Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose Baking Flour

When I started baking wheat-free, I got frustrated because all the recipes I found required one particular brand or another of gluten-free flour mix, none of which I had access to, living on a small island in Alaska. I did some research and discovered that the content of the different flours varied drastically, so it would not be easy to substitute one for another. I tried to use only recipes calling for single flours, and so I bought (luckily our local grocery stores carry almost all of these) tapioca, potato, garbanzo, fava, arrowroot, white rice, brown rice, sticky rice, amaranth, millet, and probably a few other flours. And of course, xanthan gum, largely to replace the eggs. I used different combinations of these in tons of different bread recipes, and I pretty much universally ended up with a brick. I finally found a rice bread recipe that basically worked, but it tasted like white bread. Good for some people I guess, but we were used to hearty whole-grain bread, and it was just sort of sticky and boring.

And then I picked up a bag of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour. I think the first thing I tried with it was chocolate cupcakes, substituting it right in for regular flour in my favorite easy chocolate cake recipe, which I will post shortly. And truthfully, it was amazing. It was good enough that I ate a bunch of the cupcakes. It was great. And so I became a convert to the one brand of GF flour available to me in this town.

I do find it has a somewhat bitter flavor, and I even keep it in the freezer so I don't think it's rancid. I usually end up cutting it by one-third to a half with brown rice flour. I started doing that because I bought a big bag of brown rice flour before I discovered the Bob's, and I wanted to use it up, but I have found most things taste better with it. It is the base of my chocolate cake, my bread (along with Bob's 8-grain WF cereal), and my muffins and pancakes and waffles. I still haven't figured out how to make a good vanilla or yellow cake from scratch yet. But recipes will be forthcoming...