Just so you know, this is absurdly extensive. I've done a lot of study and a lot of baking and I don't know anyone else who wants to know this much - but everyone wants to know a piece of it. Hopefully the headings will help you find the piece you want.
Where to start? Well, let's start with the number one rule of gluten free baking:
You will never use a single flour in your recipe ever again.
When you go to the store and check out the ingredient list of that new gluten free item they've stocked and it only lists one flour, put it back. That won't taste good. The exceptions are few, although there are some. Vietnamese and Thai noodles (and usually Japanese Udon) are just rice. I think it's possible for some tempura to be only rice flour (although American restaurants usually use some wheat). Generally, ask yourself, "Is this a traditional, un-altered recipe? Have people been eating is this way hundreds of years? Then maybe it's ok. Other exceptions - you can use a single starch to thicken a sauce the way you might of with a tablespoon of wheat flour. And elsewhere in these pages we made some darned good fried chicken using only quinoa flour.What is gluten and why is it a big deal?
Baking is chemistry and understanding the chemistry behind it can make it easier to improvise. Gluten is a protein composite (made up of a couple just slightly smaller proteins - glutenin and gliadin, the latter being the one a celiac reacts to). Proteins are complex molecules with structures that allow them to fold into really tight balls but when they're denatured by any one of a number of processes (like getting wet in a dough, stirring, heating, being exposed to something acidic like vinegar) some portion of those proteins unfold and that makes them capable of making new links with starches, which are shaped like chains. Think of the proteins as a jumble of many, many handcuffs that when they're denatured they get detangled and unlock and can then lock on to one or the other end of the starches. You could see how lots of these together would make a super structure of links and that's what makes your baked goods hold together. There are lots of different kinds of proteins but wheat flour is special because the two different proteins together are especially good at creating viscosity which traps air, but they don't coagulate (set up with the starches) until baked. In the first step, the dough is like a balloon - it's stretchy and malleable. Baking turns it into a zeppelin which holds it's shape even when the air escapes.What are we trying to accomplish when we put together gluten free flours?
We can't replace the unique properties of glutenin, gliadin, and wheat starch, but we can try to hit upon it's particular ratios in an attempt to reproduce it, albeit incompletely. 100 grams of all purpose wheat flour is roughly 76g carbs (which you can think of as starches, although there's a little sugar in there), 10g protein, 1g fat, and 3g fiber. No, that's not 100% but that's ok because there are other things in there. But we care about the fat, carbs, and fiber, and protein. When you are attempting a mix, those are generally the amounts you're roughly going for. Also, a thing to remember, wheat flour is roughly a dollar a pound. We'll compare to these baselines as we go.These are in order of how often I use them.
White Rice Flour: The number one most common flour in gluten free baking
I buy this stuff from amazon (here, if you're interested) 6lbs at a time. That doesn't sound like a lot if you're an avid baker, but you won't be use it exclusively. It's about $2/lb on amazon and a little bit more in the store. Stats: 100 grams has 80gr carbs, 6 grams protein, 2 grams fiber, and 1 gram fat. White rice also mills to a kind of gritty texture. It's close in a lot of things, but it's extra starch and its lower fiber and protein levels make it an imperfect replacement. However, many commercial products use it as a one-to-one and it's not terrible.Tapioca Starch
(Also called Tapioca flour - generally the difference that the starch version has all the non-starch taken out, but Tapioca is already all starch) Tapioca is made from the cassava root and is a big part of Brazilian cooking. They have a cheese bread made exclusively of tapioca starch called pao de quejo which is kind of awesome. Generally, though it's an additive. It's strongest feature is that it's almost entirely flavorless. So you can add it to up your starch without adding the faint potato taste of potato starch or adding the some-what-common allergen in corn starch. Like other starches, it ends up tasting just a bit sweet. In 100 grams of tapioca flour, there is 85 grams of carbs, 0 protein, 0 fiber. (Compare to corn starch that has 91 grams of carbs in 100 grams, but also 1 gram of fiber). Available on Bob's site at approximately $2.60/lbDefatted Soy Flour
