Ep 151 Gluten Free Flour Blends and How to Use Them
A Conversation with Cinde Little, the Everyday Gluten Free Gourmet and Saima from Breadables
Let’s start the blog with the show notes for this Episode –
On this episode we talk again about gluten free baking. Specifically, we look at flour blends. Almost everyone who has baked gluten free will agree that one flour – rice flour, almond flour, oat flour, none of them can stand alone and always need to be blended with another grain or starch to get the taste, texture and mouthfeel in the final ingredient. Cinde Little, who online is known as the Everyday Gluten Free Gourmet has developed a guide to the different flours and suggestions for combinations to make a wide variety of baked goods. I also talk with Saima from a new company called Breadables. Saima has worked hard to develop a flour blend for roti, which is an Indian flatbread. I know from some of my previous podcast guests, and my own investigation and trials, that roti made gluten free was an elusive thing. Saima has solved this problem and is making her mix available for sale, currently by mail, and soon from their website.
Downloadable Gluten Free Flour Guide – need to know info about the 8 most common flours/starches.
11 Gluten Free Flour Recipes
https://everydayglutenfreegourmet.ca/2020/05/29/11-gluten-free-flour-recipes/
YouTube Channel – playlist of How To Use gluten free flour series
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTv8jSV3FbiBiSlNatsDEfpff8MjhAtJh
Breadables can found on Facebook at GFBREADABLES.
You can reach Saima by email at gfbreadables@gmail.com
Sue’s Websites and Social Media –
Podcast https://acanadianceliacpodcast.libsyn.com
Podcast Blog – https://www.acanadianceliacblog.com
Facebook – @acanadianceliacpodcast
Twitter – CeliacPodcastCA
Email – acdnceliacpodcast@gmail.com
Baking Website – https://www.suesglutenfreebaking.com
Instagram – @suesgfbaking
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUVGfpD4eJwwSc_YjkGagza06yYe3ApzL
Email – sue@suesglutenfreebaking.com
Other Podcast – Gluten Free Weigh In – https://glutenfreeweighin.libsyn.com
My Thoughts –
My gluten free baking hasn’t always been about the flour blend. I started baking gluten free when there were very few flours available at specialty health food stores. It’s hard to image today, but twenty-five years ago, gluten free flour was white rice flour and three starches – tapioca, potato and corn.
My first gluten free cookbook was the The Gluten Free Gourmet by Betty Hagman. This book was a wonder to me. Betty didn’t shy away from trying to make anything. She had a flour blend, but most recipes were written using different amounts of the simple flours and starches. I still use some of those original recipes today. Her later books featured some innovative flours that are more common today. She was a trailblazer. Her first book was my baking bible for many years.
My go-to blend was from her first book. In years past, whenever a couple of us gluten free bakers got together, we were all talking about the recipes we’d tried or played around with from Betty’s books.
Years later, I was fortunate to get to know two other popular gluten free cookbook authors – Donna Washburn and Heather Butt. Their first book, 125 Best Gluten Free Recipes was such a success they went on to write many more, I think there were at least nine! Donna and Heather lived within an hour of me, and I was fortunate to meet them, and even pick their brains for problems in the bakery on more than one occasion. I was thrilled when they asked me to contribute to their books. Donna and Heather baked from scratch, not from flour blends. I don’t think many of us realize how relatively “new” flour blends are.
Gluten free baking has come a long way in 25 years. I still use some recipes from Betty’s first book, as well as from Donna and Heather’s first book. These were many of the flavours I got used to when there wasn’t much choice in gluten free and I still enjoy them today. Donna and Heather are Canadian treasures and at least one their books can be found on the bookshelves of most gluten free bakers in Canada. I was fortunate to meet Betty Hagman once. It was in an elevator at a CCA event, and I didn’t exactly meet her. She was a very small woman, with a serious face, and I was too dumbstruck to speak to her. She isn’t with us any longer, but her cookbooks are her legacy and for that I am thankful.