Gluten free flour should always be a staple essential in your cupboards if you have been diagnosed with coeliac disease. It’s a vital ingredient to help make bread, pies, pizzas, and pastas at home. When you are first learning about different gluten free foods, it can be daunting to look at gluten free flour and wonder what the best choice for you is. This is a guide to gluten free flour and the best options for baking.
What is gluten free flour?
Gluten naturally forms when you add water to flour that is made from barley, wheat, and rye. It makes a dough that is malleable and can be formed and held into whatever shape you wish, allowing for the expansion of the dough when yeast helps to produce gas. For gluten free flours, as there is no gluten present, it is made from a range of grains as an alternative to those mentioned above.
What are the different types of gluten-free flour?
There are four main categories that are alternatives to regular flour. This includes:
- Wholegrain flours such as buckwheat and sorghum
- Starchy flours such as tapioca and sweet rice
- Nut and seed flours such as almond and sesame seed
- Legume flours such as chickpea and soy
Challenges of gluten free flour in baking
Gluten is essentially used in baking to provide structure, with flour used to help form a highly elastic dough that works well for a wide range of goods. This means that you need to ensure that there are some interlocking bonds present in whatever gluten free flour mix you use, to prevent your baked goods from crumbling apart. One way in which bakers can create an alternative to help with elasticity and binding is to use xanthan gum within their recipes, but this isn’t always necessary.
Examples of what type of gluten free flour to use under different circumstances include:
- Oat flour as a light option for a layer cake
- Buckwheat flour as a dense flour for cakes with punchy, bold flavours
- Tapioca flour to add lightness to a bake
- Nut flours to help a cake retain moisture, which is a challenge gluten free bakers regularly face
Gluten free flour is often less absorbent and drier than regular flour, leading to denser bakes. It’s all about trial and error, looking at different types of flour and testing them out until you find the correct flour for a specific recipe that you can add to your long-term gluten free recipe planner.
Gluten free flour mixes on prescription
If you have been diagnosed with coeliac disease, it doesn’t mean that you have to miss out on bread and other items that you’d list as your favourite foods. You may qualify for gluten free products on prescription, with gluten free flour mixes available that allow you to eat in a safe (and still delicious) way. You can make gluten free bread at home, brownies, biscuits, and cakes, amongst other things. If you qualify for a prescription these items are delivered to your local pharmacy wherever you are in the UK, giving you a taste of the wide range of gluten free possibilities that you can include as part of your recipe book.