A good gluten-free baking flour mix is necessary for delicious GF baked goods. Whether you’re making cakes, cookies, muffins or scones, you need a flour mix that is light and flavourful, yet is sticky enough to provide texture.
This super simple, 4 ingredient blend is one that my mom came up with when she had to go gluten-free in 2006. At that point in time, gluten-free wasn’t nearly as popular as it is now. There weren’t a lot of store-bought flours available, nor specific gluten-free recipes.
She created this flour mix and used it as a flour replacement in all her usual recipes. It was a really easy way for her to convert to a gluten-free lifestyle. While there are now plenty of 1-to-1 gluten-free baking flours available (affiliate link), I still use this recipe to mix my own blend.
Here’s why I like to make my own flour blend:
- Choice of flour: You can mix it using your favourite flours. Personally, I prefer a blend that contains wholegrain flours. I also don’t enjoy baked goods made with rice flour (found in most commercial mixes), as I find them to be rather dry.
- Affordable: Making your own mix is definitely more affordable than buying a store-bought mix. If you have a favourite flour, then you can really save money buy buying it in bulk (affiliate link).
- Binders are not required: My mother’s original recipe didn’t include xanthan gum, so feel free to skip it if it doesn’t work well with your diet.
How to use this Gluten-free baking flour blend
This recipe is a perfect cup for cup replacement in all types of baked goods.
- Muffins
- Cookies
- Pie crust
- Pancakes
- Waffles
- Scones
However, it does not work for bread. Gluten is so fundamental to the structure of bread that you really need to follow a specific recipe to make gluten-free bread. Check out some of my gluten-free sourdough recipes.
Gluten-free self-rising flour
To turn this gluten-free baking flour blend into a self-rising flour blend add the following ingredients to the full mix.
- 1/2 cup of gluten-free baking powder (affiliate link)
- 1 tsp fine salt
While that might seem like a lot of baking powder, it is for the full 5 cup flour blend. Make sure you mix everything really well because no one wants a clump of salt in their muffin!
Homemade Gluten-Free Baking Flour Blend
Looking for a good homemade gluten-free baking flour blend? This mix is perfect for pastries, cakes, cookies and muffins. Try it with your favorite flours for your own favourite combination.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 5 cups 1x
- Category: Flour
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups gluten free flour (see notes)
- 1 1/2 cup potato starch
- 1 cup tapioca starch
- 2 tsp xanthan gum (optional)
Instructions
- Combine the flours and xanthan gum in a large container and mix thoroughly.
- This recipe can be doubled or tripled to make a huge batch of flour. Just measure out several batches of the mix, layering them in the container so that it’s easier to mix. For example, I don’t recommend adding 5 cups of GF flour on the bottom of a container followed by the starches, rather measure 2 1/2 cups of flour, then the starches followed by another 2 1/2 cups of flour. Otherwise, it’s hard to get everything well mixed.
- See the section above for turning this blend into a self-rising flour blend.
Notes
- This mix is best for baked goods (cakes, cookies, muffins, etc.) If you want to make bread, then I suggest using a gluten-free bread flour mix.
- The main gluten-free flour can be any grain-based flour. If you want a white flour blend, then use white rice flour. For a wholegrain flour blend use either: brown rice flour, buckwheat flour, millet flour, oat flour, quinoa flour, sorghum flour
or teff flour
. I usually use oat flour or buckwheat for my baked goods as rice tends to result in dry baked goods.
- I have suggested my favourite starch mix, however, you could replace either of the starches with arrowroot flour
or sweet white rice flour. Cornstarch has quite a bit different properties and is not a good substitute. Just be sure to include at least 2 different starches to balance the stickiness and chewiness in your baking.
or teff flour
. I usually use oat flour or buckwheat for my baked goods as rice tends to result in dry baked goods.
or sweet white rice flour. Cornstarch has quite a bit different properties and is not a good substitute. Just be sure to include at least 2 different starches to balance the stickiness and chewiness in your baking.Keywords: flour mix, sorghum, teff, quinoa, oat, millet, buckwheat, rice, simple, 4 ingredients, 5 minutes or less
Hi there!
I’d love to try this flour blend – may I ask what the blend of flours you use for the 2.5 cups is? I have not baked with any flour other than whole wheat/white flour, so I am not sure which to try and thought I’d just try your blend first..
Thank you! 🙂
Great! I usually use oat flour (with the potato and tapioca starch), as I like the stickiness that oats provide. However, I use white rice flour if I want to bake something that doesn’t have any whole grain flour. The only trick is rice flour will make your baked goods go stale fairly quickly. If you’ve never baked gluten-free, then this is a good flour mix to start with! It’s not the same as white wheat flour, but it is pretty good for cookies, cakes, scones, etc. Enjoy!
Thanks, Emillie! I found your blog through your banana cake recipe – so it’s the first I’m going to try. It looks utterly amAzing!!
Huge double whammy, too, because I’m very interested in starting to make fermented foods, so I’ll certainly be reading and keeping watch on your site!
Thanks for sharing! Best of luck with your first ferments.
This is the best gluten-free flour mix I have come across!
★★★★★
Great! I’m glad it worked for you.
Looking forward to trying this…do you have a feel for the carb count of your blend for Keto followers??
★★★★★
Hi Carol, it really depends on what combo of flours and starches you use. However, it really is not a low-carb flour mix. Cheers!
Hi,
I am so excited to try your flour blend! I am going to use Oat flour as you do. When measuring your flour blend, do I scoop with a spoon and place in measuring cup or pack the flour in the measuring cup when making recipes? Also, is the 2 1/2 cups oat flour good for things like pumpkin cake, carrot cake and cookies? Should this be stored in an airtight container and how long does it keep good for if using the oat flour stored in an airtight container?
Thanks!
Hi Erica, Oat flour is definitely my fav. I keep it in an airtight container and haven’t had it go off. Though it probably has never sat for more than 6 months before I’ve used it up. I just use a measuring cup and scoop out of my flour bags. So my precision isn’t perfect, but the proportions are roughly accurate because I do the same for the starches as well! It would be delicious for pumpkin and carrot cake, cookies, etc. Yum. I’m getting inspired for some fall flavors! Cheers, Emillie
Thanks! I will use the measuring scoop and scoop it out of the bags too! When you use the flour blend in recipes, do you spoon it and measure the flour or do you do the same thing and scoop your measuring cup into the flour blend airtight container? Ever try your flour blend recipe in pancakes? I found a sheet pancakes recipe I would like to try! The pancakes batter is put in a sheet pan and baked.
I usually scoop into the flour blend… but after shaking to mix everything together it’s pretty lofty. I use it for pancakes all the time! A cookie sheet pancakes sounds like a fun recipe to try. Cheers!