Gluten-free Flour Mix by Miriam

For my flour mix, I use a mixture of around 40% rice flour (white and/or brown), 30% corn starch, and 30% tapioca flour. I'm not exact about it. I don't have access to xanthum gum here in Japan so I don't use that. In fact, it kind of grosses me out so I have just skipped it in my baking. In any recipe, I substitute between 75-80% of the flour called for with this mix, and for the remaining 20-25% I use almond flour, which does a great job of improving the crumb and texture. For any kind of quick bread, biscuit, or cake, I always use yoghurt or sour cream instead of milk, and I use half baking soda and half baking powder for the rising (whatever amount is called for in the recipe). For cakes, I always separate the eggs and beat the egg whites with a few tablespoons of sugar and fold them in at the end. It significantly improves the overall experience of gluten free cake. With these tricks, I feel like I can make just about any baked item short of yeast bread, and it tastes just as good as wheat based recipes, even according to my daughters. Now I need to figure out the secret of making tasty yeast bread that doesn't contain too much bean flour, which to me has a wacky taste.

I should also also point out that my batters are lot less liquidy than some wheat based batters, particularly since I am using less liquid overall with the yoghurt/sour cream substitution. If your batter gets too liquidy, the end result will not be great. I shoot for a batter that can sit in a spoon in a mushy lump and not flow around and off the sides, kind of what you want to see in a classic muffin batter.