Bob's calls it low-fat soy flour. Warning, warning, warning - this stuff is awesome and high in protein and together with the previous two makes my most successful flour substitute, however! Before it's cooked, it smells terrible. It smells like law clippings. It's fine after baking, but it's not appropriate for any really tender or raw (like cookie dough) uses. Also, enough soy flour (and you'll eat a ton, because it's good) can cause GI distress in lots of people - even people who don't normally have GI distress. I like it just fine and I thought I had the weakest system on the planet, but other people have complained. Next warning, do not mistake with full fat soy flour. I have never found the defatted soy flour at a grocery store, I have only bought it online or directly from Bob's Mill Store in Milwaukee, OR. Soy flour is absurdly nutritious, and the super high fiber is probably to blame for the reactions people have to it. I, personally, can't get enough. 100 grams of defatted soy flour has 52 grams of protein, 4.5 grams of fat, 25 grams carbs, and 15 grams dietary fiber (most of which is soluble fiber). A single bag comes out to $3.25/lb or $2.80/lb in 5.5lb packs.My fav mix's stats
If you take equal parts of the previous three, this is what you get in 100 grams - 63 grams carbs, 19 grams protein, 2 grams fat, and 6 grams fiber. You can see this is still a lot more "strong" than all purpose wheat flour, but sometimes that's necessary because the proteins don't work quite the same way. I use this mix in cookies and moist, dense cakes. I've used it in the recipes from the book it came from and also used it as a substitute in traditional cookie recipes. My favorite cupcake recipe uses it. However, it's not good for more tender uses - crepes, quick breads, thickening sauces.Potato Starch
One starch and another are generally interchangeable. Their stats are pretty similar. Most of the flavor of something lives somewhere besides the starch, although the starch can absorb flavor and scents. Potato starch is an incredibly finely milled starch (which means it gets all over your kitchen, as does tapioca) and ends up very smooth when dissolved in liquid. So you can use it for gravy. It's denser than the other starches because of how finely it's milled, meaning by volume you use less. No fat, no protein, you get about 83g carbs in 100g of starch, so you can see how close it is to Tapioca. It's also pretty inexpensive at $2.40/lb for one bag (less in bulk like normal).Brown Rice Flour
There are plenty of cookbooks that use brown rice flour the way I use white rice flour - as the go-to, in-everything flour. But there's a reason I haven't mentioned this particular problem before - with the exception of the soy flour, everything up to now has both smelled and tasted very neutral. And the soy tastes very neutral. But most gluten free flours have a flavor. So does wheat flour, of course - but most of the recipes you're using wheat flour with are working with its flavor and do it well. Brown rice flour, at it's heart, tastes like a wet brown paper bag. It's sweet, but in that grainy way that is only sweet as it sits in your mouth for too long. That doesn't mean I don't use it, I do - it's got fiber and protein that white rice doesn't and in sweet/hearty uses it can be decent, even good. One of the books I've reviewed on this blog, however, uses a brown rice/sorghum mix for everything. Don't do that. It doesn't work for everything. Stats: 100 g flour has 77g carbs (with 5 g fiber), 7.5 g protein, 2.5 g fat. Clearly much closer to wheat flour than just about anything, which is why people use it - but it's gritty like the white rice and dissolves with the slightest moisture (like in your mouth). It's about $2.20/lb at the store. I never buy a large quantity because I rarely use more than about 2 tablespoons in a recipe.Cornstarch
Non-gf bakers use cornstarch, so I won't say too much. It's cheap, it's starchy, it's familiar. Corn can be an allergen, though, so I often use something else. Also, it can be lumpy in gravy. One solution is to dissolve your starch in milk or water to make a slurry before you add it to your gravy. There's a line of baked goods they sell in the frozen section called FrenchMeadow. I link to them, so you can see the branding and avoid it. They take the standard wheat flour out and replace it exclusively with cornstarch. It tastes exactly how you think it would. Blech.Xanthan or guar gum
