(upbeat instrumental music) - Hey, friends. Welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, my name is Alyssa. Today we are talking about baking and I am specifically sharing six of my favorite gluten-free flours. I'm gluten-free and I've
been baking gluten-free for about nine years now and I feel like I've learned
a thing or two along the way. So I am really excited to be
partnering with my friends at Bob's Red Mill to
bring you today's recipe. They are my go-to shop
for all things flours and gluten-free as well as like
nuts, seeds, grains, beans. They're the best. So I'm gonna run through
six of my favorite flours and I also wanted to let you
know that I have a blog post that goes along with this video
that has some recipes linked that you can specifically try that use the flours that
we're talking about. So a few things to know
about gluten-free baking if you are unfamiliar, is that each flour has its own property. So sometimes they can be a
little bit tricky to substitute. I get a lot of questions about like, "Oh, can I use this flour
instead of this flour? "Oh, this flour versus this flour." Sometimes the answer is yes. Oftentimes the answer is no, because each flour is a
different grain or seed or nut and they all react with
liquids and sugar and eggs and whatever differently. So I would recommend if you're just getting started
with gluten-free baking and you're trying to find
recipes that work for you and maybe work with the
flours that you have on hand is to find recipes that are
specifically developed using that flour. So for example, if you have a
bunch of quinoa flour on hand search for quinoa flour recipes, rather than finding a recipe
and trying to use quinoa flour, it just kinda helps you get
used to the process of baking and also helps you kind of learn how the flours interact
with different ingredients. And then as you start to get
a little bit more comfortable, you can potentially start to experiment by changing things in and out. Another thing to mention
actually before we dive in is that oftentimes you'll
see in gluten-free baking that we use a lot of blends of flours. And the reason for that
is that different flours, like I said, have different properties and so they help with different
things with the texture and the rise of baked goods. So sometimes if you're looking
for something that's like gonna rise a lot, then you
would look for something that's a little bit higher in protein, which gluten is a protein. So higher protein, gluten-free flours tend to help with rise and structure. But then you also wanna
have kind of the lightness that all-purpose flour has. So you might wanna incorporate
things like starch. So I'm hopeful that by
following this video you'll kind of learn
about the different flours and I really think that if
you have these flours on hand, they will be kind of like your base and you'll be able to create a lot with just having these six flours on hand. So I think that's all I wanted to like mention before we dive in. But if you have any questions as we go or if there's anything that you
feel like I didn't touch on, please let me know in
the comments down below and I will be sure to do
my best to answer them because I know that baking
can be a little bit tricky from time to time. So if there is anything that
you're like running into or any problems that you're
having with gluten-free baking, definitely let me know in the comments. So without further ado,
let's go ahead and dive into our six best gluten-free flours. Alright, so far number one
is no surprise, quinoa flour. I love quinoa flour. quinoa flour is probably
my favorite flour to use. I feel like it's one of those flours that is really kind of versatile like it works in a lot
of different things. It works in savory applications, it works in sweet applications. And one of the things that
we did talk about earlier is that protein is helpful
with things like rise. So quinoa flour is made
from the whole quinoa seed and it's really high in protein. So it helps with the structure
and the rise of baked goods. So you'll see me using quinoa flour in, I mean I pretty much use it in everything, but it's great in things like
bread that needs to rise. It's great with muffins or
pancakes, it works really well. I mean it's a really,
really versatile flour and I think it has a really nice texture and it also tastes really good. I mean, sometimes people
think it's a little bit bitter if you do find it
bitter, you can toast it. I have a tutorial on the blog about how to toast quinoa flour, so I'll link that down below for you. But quinoa flour is definitely one of the most versatile flours and for me, is like my
number one go-to flour when I'm baking. My next go-to flour is almond flour. And I love Bob's Red Mill almond flour. It is super fine almond flour, it's made from blanched almonds, which means that the skin from
the almond has been removed, so it's light, it's fluffy. It's a white kind of color so it doesn't affect the
color of your baked goods and their almond flour is just to die for. I think it is the best. And what I love about almond
