What is naturally gluten-free?
Naturally gluten-free means foods that do not contain gluten-- ie that lovely stretchy stuff that makes bread chewy and cakes lofty. In other words: flours that occur without gluten, such as nut flours, rice flours, and other grain flours. More on that below.
What are some gluten-free flours?
I'm so glad you asked! There are many gluten-free flours that are wonderful for baking!
Nut flours such as almond, hazelnut, pecan, etc.
Whole grain flours such as sorghum, brown rice, oat (make sure this is certified gluten-free), quinoa, millet, buckwheat (light or dark), amaranth, teff.
Rice flours such as white rice flour or sweet white rice flour.
Starches such as cornstarch, arrowroot, tapioca and potato.
See my guide to gluten-free flours.
Where to find your published recipe books?
My cookbook, Flourless: Recipes for Naturally Gluten-Free Desserts is still available in some bookstores, and always on amazon.com.
My self-published cookbooks, Gather: Recipes for a Gluten Free Thanksgiving and Celebrate: The Gluten-Free Holiday Table, are also available on amazon.
Can I make substitutions?
Yes. I write my recipes in grams and cups, so it is easy to swap a different gluten-free flour in place of the one called for. I will always give gluten-free flour substitution in the recipe notes. Try to make sure you weigh each flour when substituting for the best results since not all flours weigh the same. You can also substitute an all-purpose gluten-free flour mix in recipes if you don't want to do unique flours.
I also recognize that you may not need or want to bake gluten-free, so you can use regular all-purpose flour in place of the gluten-free flours called for in a weight substitution as the recipe indicates.
See my gluten-free baking tips.
What ingredients do I need to make the recipes
on your site?
As mentioned, there are a whole lot of naturally gluten-free flours to choose from. The flours I use more often include:
- Almond flour, finely ground preferred unless otherwise noted
- Sorghum flour
- (Gluten-free) oat flour
- Sweet white rice flour
- Tapioca flour
- Buckwheat flour
- Coconut flour
- Other nut flours/ground nuts
More occasionally:
- Millet flour
- Potato starch
- Brown or white rice flour
- Arrowroot
How much does a cup of flour weigh?
Oh gosh, this one is more complicated than you might think! The range goes from 120 g-140 g. I use 140 g for a cup of flour when adapting "regular" recipes, though it's not always a one:one substitution with all-purpose flour, which is why it's great to weigh your flours if at all possible. I test my recipes thoroughly to account for any weirdness. 1:1 all-purpose gluten-free mixes, such as Bob's Red Mill (my preferred if I'm using a general mix), are technically supposed to be used in a direct substitution for all purpose flour. But it doesn't always work so easily, which is why I like to do measuring by weight.