Substituting Gluten free Flours

Is it possible to substitute Gluten free flours in recipes calling for pastry flour? I have used gluten free flours in some baking recipes, but never for ones calling for pastry flour. Wondering if anyone else has ever tried it.

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e_lancaster2002

I do it all the time. I get a better result blending my own flours rather than using a mix, as then I can control the grain/starch ratios for better results. For rice and sorghum flours I buy Authentic Foods superfine flours, usually from a local health food store (or from Amazon, with prime shipping it is about the same price). The superfine texture of their grain flours is nice because you can avoid the gritty, what-am-I-eating texture you get from other flours (including Bob's Red Mill, I have found. They use organic rice grown in California -- important because a lot of rice grown elsewhere in the US is grown on former cotton fields that were heavily sprayed with arsenic, and it still persists in the soil and is absorbed by the rice. (If you are cooking for somebody who must avoid wheat all the time, that is an important consideration.)

Another helpful trick is to let the batter/dough rest for a while before baking, to give the grain flours time to absorb water and avoid the gritty texture.

The site glutenfreecanteen.com has great baking info, and is where I started when I had to switch to a gluten-free diet 3 years ago.

tshewman

I don't have Eisabeth's expertise , however would agree with her. I've used it (gluten free flours) in recipes that call for puff pastries (like Heston's chicken and ham pie). That said, I need to learn allot more here. What I have found (completely by accident) is that sifting the flours makes a huge difference.

Managerjo_147647

Thanks. My husband has been doing gluten free for over 15 years. I tried my own blends at first because there was not a real choice out in the ready mixed flour world. I like Glutino it is super fine, and I have also used Trader Joe's gluten free flour mix both of those are almost like using real flour.

I have not tried King Arthur's gluten free flour yet, and I agree that Bob's Red Mill is my least favorite.

I will have to try Authentic Foods I have heard good things about them. I gave up on my own blends because it was so many different flours to mix and we did not use them fast enough. I will check out the glutenfreecanteen/

e_lancaster2002

You're welcome. The other thing I should have said is that it works SO MUCH BETTER if you measure by weight. One cup of AP wheat flour weighs 140g, so you should be able to use that weight of your blend, plus some xanthan gum or ground psyllium husk, with fairly good results.

This page is helpful, too, if you get to the point where you are measuring your own flours for specific recipes. Since I do all my baking by weight it makes my life much easier. Scroll down a little for the different weights of specific flours, and substitutes if you can't use, or don't care to use, something in a specific recipe.

http://www.glutenfreeclub.com/the-secret-to-baking-gluten-free-bread/