One of the problems with going gluten free is, of course, knowing what to use in recipes that traditionally use wheat flour. There are many different flours that are gluten free, but they each have different flavours and they all “behave” differently. Honestly, I do a lot of trial and error… sometimes I try something new and it’s a great success – other times it’s a complete disaster!
Whenever I can, I use my own mix of flours; however, I find that for certain recipes, ready-made mixes are incredibly useful and they guarantee my success. The kind of ready-made flour mixes you can find in your local shop varies enormously depending on where you live. Here in Switzerland, the most easily available brand is Schaer mixes, so I use that a lot, simply because it’s difficult for me to buy anything else. When I go to England, my absolute favorites are Doves farm flour mixes. They contain only natural ingredients and taste fabulous. I thoroughly recommend them 🙂
Here are a few of the mixes I use regularly:
Schaer Mix B – great for baking things like “bread stuff” 🙂 Click here to find it on Amazon.
Doves farm white bread flour – fabulous for baking bread or savoury cakes 🙂 Click here to find it on Amazon.
Schaer Mix C – good for baking sweet cakes, muffins and cupcakes 🙂 Click here to find it on Amazon.
Doves Farm self-raising white flour mix – fabulous for baking cakes, muffins or cupcakes:-) Click here to find it on Amazon.
Doves Farm plain white gluten free flour – works wonderfully for recipes that require plain flour such as crepes, bechamel sauce or soufflés. Click here to find it on Amazon.
In most of my breads and “pastry foods” I use Psyllium Husk powder – it’s an absolutely wonderful ingredient that I really encourage you to use. I have been told that it’s very good for our guts, and it really helps bind the ingredients together – it is a fiber that gives the dough elasticity. I am lucky enough that I can find it fairly easily in our local health food shop. If you find it difficult to obtain, you can buy it from Amazon
An important word about corn…
Cornflour, cornstarch, cornmeal… for a long time it was all a bit of a headache for me, as these have different meanings depending on whether you are British or American. In French, it’s a lot easier – but this site is not in French, so I won’t go into that!
So: in this site, when I say “cornflour”, I am being British. For my American friends, this means “cornstarch”. What I call cornflour is a very, very fine white corn powder; it looks like this:
Again, you can find it on Amazon if necessary.
And when I say “cornmeal”, I am being British again… I am using what my American friends call cornflour. It is coarser than the above, but still fine (it’s NOT polenta); it’s much yellower than “cornflour” and it looks like that:
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