Gluten Free Cake Flour
Gluten Free Flour is just as essential in my kitchen as regular Cake Flour. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you will know that my husband, Adriaan, is gluten intolerant. The news was such a downer initially…
We both kept thinking of all the foods he could no longer eat; bread, pies, pasta, pizza, cookies, CAKE!!
The list just felt so long and heavy.
One of the main ways I communicate my love and support is through cooking and baking. It’s my “thang”, you know. Over months of researching and trying out dozens of recipes, I had to face the hard truth that gluten free baked goods simply aren’t as delicious as normal baked goods.
I mean, for a poor gluten free soul they are better than nothing, but come on, I wanted Adriaan to leap in the air over the yumminess! There had to be a solution to gluten free baking that would produce goods SO YUMMY that they actually make him dance with joy…
The Cravings
The main thing Adriaan was craving was just an ordinary yellow cake. Nothing fancy – just pure and honest cake. Thing is, the simplest bakes are the ones that leave ingredients nowhere to hide!
Making a chocolate cake is so much easier in that sense, because if your gluten free flour blend has a slightly funny flavour, it will be masked by the chocolate flavour (gluten free bakers nodding in agreement here).
Another impossible craving he had, was for pie! Flaky, buttery pastry. What more does a man need? Except a wife to make it of course. Adriaan used to eat tons of pies. In South Africa they are everywhere. From every grocery store to the smallest take away shop in a run-down neighbourhood. I often made a butternut, spinach and feta pie for us at home as well.
Making gluten free cake is one thing, but pastry is a whole other colossal monster.
Photos by Alice Swan
Why so complex?
As I’ve said before, I have done hours and days of research online. MOST gluten free flour/cake recipes were severely annoying. They asked for these crazy ingredients which I’ve never seen before in my life and could not find in any supermarket or health food store in my area.
Things like Ultratex, Expandex and Whey Protein Isolate… What?! Or should I say “Gezuntheid”?
I was on a mission to find something that could be made with ingredients that are available to me and can easily be mixed with no special equipment or effort.
Breakthrough
One fine day I was searching for gluten free flour/cake recipes yet again and I came across Yammie’s Gluten Freedom. Her recipe for White cake looked fantastic.
I wasn’t too keen on making it though as the recipe called for coconut flour as well (which is too expensive) and if I can avoid doing the egg white thing, I prefer to do so. BUT, Yammie gave a link to Jeanne’s gluten free flour recipe on Art of Gluten Free Baking.
I tried out the flour blend and it was really really good!
Refining
This gluten free flour blend was a great breakthrough and made cupcakes that improved Adriaan’s quality of life significantly. I also started using this gluten free flour in my own bakery for all gluten free cakes. After a few months however, I realized that there is a slightly grainy residue in your mouth when the crumb breaks down. Not severe, but it was still there.
When I made a gluten free cake about a year later, I had run out of glutinous/sweet rice flour. Such a bummer. Going to a Asian supermarket was not an option on this particular day, so there had to be a plan B! Art of Gluten Free Baking suggested Potato Flour as a substitute for Sweet Rice Flour.
The result was just so much better! Such a soft and tender crumb! In the meantime I’ve also increased the amount of Xanthan Gum and Brown Rice Flour as well. I’m so extremely happy with the recipe as it is now!
And I love that I can find ALL of these ingredients in my closest health store/supermarket!
This gluten free flour can be substituted gram for gram in ANY cake recipe! I also use it to make shortcrust pastry, rough puff pastry and even in homemade pasta! Pasta that can be rolled into sheets with a hand operated pasta machine – I kid you not!
I mix 1 kg of flour in a little sealed bucket and keep it in my cupboard to whip out whenever I need it. You are welcome to halve or quarter the recipe if you need to. I go by grams because the accuracy is just better when it comes to dry ingredients. Now go bake yourself some perfect gluten free cake with your favourite normal cake recipe!
Important note: This flour recipe is not ideal for making bread or brownies, but I do have an Ultimate Gluten Free Brownie Recipe 🙂
- 290 g White Rice Flour
- 290 g Brown Rice Flour
- 230 g Potato Flour (not starch, different ingredient)
- 175 g Tapioca Flour (or starch, same thing in this case)
- 14 g Xanthan Gum
- Weigh ingredients into a bowl or tub with at least a 2,5 kg capacity. Some of the flours are quite fine and will form dust as you mix them.
- Using a metal spoon, VERY gently fold the flours together. Be sure to dig all the way down and scoop the flour up in the process. Get into all the corners as well. Do this for about 1 minute.
- Next stir the mixture gently again, but this time using a handheld balloon whisk. Keep stirring for 1 minute. Be thorough.
- Put your gluten free flour in a sealed container. It will last as long as the actual ingredients – a couple of months.
I’m pretty sure you will enjoy my Ultimate Gluten Free Brownies Recipe… I’ve literally sold like over 8000+ of them. They are AMAZING!!
Thanks so much for reading! Let me know if you like my gluten free flour blend as much as we do.
Chat soon!
Aurelia 🙂
POPULAR BAKING TIPS
I am a baker. A good one I must say. A supervisor of mine is gluten intolerant but she has been begging for me to make cake for her.
I have been avoiding the challenge. I set to studying the ‘gluten-free baking world’ because once I discovered what gluten does… I immediately understood that this is NOT going to be as simple as what everybody was telling me.
“Just use GF flour in place of regular flour”! I should actually use more exclamation points behind that sentence because there excitement was so…. sure of themselves.
Bless their wittle souls.
Anyway, I been getting my pointers tips all documented. My love, talent and seriousness about the outcome of my cakes texture: crumb, moisture, color and most important taste tells me what I need the outcome to be.
Enter you. I love a baker who speaks my language. Confidence.
Your confidence is different in your test and trial of this mix that for some reason…my spirit says ‘this is one of the good ones’.
So I guess I am writing to say thanks for the tip. I will also let you know the outcome of your recipe.
Question: Have you ever used ‘simple syrups’ on the layers of ‘GF’ before Icing them?
Since these can tend (so I’ve read) to dry out… do you think or know–if this would render a ‘mushy’ outcome?
For some reason I’m wondering on the impact because of the ‘delicacy’ of the flours.
May the Most High GOD continue to Bless your hands and talent as HE has… mine.
Hi Chanel! Thank you for your amazing comment! I really appreciate it 🙂
My Home Bakery’s clients are often gluten free so my whole cake menu is available in gluten free and they all absolutely adore the results! That being said, give it a try and let me know if it works for you too.
As for syrups: Bakers often use recipes that have a higher flour ratio in order to make their cakes more stable so that they can be layered and stacked into tiers much easier. For this reason the cakes can often be quite dry. Bakeries also make their cake layers a few days in advance before frosting and decorating them, which means the cakes have more time to dry out and dance on the fence between edible and stale.
Since my philosophy is yumminess, I am a freshness activist. I have a policy in my Home Bakery that your order is never baked more than 20 hours before you collect. My cakes layers are already super fresh, soft and moist, so I have no need to add any syrups. I love baking this way.
Thank you for your kind words xx
Hi Aurelia, thank you for this wonderful post, I am learning at a very speedy pace. I have never considered gluten free baking due to the complexity of it all, but your flour mix seems like a fantastic solution. I have had an enquiry for rusks now, and considering that your flour mix is not an option for bread, do you think the same will apply for rusks? Happy baking!