Gluten-free flours for baking allow you to bake your favorite flour-based foods without the harmful effect of gluten. Gluten is actually not harmful to your health, but if you have gluten intolerance due to celiac disease or due to a natural allergic reaction, gluten in your food is a no-no. You should use gluten free flour for baking.
7 Best Gluten Free Flours for Baking
Have you ever baked using gluten free flours? Did you know that gluten free flours can be a solution for you as flour that provides health benefits? Besides, gluten free flours are also very good for baking. The good news, you can find flour types of gluten free flours anywhere. Here are 7 best gluten free flours for baking.
1. Almond Flours
Who doesn’t know almond flour? Almond flour is one of the most common wheat flour used for baking. This flour is made from soil, pale almonds whose skin has been removed. This flour is very good for replacing wheat flour which has gluten content. If you want to bake using this flour, you can add 1 egg.
2. Red Rice Flours
Red rice flour is often used to make noodles. However, do you know that red rice flour can be combined with other gluten-free flour to make bread, cakes and cake recipes? Red rice flour is also rich in B vitamins, magnesium, and plant compounds. If you want to bake using gluten free flours, red rice flour is one of the solutions.
3. Oat Flours
The flour you can choose to bake is oat flour. The advantage of baking using oat flour is baking using oat flour have more flavor than versatile flour and it gives more supple texture. Besides, oats flours contain a type of soluble fiber which has many health benefits.
4. Corn Flours
The next gluten free flour is corn flour. Of course, you often hear and find corn flour. Corn flour is often used for traditional food. Corn flour is one of the flour that is suitable for baking due to it has a smooth texture. This flour is also used for liquid thickening and can be used to make tortillas and bread.
5. Tapioca Flours
Tapioca flour is one of the flours that you can use to bake bread. This flour is usually used as in soups, sauces, and pies and has no taste. However, tapioca flour can also be used for combination with other gluten-free flour in bread recipes. In addition to carbohydrates, tapioca flour provides little nutritional value in the form of fiber and protein. It is considered lower than other gluten-free wheat flour and is often considered an empty calorie.
6. Cassava Flours
Cassava flour is one of the flours that you can use to bake bread. Unlike tapioca flour, which is made from liquid flour which is extracted from cassava roots, cassava flour is made with lattice and drying of all roots. Cassava flour consists mostly of carbohydrates. Similar to tapioca flour, it also provides resistant starch, which has various benefits from the digestive system.
7. Coconut Flours
The last gluten free flours for baking that you can choose is coconut flour. This flour is claimed to be gluten-free flour which can be used for grilling due to its light texture which can produce the same results as ordinary flour and is good for baking bread and desserts. Coconut flour is a good choice for those who have peanut and gluten allergies.
Can You Actually Bake without Gluten?
Traditionally, no. you cannot make dough for baking if the flour you use contains zero gluten. Gluten is the protein that is responsible for binding, thickening and stabilizing the dough. Without gluten in the flour, your dough will simply crumble and you will not get the thick spongy texture of bread, muffin, pastry, and other baked foods.
So, What Are Actually Gluten-Free Flours for Baking?
Gluten free flours for baking contain zero gluten, but they may or may not consist of gluten free flour alone. For those with flour only, non-gluten protein substitute must be added to them to allow them to be baked.
There are also gluten-free flours that are already mixed with protein substitute. If you want to use gluten-free flour when baking, you need to find out whether the flour already has protein substitute added to it. If not, you need to buy separate protein substitute to be added to the dough.
What Is the Flour Made From?
Gluten-free flours for baking are made from anything but wheat. New studies are exploring the possibility of removing gluten from wheat, the most notable of which experiments with a slow lacto-fermentation of wheat with fungi or specific lactobacilli to produce gluten-free wheat.
On today’s market, however, gluten-free wheat flour is still considered rare or even nonexistent. Alternative gluten-free ingredients that are commonly used for making gluten-free flour include almond, buckwheat, cassava, coconut, cornmeal, Kamut or Khorasan wheat, potato, brown and white rice, soybean, and spelt.
What Is the Protein Substitute Added to Them?
Baking using zero-gluten flour requires the addition of protein substitute. There are three possible protein substitutes that are commonly used in the gluten-free flours for baking, including guar gum, which is derived from guar beans; xanthum gum, which is derived from fermented simple sugars; and pre-gelatinized starch.
Like gluten, they have thickening and stabilizing effect when mixed with dough, but unlike gluten, they will not cause a gastrointestinal problem, even when eaten by people with gluten intolerance. If you buy the flour and it hasn’t consisted of one of these protein substitutes, you need to buy the protein separately.
Baking with Low-Protein Flours
It is also possible for you to bake using low-protein flours. Rice, corn, and millet contain a low amount of protein, so you can use them for baking. If you use only one type of these flours, you may not be able to bake properly because the protein content is so low that it often cannot bind and thicken the dough properly.
You can try mixing one type of low-protein flour with another type until you get the right composition to make a dough. The easiest way to make a gluten free dough, nonetheless, is by mixing a protein substitute with gluten-free flours for baking that you buy from the grocery.
Those, 7 best gluten free flours for baking that you can choose while baking your cake and bread. Wanna try it?
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