flour for me is the texture. Almond flour has this incredible
way of adding like a cakey yet light slash like perfectly
crumb in baked goods, so if you're looking for that
kind of like cakey texture, that light kind of airy texture. Almond flour is amazing for that. Almond flour also is obviously
really high in protein and fats. The only thing that's
a little bit different about almond flour is that
how it reacts with liquids since it's not a grain-based flour, like some of the other ones
that we're talking about or all-purpose, it reacts a little bit
differently with liquids. So whether it's using eggs or almond milk or whatever you're using, it isn't a one-to-one substitute with a grant-based flour like some of these other might be able to, if you are going to try
to substitute a nut flour, you have your best chance
of substituting it evenly one-to-one with another nut or seed flour. So whether it's hazelnut flour, which Bob's Red Mill also sells, or maybe it's a pumpkin seed flour. It could be a sunflower seed flour, but if you are trying to substitute them, that is the only way that
you can do it one to one. Otherwise, you're gonna
have to play around with your proportions a little bit. You might have to add more liquid, you might have to add another egg, you might have to reduce liquid. You might just have to like
play around a little bit to get the right texture if you're taking almond
flour out of the recipe. Number three on my list is oat flour and I actually have oat
four in this container because I make my own oat flour at home using Bob's Red Mill gluten-free oats. They do sell a gluten-free
oat flour on their website, but it's also incredibly
easy to make at home. I actually have a tutorial coming for you in a couple of days that shows you how to make oat flour, but oat flour is an amazing flour. It is so great. Oat flour itself has such a great texture. It is like so squishy and cakey
and light and kind of chewy and not too dense and I love it with like
my favorite is muffins. I make oat flour muffins all the time. I think it's so great. I love it in pancakes,
I love it in cookies, kind of like cakey cookies. There are a lot of oat
flour recipes out there that use just oats so or just oat flour, so that's really great. I would just recommend
doing a quick Google search to get oat flour recipes and
you'll see a lot of options. Oat flour also does work with
vegan baking, which is great. I have made it, like I said, in muffins and pancakes with flax eggs
and it works totally fine. So that is my number three
favorite gluten-free flour. Number four on my list of
best gluten-free flours is arrowroot starch. And I'm specifically
actually going to just kind of label these all together
is starch in general. So starch as a category, I think is really important
with gluten-free baking, especially if you're trying
to get that exact texture of a regular baked good. Starch can really help
because of a few things. So starch is obviously
like a pure carbohydrate. It's really light and it's gonna help give your baked good a little bit of lightness. But starch also is really good at binding, so it also helps to kind
of hold everything together without weighing it down,
if that makes sense. And the reason why I said that I'm putting it as like a category is that there are four different starches that can pretty much be
used interchangeably. I tend to go with arrowroot starch. I just, I like it the best. I don't know why, but the
other four kind of all can be used pretty much evenly. They're not gonna be
the exact same texture across the board, but they can pretty much
be used interchangeably. So arrowroot starches, one of them, Bob's Red Mill sells arrowroot starch, they actually sell all four of these, so, arrowroot starch is an option, tapioca starch is an option, potato starch is an option and
then cornstarch is an option, so all four of those are just
a pure starch ingredient. They don't have like any
protein, nothing like that. They're just like pure carbohydrate and they're obviously not
adding a ton of nutrition to your baked goods, but they are again, helping with that light,
kind of airy texture, but also helping to hold
your ingredients together. Number five on my list of
best gluten-free flours is sorghum flour and sorghum flour is made
from the sorghum grain and I really like it
because of its lightness. Sorghum has this kind of slight sweetness. It's very light and it works really well as a
replacement to quinoa flour. I kind of use those one-to-one and I find that they work
really well interchangeably. Sorghum is great in the
texture, it's not too grainy. Like I said, it's light. It doesn't have quite as
much protein as quinoa, so isn't gonna help with
the rise quite as much, but it still performs
really well in baked goods. It's also a little bit less
expensive than quinoa flour. So if quinoa flour is not something that you necessarily can
afford or have access to, sorghum can be a really great option Bob's Red Mill does sell sorghum flour and it is certified gluten-free. So I use it in pancakes,
