Over the past year a member of my family has been noticing some health issues that seem to pop up after eating more foods that have wheat in them. When cutting wheat items out, it has seemed that the symptoms are alleviated. We decided recently to do an experiment to see if these episodes are related to a gluten intolerance. If you aren’t familiar… gluten is found most commonly in wheat, as well as barley and rye. Gluten helps baked goods to bind/stick together and helps make them have a chewy texture.

Now, I have done a lot of baking in my life, but am clueless when it comes to gluten-free baking. I have to say that this new world of gluten-free baking is a bit intimidating. I mean, doesn’t xanthan gum just sound horrifying?! 😉 I have had my fair share of cooking and baking challenges in the past with dairy, soy, and egg allergies in the family and have learned how to work around keeping those items out of food. But gluten? This is a whole new world to me in the baking realm.

If you have followed me at all, you know I like to bake. I also like to bake with whole grains…most commonly found in our kitchen is whole wheat, which I grind myself with my WonderMill electric grain mill. I LOVE to bake, and have enjoyed trying to make things a little bit healthier by using whole wheat in the process. In fact, I usually add extra gluten to the whole grain items to help make them extra soft and chewy. So, you can understand that baking things gluten-free for me, especially since I like baking with wheat {and extra gluten for that matter…}, might be a bit challenging.

I know there are so many others who have walked this road before I have and so I am gleaning from what they have learned and experimented with to make the process that much easier for me! I came across a blog not too long ago dedicated to baking gluten-free, which is adequately named www.artofglutenfreebaking.com. The woman who writes the blog is named Jeanne and she has some awesome looking recipes. She has been baking gluten-free for many years and seems to have some successes under her belt.

I decided to try out Jeanne’s Gluten-Free All-Purpose Baking Mix. She explains how and why she came up with this particular mix after the trial and error of many other GF flour recipes and I would recommend hopping over to her site if you are interested in the specifics of it all…very informative, but I won’t go over it here.

So far, I have successfully substituted this Gluten-Free All-Purpose flour for whole wheat or all-purpose flour in The BEST Cornbread recipe, Sugar Cookies, Banana Bread {another great recipe from Jeanne}, and Chewy Dark Chocolate Peppermint Cookies. So far everyone in my family has been very pleased! I would venture to say that if we didn’t tell anybody that these baked items were gluten-free, they wouldn’t be able to tell.

I am so happy that I came across this recipe for Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour. If you are looking for a great GF AP flour blend, I hope this works for you. I know I am not disappointed and am looking forward to many more successes! Having a great GF flour to use is going to help me forge ahead and make the best baked goods that I can…that just happen to be gluten-free! Enjoy! -Shelley.

Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour Mix
recipe from: http://www.artofglutenfreebaking.com
*Many of these items can be found on Amazon.com, health food sections of grocery stores, or Asian grocery stores
*I grind the brown rice flour and white rice flour in my WonderMill electric grain mill – which saves me a lot of money in the long run!

1 Batch:
1 1/4 c brown rice flour
1 1/4 c white rice flour
1 c tapioca flour
1 c sweet rice flour {also known as glutinous rice flour or under the brand name Mochiko}
2 scant t xanthan gum

4 Batches:
5 c brown rice flour
5 c white rice flour
4 c tapioca flour
4 c sweet rice flour {also known as glutinous rice flour or under the brand name Mochiko}
8 scant t xanthan gum

Whisk all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl well. Store in an air-tight container in a cool, dark place. Can be used cup for cup for wheat flour in most recipes.