various starches |
Gf grain flours alone don't behave the same as wheat flour. Starches help improve that problem tremendously . Gf grain flours are often "grainy" in texture, and of course, don't "stick" together well. So, without some thickeners in them the final product will typically not hold together and fall apart. In Kathleen's case, thankfully she can tolerated some arrowroot starch. If you haven't read many of other blogs, specifially the one on "Grain Free Diets" and "In Remembrance of Me," I talk about how I have come to be impressed by arrowroot starch. I won't go into all the reasons again, but I have mostly now switched over using arrowroot for cornstarch, except in my thickener.
So what to do?
I mentioned to her that she should be able to come up with a flour combination using arrowroot as the only starch. She seemed to want to try that. In addition, she should be able to reduce the ratio of grain flour to starch depending on the grain flours used.
various gf grain flours |
So, my beginning attempt (for my normal all purpose flour recipe) was to add 1 extra cup of sorghum flour and reduce the starch content by 1/2 cup. I still used a three starch combination, but made the arrowroot the highest percentage (1 cup arrowroot, 1/2 cup tapioca, 1/2 cup potato). How did it work? So far, so good, I'm happy to say! I have only had to make some minor adjustments to the recipes that I have made so far. I haven't tried changing the cake flour yet, but I hope to have similar results when I do.
If you are seriously thinking of reducing or eliminating the starch content in your flour mixes, here are a few suggestions:
1. Make your own all purpose flour combination or use individual flours in your recipes; that way you can control the amounts. Store bought pre-mixes tend to have high starch content.
2. Know which starches you can use. For example, can you use arrowroot, or are you just looking to reduce the total amount of a combination of starches? If you can't use any, then try a grain flour combination of choice, but double, triple or maybe even in some cases quadruple the amount of binder (xanthan or guar gum) used.
3. Use very finely ground grain flours, in a combination that suits your taste and recipes.
4. As always... BRAND MATTERS! Try different brands till you get the results you want!
I hope that was a least a little bit helpful. Thanks to Kathleen for the extra incentive to give it a try!