Welcome back to the blog! Today’s post is the base of the most delicious gluten free treats. I spent a few years eating gluten free and during that time I researched how to make the best gluten free flour mix. This research came after trying many different pre-mixed flours and not being impressed with their flavor or price.
So, I took it to the books and found out a great ratio for a gluten free flour. There is a ton of information out there on why this ratio works well. I’ll spare you the details in this post. Without further adieu, here’s the ratio:
Gluten Free Flour Ratio
Here is the ratio used to make 1/2 cup.
- 2 parts Gluten Free Flours (any mix – Oat, Cassava, Rice, Sweet Rice, almond, coconut, etc)
- 1 part Starches (corn, potato, tapioca, etc)
- 1/2 tsp Xanthan Gum per cup of total mix (binder)
Tips For Making the Gluten Free Mix
If you do not have a certain type of flour but you do have a blender, you can make your own! Ex: If you have oats but not oat flour, blend it on up and wholla! Oat Flour!
Make sure to sift all of your ingredients together. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP! I’ve found that the starches like to stay clumpy and you don’t want to bite into a potato starch bite!
I specifically developed this mix to work for banana bread. It is also good to use for other quick breads and sweets but I wouldn’t necessarily use this for pizza dough.
How I Chose the Flours I Did
When I was deciding which flours to use for this recipe, I really thought through the textures and flavors that each flour has.
Rice flour is a great base for any gluten free flour mix so I chose to start with that as the base. Oat flour is great for a sweet but I wanted a more dense and cakey texture than just using oat flour.
To get the additional cakey texture, I added sweet rice flour, otherwise known as glutinous rice flour (and no, there is no gluten in this flour! The name is a bit misleading). I started by adding 1/3 cup of sweet rice flour then realized that was too much so I backed off and added more rice flour so the dough wouldn’t be quite as sticky. Sweet Rice flour is the flour used to create mochi so you can imagine how sticky of a dough it can make if you use too much!
For the starches, I had 3 starches in my house. Potato, corn, and tapioca. From there I though which of those flavors would go best with banana bread. I ruled Potato starch out first. Then I knew I wanted a mix but I needed to find the right consistency. Corn starch can create a weird texture if too much is used but I’ve found tapioca starch to be light and fluffy without the extra texture. I also thought about tapioca pudding and thought that flavor goes well with banana bread! So I chose to go with 5 parts tapioca and 1 part corn starch to make up the full starch portion.
Where to Buy The Ingredients
These ingredients can be harder to find because they aren’t always in the local grocery stores. Or, if they are, they are fancy brands and way overpriced.
Here’s the link to the Xanthan Gum.
I like to get my flours from our local Asian Market. We have an H-Mart in the area but any Asian market should have these at a fraction of the cost of a big box supermarket.
I did also find the ingredients on Amazon so I’m linking them here so you can see what you are looking for. In the Asian Market I can get these for around $2/bag (the last time I checked at least).
Gluten Free Flour Mix
Ingredients
Flours – 2 parts (1 + 1/3 cups)
- 1/3 Cup Oat Flour
- 1/4 Cup Sweet Rice Flour
- 2/3 Cup Rice Flour
- 1 Tbsp Rice Flour
- 1 Tsp Rice Flour
Starches – 1 part (2/3 cup)
- 1/2 Cup Tapioca Starch
- 1 Tbsp Tapioca Starch go a little shy on this – the conversion is .88 of a tbsp
- 1 3/4 Tbsp Corn Starch
Binder
- 1 tsp Xanthan Gum
Instructions
- Sift all ingredients into a bowl then mix to combine.
Here’s another gluten-free recipe you’ll love!