Gums are polysaccharides that GF bakers use to reproduce some of the "glue" properties of gluten. They're much simpler molecules and they don't have the two state system of natured and denatured (they're more like hooks and less like handcuffs that both open and close) which means that they continue to get "gluier" as time passes when gluten would stop making new connections. This is a big reason why GF products don't have the shelf-life than gluten products do. They get tough which most people attribute to being "stale" (losing moisture to evaporation) but it's frequently that the gums are continuing toughening up the dough. That doesn't mean don't use them. You don't usually need them in the super high protein uses (except bread, which is the highest demand on the "stickiness" of your dough), but when you do use them, try not to make more than you're going to eat in a couple of days. Freezing slows things down, microwaving them can make them moist again but generally I say just bake small amounts and find recipes that let you bake frequently without too much work.Xanthan versus guar gum
Some people say that celiacs can develop a sensitivity to xanthan gum. Some people say guar gum is "more natural" because it's essentially squeezed out of a bean while xanthan is synthesized in a laboratory. I think the first isn't true and the second isn't relevant. In my experience, they work pretty much the same in baking. What does matter to me is this: xanthan gum is $25/lb, guar gum is $9.60/lb. You don't use very much so it took me a good year to get through my half pound of xanthan that I bought before I knew better, but I'm all guar all the time now. They're essentially one-to-one replacements if you've got a recipe that calls for the other. I think guar is a little gentler, but I've only seen recipes that asked for too much and not too little. Too much xanthan makes your dough taste metallic. I learned that lesson early so I don't know what too much guar gum does :).Albumen or Egg White Powder
I hadn't ever used this before I bought the Gluten Free Baking with the CIA book and it is a little expensive. Basically they separate egg whites and then dry them so they turn into pure protein powder and like other protein powders (whey, soy, etc) they're marketed as additives to smoothies for body building or whatever. Just make sure when you get it, it's not flavored. I have a canister of this: It's $22 for a pound but I use it pretty sparingly - a tablespoon or two per recipe (Amazon says I bought the last one in August and it's still 75% full). As I said, the key to gluten free baking is replacing lost protein and this is pure protein. Obviously, it's not vegan. But it does amazing things with trapping air bubbles in your baked good without throwing off the liquid/dry ratio that adding an egg white would. I especially like it in crepes.Millet flour
Millet is generally Asian in origin, and according to wikipedia was the food staple of prehistoric India, China, and Korea. It's inexpensive, yellow, and with decent wheat-like ratios (73 g carbs, 10 g protein, 3 g fat, and 13 of fiber). I've not done a ton of improvising with it, but I've used it as part of a recipe (ye who are reading this and were at my Christmas dinner had some in the rolls) and it's part of the flour mix in my new favorite brand of mixes and pasta, Manini's. I'll do a full post on them later. Available here for about $1.50/lb - the cheapest on the list. It's got kind of a sweet flavor and it turns your batter kind of egg colored.Quinoa flour
Quinoa is a tiny grain native to the Andes. Every great ancient empire was built on some grain, and the Incas built theirs on quinoa (quinoa and potato, to be more precise). (It's pronounced keen-wa - if a Spanish speaker tries to tell you it's kee-no-wa tell them they don't speak Quechua). Quinoa is high in protein and high in fiber and people like to call it a "supergrain" because it's so danged healthy. In its natural form, the outside of the grain has a substance on it call a saponin (which is from the same latin root as soap) and it's bitter. The idea is to discourage birds from eating it. Most quinoa is rinsed before it gets to you, but usually not that well and they want you to rinse it again. The grains of quinoa, however, are smaller than the shortest grains of rice and you're not likely to have a small enough sieve to keep it from getting washed down the drain. So I like to get Ancient Harvest quinoa. It's pre-rinsed and yummy. I like using it to soak up chunky sauces and braise broth. It's one of the most filling, satisfying vegan foods I eat. I also eat pasta made by the same people almost every day. (The link isn't a great deal - if you're in the Seattle area, PCC has the best prices on Ancient Harvest pasta). The flour is ground after removing the saponins, but not completely and a bit of a flavor/scent is left behind. Used with highly aromatic dishes, it's completely fine and it's got a good toothy texture. I've used it with tapioca for homemade pasta dough. We've also done gluten free buttermilk fried chicken with it as a one-to-one replacement for wheat. Stats: 75 g carbs (with 14 g being fiber), 14 g protein, 7 g fat. On the expensive, side, however, at $5.10/lb or soSorghum flour
