March 11, 2018

Gluten Free Bread Flour Mix

|Gluten Free Bread Flour Mix|

I think one of the hardest parts of changing dietary lifestyles is having to acquire all these new ingredients and tools.

I mean before I cut out certain things like gluten, there were three flours in the (ok, my) world; all purpose, bread flour and whole wheat.

Then I started getting really interested in being healthy and increasing our nutrition. Which led me to making sourdough bread. The sourdough bread world opened my eyes to many different flours and grains. It really is interesting, the history of all the various grains out there!

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Then of course I went gluten free, and made a gluten free sourdough starter. Which then led me to this ENTIRE NEW WORLD of gluten FREE grains.

Who knew there were so many different options that all had their own unique baking properties??

Gluten free flours tend to be a little bit trickier because you typically can’t just use one on it’s own. The starch, protein, and binding properties are all different and incomplete on their own.

Once you acquire the different flours though, it isn’t that hard to make a flour blend.

Just bite the bullet, buy the different flours and then mix up a blend.

You’ll thank me later when you can just pull the blend out of the pantry and not have to pull out a million different flour bags 😉

So far in my gluten free baking journey I have settled primarily on two flour blends; an all purpose blend and this bread flour blend.

This gluten free bread flour blend has a little more whole grain in it and bakes ups darker. The taste is a little more wholesome? Deeper? Rich? I’m not sure exactly how to describe it but it’s great nonetheless.

I don’t include binders in my flour blends because that leaves them more open to possibilities and customization for recipes.

What is a binder?

A binder is a necessary ingredient for gluten free baking. Gluten acts as a binder itself, it’s what holds together baked goods. So if you take that out, such is the way of gluten free baking, you are missing a key binding element. If you don’t add a binder to gluten free stuff you just get flour water or something similar that won’t hold any shape.

There are various binders out there, the most common being guar gum, xanthan gum, and psyllium husk.

I’m not against using any of the gums and have used them before but I prefer psyllium husk. It’s a little less processed, a little more “natural”, and I have read some stuff on the gums being hard on some people’s digestive system.

If you’re ready to bake some Gluten Free Sourdough Bread check this post out!

You won’t be adding any binders to this flour blend because like I already said I don’t add them until I get to the recipe I’m making. Just keep that in mind when you use recipes and this flour blend.

I like to make up this amount at a time (equals out to be 912g of flour) which will last me 2-4 weeks and is enough for two large loaves of gluten free sourdough bread with a little to spare. I store it in a half gallon mason jar in the pantry.