Wheat free baking tips

May 27, 2007

This is from Mercola. I'm including the link, in case you want to watch Bridget Jones in the video. ;-)Cyndi

Wheat Free Baking Tips

http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/Wheat-Free-Baking-Tips-17659.aspx

If you've done any amount of wheat-free baking, you'll know that using non-wheat flours, especially gluten-free flours, can tend to make cakes and cookies fall as flat as pancakes!

Luci Lock here, and today, I'll show you how to make your own self-rising, non-wheat flour mix. Using this self-rising flour mix will help the cake bind together better and rise a bit better as well, especially if your flour has a little bit of gluten in it, like rye flour does.

If you are allowed to have gluten, then I would recommend using rye flour, as I've found it to be the best overall flour for baking. It's got a pleasant flavor, is not quite as bad for you as wheat flour and it has a tiny bit of gluten in it as well, making it rise that much better.

If you can't have any gluten, then I'd really recommend using coconut flour, which is my absolute favorite. You can buy this from Mercola.com. It's fantastic stuff, giving cakes a beautiful flavor. Plus, it actually rises quite well and holds together nicely compared to some other wheat-free flours, such as soy or oat flour.

Basically, what you'll need to make self-rising, wheat-free flour mix is:

Wheat-free flour of your choice Salt Aluminum-free baking powder

Here are the amounts and proportions for your self-rising flour:

To every cup of flour, regardless of type, add:

1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder ¼ teaspoon salt

Keep in mind that when you use the flour mix in future baking projects, you'll also need to add in the salt and baking powder that your cake or cookie recipe calls for.

So, this simple tip will go a long way toward improving your wheat-free cakes and cookies. Happy baking, my wheat-free friends!