my Vitamix grains blender. It didn't work at all as a 1:1 sub, and then I needed about twice as much flour as the original recipe for the right texture of the batter, and then the cookies taste like chalk and have a horrible, bitter aftertaste. I've always had no problem de-glutenizing recipes before. What did I do right?

So I made the same mix and I had to add about 1 extra cup (recipe called for 2 cups). I whizzed the flour but it was still grainy so I used it anyway. My cookies are a bit grainier than the wheat flour equivalent but there's no bitterness. I'll double check them today to make sure no new flavors developed overnight.

ETA ok it's a bit chalky but not enough to bother me or my boyfriend. I think it's the fiber from the brown rice flour?

oh good! I have one more old standard xgfx cookie recipe I can make, so at least we'll have a couple of gf options for folks. This has seriously affected my enthusiasm for baking all day though!

Awww.

I am bringing at least one GF treat (it is going to be the first thing I make and not dependent on flour of any variety! but I don't want to tell you what it is in case I mess it up terribly, ha ha ha) and maybe a second one!

ha ha, hopefully you won't mess it up! fingers crossed for gf successes!

I had issues with the bitter after taste too, although I think it was my tapioca flour. I'm going to try again with a fresh bag!

I just made a pound cake using King Arthur's GF flour and it came out delicious! Expensive,but delicious.

I've found that there is something up with lots of tapioca flour/starch. Seriously! I often find it with the Bob's Red Mill Brand, although I love all of their other products. It's a strange bitter, acrid, almost metallic flavor. You can tell just by smelling your bag of tapioca flour. It should be scentless, and often it will have an off smell. I've been using Authentic Foods brand, and I've also heard good things about the Shiloh Farms brand.

RE: tapioca flour/starch issues, here in Australia, our tapioca flour/starch is actually Arrowroot, and sometimes our Arrowroot is tapioca flour/starch. I don't know if this makes a huge difference, as have read they are interchangeable, but wonder if this could account for some of the mixed results?

How interesting. I haven't ever noticed a smell/taste with arrowroot before. I do think that arrowroot and tapioca thicken differently, as I find arrowroot can give a kind of slimy texture to sauces sometimes. This is also interesting because here in the states, arrowroot is very expensive and tapioca starch is very cheap. Hmmm...

Sorry, I should have stated that it our arrowroot is *sometimes* tapioca starch, and our tapioca starch is *sometimes* arrowroot. I do find that the Arrowroot is generally Tapioca starch (they put a tiny asterisk underneath "Arrowroot" and put in small writing put *Tapioca starch).

Completely agree that they function differently, - I have ruined a bunch of sauces, both sweet and savoury, because of this, when they've come out really slimy and awful instead of delicious.