muffins, cakes, you name it. sorghum flour works really well and I think it's just one of those things that is good to keep on hand as a backup or if you do run out of quinoa flour or you want something that's
like a little bit different in taste, maybe not quite as bitter. Sorghum flour is a really great option. Last on my list of my
best gluten-free flours is garbanzo bean flour or chickpea flour. Chickpea flour is a little bit tricky because it is a bean-based flour, but it's great in gluten-free baking because of the protein content, so it is really high in protein,
similar to quinoa flour, it actually has a little bit
more protein than quinoa flour, so it's gonna help with the
rise of your baked goods and it's gonna help with the structure and the protein content
and everything like that. Unfortunately, the one maybe
downside of garbanzo bean flour is that it tastes like
chickpeas, (chuckles) so it sometimes can be a
little bit overpowering if you're using it in a sweet baked good or if you use a lot of it. I use this in my quinoa flour bread, my standard sandwich bread, and
I don't personally taste it, I can't taste it. So if you are using chickpea flour, I would say a, potentially being prepared that it might be a little
bit chickpea flavored or you can go for a more savory recipe. So it works really, really
well in savory recipes. I love it in crepes. I have a chickpea crepe on my
blog that works really well. There's a traditional thing called socca. I don't know if you've
ever heard of it before, but it's a kind of
flatbread type consistency recipe based in the South of France. It is so good. We went to Nice, four years ago maybe now, and it was like my favorite thing ever. I love it, it's so good. And it's also really easy to make at home. It just use chickpea flour and water. The other great thing about chickpea flour is that it's also fairly inexpensive and it's fairly widely accessible. I feel like you can find it
in a lot of different stores. So if you do end up trying
it, let me know what you think and kind of drop them
down in the comments. All right, so those are my six top flours. Obviously, I feel like this
doesn't even scratch the surface when it comes to gluten-free baking. We didn't talk about things
like brown rice flour, white rice flour, coconut
flour, hazelnut flour, and then there's all of the
gluten-free flour blends. So gluten-free baking is, there's a lot to learn and
there's a lot to test with. The reason why I chose these six flours is that I find that they
are the most versatile. I find that they are the
easiest to work with. I find that they can be used in pretty much every application. And I personally have a
lot of recipes on the blog that use these flours. So if you do kind of stock your pantry with these six flours, you'll have a ton of recipes
that you can make using them. So that kind of rounds out everything that I have to say about my
favorite gluten-free flours. This is probably a pretty long video. I hope that you still found it helpful and I hope that it
wasn't too overwhelming. As I said, I will have a blog post that
goes along with this video, so if you have any specific questions or you're looking for recipe inspiration, that is all linked in
the post and hopefully, that answers some of your questions. If there is something that
I did not touch on here or there's a flour that I didn't touch on or you have a specific
question about a flour, let me know in the comments and I will be happy to answer them to the best of my ability. I do also wanna thank Bob's Red Mill for joining us in today's video. You guys know they're one
of my favorite partners. They've been an amazing
partner to simply quinoa for the last like five years and they continue to be
like my number one pick for gluten-free baking, but also whole beans and grains
and they just are amazing. They're also an amazing company. They're employee-owned. Everyone that I have met and I worked with at that
company is just amazing. Bob himself is amazing. He's such an inspiration and I just think that
they are wonderful people and I just can't recommend them enough. So thank you Bob's Red Mill for
joining us in today's video. Don't forget to check out the
blog post like I mentioned. If you did enjoy this video,
please give it a thumbs up. I will link all of the ingredients that I talked about today, so
all of the specific flours. I'll link those down below and they'll take you over to
the Bob's Red Mill website and you can put them all in
your cart, stock your pantry and get ready for
gluten-free in vegan baking. So thank you guys so much for tuning in. I really appreciate you being here. Don't forget to give
this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it. Tap the red subscribe button right here below this video if you are
not yet part of our community. Otherwise, I hope you have
an awesome rest of your day. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you guys in the next video. Bye. (upbeat instrumental music)
