Recipes

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Gluten Free Mix

P1090070

 

  • 6 cups/parts sorghum flour
  • 2 cups/parts potato starch
  • 1.5 cups/parts tapioca starch

Mix together and store in container.

Use this GF mix to replace wheat-flour in your recipes.   When replacing wheat with a GF mix you will also need to add xanthan gum to the recipe.  Xanthan gum is like your gluten, and replaces the gluten that these flours do not have.  I usually use 1 tsp of xanthan gum per 1 cup of GF Mix.  For those extremely sensitive to corn you may want to be careful with xanthan gum as it is often derived from corn.  If this is the case, you may want to consider using Guar Gum.  Personally I like xanthan gum better as it seems to work a bit better, but that is just my preference, both are commonly used.

Since I hate having to mix the GF mix up all the time I purchased a Tupperware Larry Carry-All container, which holds approximately 55 cups of flour.  It is very handy having it pre-mixed as I can just pull this container out and bake like I would when baking with wheat, instead of having to pull all kinds of flours out and mix them all up first. 

P1090073

I have tried a variety of Gluten Free mixes over the pass couple years, but once I found this mix I have never looked back and never tried another mix.  This one is as close to real flour as it’s going to get and so I’m sticking with it.  I love how my baking turns out with this, none of that rice flour texture, and only a mild taste different (which after eating GF for a while you don’t even notice).  Actually it’s so close to real flour that I will have to tell people that they have just eaten Gluten Free baking as it does an excellent job of making wheat flour-like squares and loaves.  I really love this GF mix and once I found this mix I was better able to stick to the GF diet because I actually liked what I was eating. 

Sorghum flour may be a bit harder to find then other Gluten Free flours.  I have no idea why this is as in my opinion it is one of the best gluten-free options out there.  I also have no idea why rice flour is so common when it has such a odd taste and texture and does not make a very good replacement in recipes.  My original search for sorghum flour was disappointing as I would only find it at the Bulk Barn sold in small packages (and not in bulk) for $5 for 500grams.  Yes, that’s right $10 for a kilogram of the stuff.  I did buy it and that’s when I fell in love with it.  And so I had to undertake the task of trying to find it for cheaper.  Thankfully it did not take me long to find a local health food store that would sell it to me in bulk, with a 10kg bag costing me $17.  To me this is a reasonable price as far as alternative flours go and I was just recently even more excited when someone introduced me to a place that sell all of the above flours for much cheaper then what I am currently pay. 

I encourage people looking for alternative flours to look around, check out the local Health Food stores or Asian food markets and ask if they will order for you in bulk.  I now just have to call and order a 10kg bag of whatever type of flour I need instead of having to go to the bulk food store and scope out what I need.  Flour prices fluctuate but these are the prices I have been able to find my common flours for:

  • sorghum – 10kg bag for $17
  • tapicoa starch – 10 kg bag for $26
  • potato starch – 10 kg bag for $29
  • oat flour – 10 kg bag for $19
  • xanthan gum - $23/kg

Based on the above prices it would cost you $0.33 per cup of GF Mix, plus $0.07 for 1 tsp xanthan gum. So to replace 1 cup of wheat flour (which costs approximately $0.15 per cup) in a recipe it would cost $0.40.

These prices were much cheaper then the Bulk Barn where most people would go to in my area for alternative flours and larger quantities.  And as I mentioned it pays to look around as I just found out that there is a place I can get these flours for a fair amount cheaper, the only problem being that I have to buy a minimum amount of $400 to get it at that price.  So if you know more then one person using Gluten Free flours then a place like this would work very well for you … right now I’m debating whether it is worthwhile to go to such a place as I really don’t have the space to store excessive amount of flour, even if we do go through it relatively fast.   I am still holding hope that with time, as GF products become more and more widely used, the prices of these flours will come down and be closer to the price of regular wheat flour …but for the time being, we make the best of what we have.

Further information on xanthan gum:

Further information on guar gum:

Further information on sorghum flour

5 comments:

  1. Have you tried this flour in a breadmaker? Joanne

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    Replies
    1. Joanne
      I no longer have a breadmaker so I have not tried it. As far as my bread recipe goes I do no believe it would work in a breadmaker as it is more like a batter then a dough. I believe you would need a special GF breadmaker for any GF type breads as they do not rise like regular bread, nor do they need "punching down" partway through baking. My experience with breadmakers is that bread out of the oven stays moist longer and so we prefer oven bread.

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  2. I have gluten intolerance, fructose, and lactose intolerance. I have been looking for a bread recipe for a while. Currently I can't tolerate rice, quinoa, but haven't tried sorghum yet. I kind of want to just stay away from grain period. With that being said I can tolerate potatoes very well. My diet currently is various kinds of meats, potatoes cooked different ways, spinach, and water basically. I'm still new to this. But my question is instead of 6 cups/parts sorghum flour, 2 cups/parts potato starch, 1.5 cups/parts tapioca starch. Would it be okay if I changed it to 6 cups potato flour and 3.5 cups potato starch? I was wondering because I really want a bread type food back into my diet since it'll be easier to make sandwiches among other things with. I'm pretty desperate but haven't had luck so far. Your bread recipe- Dry Ingredients: 2 1/8 cups GF Mix, 3 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp xanthan gum, 1 tbsp instant yeast, and 1 1/4 tsp salt.
    Wet Ingredients: 2 eggs, 1 egg white, 1 cup water, 2 tbsp vegetable oil, and 1 tsp white vinegar.
    I wanted to change it to-
    Dry Ingredients: 2 1/8 cups (Modified)GF Mix, 9 tbsp dextrose powder (Since it's much less sweeter than sugar), 1 tbsp guar gum (corn sensitive), 1 tbsp instant yeast, and 1 1/4 tsp salt.
    Wet Ingredients: 2 eggs, 1 egg white, 1 cup water, 2 tbsp vegetable oil, and no vinegar cause i'm not sure on the reaction.
    I'm curious if this sounds good or would work at all. I've at the end of my rope for a wheat bread alternative. Let me know what you think thanks.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Jay

      It really comes down to trail and error. I have not worked with potato flour so I cannot say whether the changes would work. Since potato starch and tapioco starch work differently I'm not sure how well it would work with just one of them. In the end you won't know until you try, and with the diet restrictions you have you may have to settle on something a little less moist in order to make it work.

      As for the other substitutes. I have worked with dextrose and often combine it with regular sugar, but in the case of bread sweetness is not really what you are looking for, the sugar more interacts with the yeast and so again it would be a bit of trail to know how dextrose works but I suspect it would work okay. As far as the vinegar goes from what I understand this helps the yeast to rise faster and also to give the bread a bit more of a acidic/wheatish taste. I'm thinking it probably should be okay without it, but you may have to count on a longer rising time. As for guar gum I don't have very much experience using guar gum mostly because whenever I used it I wasn't exactly happy without the turnout. It doesn't seem to hold things together as well as xanthan. So if you are replacing with guar gum I would maybe suggest using a bit 1 1/2 tbsp.

      With GF baking it's a lot of trial and error (and then trying to swallow down the errors so as not to waste the money invested ... if it doesn't turn out good you can always dry it and grind it into bread crumbs to use in meatloafs and such).

      Please let us know how it turns outs.

      Stephanie

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  3. Hello and thank you for this bread recipe. I am thrilled to find this flour mix you make with only the sorghum, potato and tapioca starches and no Rice which is so bad with the arsenic in it. Do you any other recipes using this GF flour mix?
    Sincerely,
    Karen

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