Gluten free flours

[NoodleUnit]

I'm looking for a gluten free flour for baking scones and the like. Trouble is I can't tolerate potato starch very well. Any ideas of a commercially available mix?

[Hidden]

Hi, I use a mix that has no potato - though at the moment I mix it myself - urid lentil flour 40%, tapioca 40% and cornmeal 20%. Shipton Mill are due to sart producing it this autumn.

[NoodleUnit]

Thanks for that

I'll try and get hold of those ingredients this weekend.

[Hidden]

For cakes and scones I use a mix if rice flour and tapioca starch. If you add xanthan gum then you will need more liquid so if the recipe says mix an egg with milk to make 150ml I use 150ml of milk and an egg to compensate for 1 tea spoon of gum. Otherwise they are too dry and crumbly, here's pic of my scones:

withoutgluten.co.uk/home-ma...

[NoodleUnit]

They look ace!

Scones are the thing I miss the most tbh. When I started baking with Gf mixes, I found myself getting worse symptoms, took me ages to figure out that it was the potato starch in the doves farm mix which was nailing me every time.

Thanks for the replies.

[Hidden]

Thanks for the compliment. I made a list of all the baked foods that I missed the most and set about making gf versions for myself and found that eggs bind food so with most cakes and biscuits eliminating wheat and gluten is not an issue.

I find it interesting that potato starch makes you ill and wonder if you can eat potatoes because potato starch is just the starch from dried potatoes.

Doves farm specialise in organic flours and their mills are all in the same building which's why they have such stringent testing they have their raw ingredients codex tested as they do the end product but cross contamination still occurs from time to time.

It is none of my busines but I would keep a food diary and look at all the ingredients. Lactose and fructose are not absorbed well by many coeliac. Milk molecules are 200X bigger than human milk so lactose has to be broken down in the gut before it can be absorbed.

Gums like xanthan gum are hydroscopic so they absorb a lot of moisture so they act like super roughage and can act like a laxative for many coeliac. Also many coeliac do not absorb fat well and that acts like a laxative, so for instance an apple crumble with lashings of cream acts like a powerful laxative for me but I don't get gluten symptoms like headaches.

In my opinion coeliac guts are far more sensitive than Joe publics and it can take time to get in tune with 'our' bodies and what affects us in different ways. It also takes time for our bodies to adjust to the new dietary regime. So it isnt always gluten that is upsetting us.

Thats my 2p's worth,

Jerry

Ps good luck with the scones I make them with cheese and chilli's sometimes and they have a wonderful bite.

[Liana in reply to Hidden]

Gums are needed in gluten free baking to replace the binding properties of gluten. If you don't use one your baked goods will be very crumbly. Guar Gum is the one many Celiacs react to because it's harder on the digestive system. Xanthan Gum is actually gentler on the digestive system and works well for most people.

[NoodleUnit]

Thanks for that.

As it happens, I'm keeping a food diary. I can't tolerate potatoes in general, apparently some people get a problem with the nightshade family as a whole once they go GF, which is what it's looking like for me. A video that was posted a while back here suggests to me that the proteins are similar enough to gluten that my dumb immune system sees them as the same thing.

I'm hoping that like dairy is supposed to, it'll go away in a few months. As I'm sure you can imagine, having a potato problem is a nightmare if all you can have is GF food.

The plus side though, I've discovered sweet potato chips ( sweet potatoes are in fact totally unrelated to normal potatoes ). Sweet potato chips are unbelievably tasty, easy to make, and don't give me any trouble. The caramelised sugars on the outside are just sooo good.

I have a similar reaction to dairy fats, I stupidly had a bit of sour cream last weekend, big mistake.

[Liana in reply to NoodleUnit]

I am sensitive to the nightshades as well, but can tolerate small amounts of organic tomatoes, potatoes and sweet peppers (I don't like eggplant) if I rotate them in and out of may diet every five days or more. The nightshades are known to cause inflammation in those who suffer from diseases in the arthritis family. I have Fibromyalgia and inflammatory osteoarthritis so I have to be aware of what nightshades I comsume and when.Interestingly enough tabacco is also a nightshade. It's important to eat organic vegetables so you know if it's the toxins, pesticides and preservative measures of regular vegetables or if it's just the veg itself.

[Liana]

I did extensive research on this topic when I first went gluten free. It's all written out on my web site. You can find the information you need and much much more on my web site: Food Challenges foodchallenges.ca The article you are looking for is called Fundamental Flour Facts and can be found in the Food Fact section of the site. If you can't tolerate potato starch, try one of the other starches - corn or tapioca. The only other one that doesn't hold its thickening properties well is arrowroot. I hope you will find that helpful.

[corby39]

i find juvela flour makes the most edible bread.

[JanLB]

The person who worked out the stuff about GF Flour was Barbara Powell from the now defunct Barbara's kitchen in Wales. Fortunately her info about baking & flour has been incorporated into the jessica kingsley book about GF & CF baking by Marilyn Le Bretton. Its expensive but Amazon has plenty of ex library etc copies starting at 1p plus postage. It's also on kindle at less than full price. Barbara's work really is the best I've ever seen about flour combinations etc.