So let’s talk about flours.
There are more gluten-free flours in the world than gluten flours. Did you know that? Most of them might feel unfamiliar—have you tried banana flour or kaniwa flour?—but that doesn’t mean they’re not useful. Think about it—at some point in U.S. history, olive oil felt like a really exotic foreign ingredient. And that was only 50 years ago. So embrace the change and start playing with the flours available to you.
We have been playing with flours for years. I have probably made at least 120 different flour mixes in the past nine years, combining flours for protein levels, flavor combinations, fats, and availability in most stores. Some of them have been disastrous. (Do NOT mix coconut flour and buckwheat together. Bleh.) Some of them have worked better than others. Some of them have worked brilliantly, but suggesting those particular combinations of flours would require that you order pounds of expensive flours online. That wasn’t going to work.
After our daughter was born, and particularly now that our son is here too, I understand why so many of our readers asked if we could come up with blends for our recipes instead of listing six different flours for each baked good. And, after all that playing and baking, we have two mixes we adore, flour mixes we have not only used in creating this book but also that we keep in big containers in our kitchen and use to make everything we bake for our family. Throughout the book, you’ll see that we have suggested one or the other flour mix for particular recipes, based on their properties. However, we have formulated every recipe in this cookbook to work with either mix. If you find you cannot eat grains, you can still make almost every recipe in this cookbook with our Grain-Free Flour Mix.