Kitchen Cheetah's Healthy 4-Flour Blend (GLUTEN-FREE)
A WHITE FLOUR SUBSTITUTE
This is a special formula we are releasing to you. The ingredients are simple but the results in gluten-free baking are remarkable. It will work in just about any GF application, replacing other GF flour blends out there - plus it tastes great! The starch content is much less than typical gluten-free flour blends. The protein content is much higher in our blend and it is more nutritious. It is a formula easy to remember. So you can make more easily from memory.Have you ever noticed how gritty baked goods are that use rice flour?
Or how 'beany' and weird tasting foods are that contain bean flour?
What do you think about the heaviness of coconut flour and almond flour?
And then there is the dry, crumbly, stale, tasteless starch-filled GF baked goods.
We are really sick of all that.
This formula came about with much lab-testing over a period of years by professional food formulators. We have found this to be the best combination, having the best texture, taste, and nutrition.
There are more secrets to gluten-free baking that we will teach you. Like how to use psyllium, soluble fiber blends, and eggs to make superior GF baked goods. So hold tight.
I am sure more gluten-free advancements will come, as more unique healthy ingredients are made available. We already do have more advanced formulas, but they contain too many ingredients available only to large food manufacturers. Remember, we deal only with healthful ingredients when we formulate, that is important to us.
Use our 4-Flour Blend in place of the other gluten-free flour blends used in GF baked goods.
We are also currently working on a whole grain, whole wheat type flour, and will share that at a later date, so check back with our blog.
Make sure to measure everything by weight, not volume.
Ingredients at different times have different moisture levels and be more or less compacted, which will throw off your proportions. Gluten-free baking is touchy and the ingredients are generally more expensive, so measurements matter. I won't even give you volume measurements, so you won't be tempted.
See the notes below about the ingredients used here before you make the flour blend.
We will be adding specific recipe how-to's using this flour blend plus other ingredient combos for the best GF baked goods ever. Stay tuned!
I know this post is a bit wordy - but this really is EASY.
GLUTEN-FREE 4-FLOUR BLEND Recipe
25 % Sorghum flour, whole or white
25 % White Bean flour or garbanzo bean flour
25 % Extra-fine Sweet Rice flour (AKA glutenous rice flour) (no substitutions)
25 % Cassava flour (not the same as tapioca starch)
Method:
Mix and sift the flours together a few times to make sure all of the flours are evenly distributed.
Store air-tight.
Tip: The more finely ground your gluten-free flours are, the better results you will have.
Notes About The Cassava Flour:
This is a food formulator's secret we are giving you here. The Cassava Flour used in this gluten-free flour blend is made by one company only. They own a patent on this product. We like this product a lot in the Cheetah Test Kitchens! Their cassava flour contains 7 % naturally occurring cassava fiber. Regular cassava starch is all starch (also known as tapioca starch or tapioca flour). It can get confusing because people mistakenly call tapioca starch 'tapioca flour', when it really isn't.
The manufacturer of the cassava flour is AKFP (American Key Food Products). I do not know if they sell to the public. Check it out and see. Let us know if it is, because that would be cool.
If you can't locate this product, use one of the substitutions below to make a kasava-type flour:
a. 90 % tapioca starch plus 10 % very finely ground oat bran flour.
b. 93 % tapioca starch plus 7 % very finely ground rice bran flour (or organic corn bran flour).
First grind the bran as finely as you can in a seed mill. Regrind if it's not really fine.
In a VitaMix, regrind the bran with the tapioca starch to make it extra-fine textured.
Use this in place of the 25 % cassava flour called for in the 4-Flour Blend recipe above.
Store the leftovers in an air-tight container.
Tip: If the bran mixture gets hot but still isn't ultra-fine textured, pour it out onto a baking tray to cool down and let the moisture evaporate for a few minutes. You can do this 4 times if desired.
We will do this in our test kitchen and we label the amount of times something is ground and cooled, then reground. Like I said, texture is everything when it comes to gluten-free baking.
For example:
1X - Means it was ground once.
2X - Means it was ground twice.
3X - Means it was ground three times.
4X - Means it was ground four times.
Notes about any type of bran:
Taste your bran before you mix it into any of your food. The fats naturally found in bran quickly go rancid, causing a bitter taste. If it's bitter, it's rancid. Throw it out or take it back to the store you purchased it from. Usually bran is now stabilized for a shelf-life of 1 year, but you don't know how long it has been sitting around before you bought it. It is a good idea to store your bran in the freezer.
Notes about the Bean Flour:
We use a special bean flour that does not taste weird or 'beany'. We have a professional food manufacturer's source for a specific kind of bean flour. It is made by ADM (Archer Daniel Midlands). The specific product we use is called VEGEFUL. They manufacture several types of bean flours: white bean, pinto bean, garbanzo bean, etc. They really tastes good! Now you know.
If you share our recipe, please credit the creator's of it and our blog - Thank you.
Have fun baking!
Leila & Nancy
The Kitchen Cheetahs