Sorghum is sweet and is the basis of most gluten free beers. It's often paired with brown rice flour for better or worse and I haven't done much beyond add it to recipes that called for it. I've used it most often in bread with millet or something else. Stats: 74 g carbs, 12 g protein, 3g fat, and 9 g fiberTeff
Teff is native to Ethopia and I've only used it once - so I don't have a handle on all the ways it could be used well. It's neutral enough for sweet baked goods (I used it for the lady fingers recipe, found here) In the course of writing this, I feel like I should go back and learn more about teff. It's sitting in my pantry after all. Stats are almost the same as quinoa: 73 g carbs (13 fiber), 13 g protein, 3 g fat. Stay tuned for more information.Things I bought early on and have not ended up using them much
....and may not do at all. My first gluten free cookbook was Easy Gluten Free Baking by Elizabeth Barbone and I still recommend it as a good beginning cookbook if you've never done gluten free before. Her pie crust recipe is simple and it works. However, her bread recipes include a few items that I bought for those recipes, found myself rather disappointed at the results and never used again. These include sweet rice flour (which isn't actually all that sweet), sweet dairy whey (which is), and nonfat powdered milk. She may have been the reason I tried corn flour as well, although I don't recall for sure. In any event, I have yet to master the uses of sweet rice flour although as far as I can tell it's a grittier white rice flour. (Stats 78g Carbs, 6 g protein, 1 g fat, 2 g fiber). The thing to know about Sweet Dairy Whey is that it is not Whey Protein - it's got a bunch of sugar in it that will ruin your ratios (reference the Blob That Ate My Kitchen post). It's sitting in my pantry and I don't know how to use it. Corn flour smells terrible. Gluten free bakers know that some GF flours have a smell - a smell that resembles a gross thing we don't usually say aloud. If you know what I'm talking about, corn is stronger than any of the rest. Not sure how I'm going to use that up - but it'll need again a very aromatic, strong flavored dish to wash out the icky smell.Bean flours: Flours I refuse to use because I hate them
Garbanzo bean flour is an inexpensive way to get your protein. But I hate it. There's a flavor in the flour that some people are sensitive to and some people are not. If you've ever eaten something made with a Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free mix, and enjoyed it, you're not sensitive to this flavor and may enjoy a trip to Flying Apron Bakery. My husband can taste it, but he's not as sensitive to it as I am. One bite of a cookie with garbanzo bean flour in it and my mouth tastes like green stem and beans for hours. Garbanzo bean is weaker than soy and fava, but still high in protein (20 grams in 100 grams of flour) but please don't serve it to picky people.Nut flours: or, too expensive for me to mess with
Almond, chestnut, and coconut can all be ground into flour. They all retain the flavor of what they're made from, and that can be absolutely delicious (French macaroons are usually made with almond flour -so...point). Almond is very high in fat, which makes it more likely to throw off liquid/dry ratios if its in too high amounts. Coconut is so high in fiber that when you add liquid to it, it puffs of and turns into a gelatinous thing. Chestnut I've never touched. Apparently you can get peanut flour, too, but I haven't tried that either. Almond flour is $12/lb, coconut flour is $7/lb.Extra Valuable Information
- Non-Bob's Red Mill flours are cheaper, when you can find them, but you need to make sure that you're satisfied by their procedures to prevent cross contamination. Bob's Red Mill does wheat flour as well, as most mills do, but they also have a dedicated chamber under positive pressure (like an operating room) so any particles blow out, not in.
- Beat the living hell out of your eggs. When you whip eggs, you denature some of their proteins, leaving them open to make new bonds. Fresh, healthy eggs will have better chances of making those connections, but in every case if you really put your arm into you'll increase the power of your eggs. This is important in non-gluten free baking, too, but the consequences are rarely as severe
- Bulk foods are frequently cross contaminated with who knows what - if you're sensitive or cooking for someone who is, stick with packaged stuff.
- If you're baking for someone other than yourself, it's always good to ask if there are any other restrictions than gluten. I've never known a celiac who could eat everything but gluten
- There's no substitute for giving it a try and seeing what you think. My least favorite gluten free bakery is packed all day long - obviously *someone* likes their food.
Do use this: 
(and don't use Protein supplement Powders like
, 
, and 
).
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