My oldest child has been requesting banana bread for weeks, and this past Saturday we finally had 5 bananas on hand that were ripe enough for baking. This of course led to a batch of banana bread muffins, an impromptu baking and math lesson for my 6 yr old, and a delicious brunch. I’m sorry there’s not a picture. The muffins were all gone before I even thought of grabbing the camera!

We’re in a relatively rural area right now and the only gluten free flour that I could find in the stores was Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour Mix….so that’s what I used. Some of you will be mad, but I only measured this recipe by weight. If you’d like a banana bread recipe that uses volume measurements, here’s my original Gluten Free Banana Nut Bread recipe. If you’re interested in why I weigh my ingredients, here are a few articles on how weighing your ingredients can shorten your gluten free baking learning curve, and 5 Myths and Misconceptions About Weighing Gluten Free Flours.

If you don’t have a digital kitchen scale, you may be interested in the special deal that I’m currently running for my gluten free cooking classes. A free digital kitchen scale and a really awesome digital thermometer are included!

Gluten Free Banana Bread Muffins
yield: 24 muffins

275 g Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour Mix
150 g sugar
12 g baking powder
6 g salt
3 g xanthan gum
150 g eggs, beaten – 3 large
500 g ripe bananas, mashed
150 g butter, melted
10 g vanilla extract

Instructions:

Begin by melting the butter, peeling and mashing approximately 5 large, overripe bananas, and beating the eggs. In a large mixing bowl combine all of the dry ingredients and mix these together with a fork for 30 seconds. To this, add the beaten eggs and ripe bananas. Stir until the flour has all been incorporated into the batter. Add the vanilla and the melted butter, which should be warm rather than hot at this point, and stir them into the batter.

Line your muffin tin with paper cups and divide the batter equally among them. Bake in a oven (that has been preheated to 350 degrees) for 20 – 30 minutes, or until they centers are mostly firm to the touch.

Note: If this is your first time to make banana bread, you must use over-ripe bananas. The peels should at least be heavily spotted with brown.

Feel free to add nuts to this, if you’d like. I usually would, but didn’t have any on hand.

Since the current special deal on my cooking classes includes a free digital kitchen scale, I wanted to take a few minutes to write a post on why a digital kitchen scale is needed for gluten free baking. I’ve written about why you should weigh your ingredients before, but measuring cups are so ingrained in American cooking, that it does not hurt to revisit the topic. Here then are 5 myths and misconceptions about measuring flour.

Myth #1: That there is a “correct” way to measure with measuring cups. Gourmet magazines and cookbooks try to tell us that there is one correct way to measure flour and that is by spooning flour into a measuring cup and then leveling the flour with a flat edge. They are pandering to you. The only accurate way to measure flour is to weigh it.

When you are following a recipe that is written with volume measurements, i.e. cups, you often have no idea as to how the recipe creator measured their flour. For all you know they scooped it out of a bag, which packs a lot more flour into the measuring cup. And even if a particular cookbook tells you in the introduction that they used the spoon method, are you really likely to remember that 6 months later when you pull the cookbook out to get a cake recipe? No! You’re going to do whatever is practical at the moment.

The goal with measuring flour is to use the same amount of flour as the recipe creator so that you can get the same results. The only accurate and clear weight to convey that amount of flour is to express it by weight.

Myth #2: 1 cup of flour = 8 oz. We Americans cling tightly to our system of cups and ounces, but many of us do not fully understand it. For example, we get it into our heads that 1 cup equals 8 oz and we then apply that to everything. The problem is that Americans use ounces to measure volume and weight. If you look at a liquid cup measure it will have cups and ounces. That works reasonably well for measuring liquids, because 1 cup of water is 8 oz by weight. However 1 cup of flour usually weighs somewhere between 4 – 6 oz, depending on which flour you are using and how you use your measuring cup.

Myth #3: Every type of flour weighs the same amount You won’t see this discussed outside of gluten free circles, because we’re the only ones that frequently use a variety of different kinds of flours. Here’s the deal – flours differ in their density. Rice flour is more dense than cornstarch, so 1 cup by volume of rice flour will weigh more than 1 cup by volume of cornstarch.

Myth #4: Using a scale makes weighing flour more complicated than it has to be. I am not being all hoity-toity and fancy when I use my kitchen scale. I’m being practical. Pouring flour into a bowl until the scale reaches a certain measurement is easier than scooping flour out of a bag. Not having measuring cups to wash and dry is easier. Looking at the scale is easier than trying to remember exactly how many cups of flour I’ve already added to the bowl once I’ve lost my train of thought. Knowing that you are following a recipe exactly is easier than wondering if you’ve measured correctly.

Myth #5: A measuring cup is a measuring cup. Liquid measuring cups and dry measuring cups are not interchangeable. They do not measure out the same volume Did you know this? Not everyone does.

Not all measuring cups measure out the same volume of ingredients. You know that measuring cup that you left near the stove and that is slightly melted on one side? It doesn’t measure the same as it used to.

Not all measuring spoons measure out the same volume of ingredients. Different sizes and shapes of spoons measure differently. It does’t matter all that much when you’re measuring vanilla extract, but a small amount of xanthan gum is pretty powerful stuff. It’s better to be exact with that.

Are You Ready to Throw Out Your Measuring Cups?
The only measuring cup that we still have is the 1/4 c. that we use as a scoop for our coffee. I’m curious though…are you convinced that measuring by weigh is better? Have you already switched? Or, are you still committed to using measuring cups. Regardless of where you stand, I’d love to know why you feel the way you do on this topic. Please leave a comment and let me know!

All three of my kids have been eating more grains and sugar than I would like at breakfast, so I recently did an internet search for no-cook, high protein breakfast options.  I was QUITE disappointed.

Every single blog and website in the search results had the same suggestions over and over and over.  Bleh. We can do better than that!

This post is the first in a series of healthy, gluten free, grain free breakfast options. I’ll start with no-cook breakfast ideas, and then we’ll move on to the ones that do require a bit cooking. Nothing too time-consuming though. Weekday mornings are not when I want to be spending 30 – 60 minutes in front of the stove.

Fruit & Yogurt for A High-Protein Breakfast:

Fruit and yogurt is one of the standard suggestions for a high-protein breakfast. Most websites just leave it at that. They don’t answer the question (or even raise it) of which fruits taste the best when paired with yogurt….as opposed to those that taste better with a nut butter or with a cheese. And that my friends is where we can do better.  You and I can can take a few minutes to consider flavor when we’re planning breakfasts!

Choosing a Yogurt
But, before we get into the fruit suggestions, let’s talk about yogurt.  All three of my children seem to be going through a growth spurt and I need to start them off with a meal that has plenty of protein and fat to give them calories and keep them from being hungry within an hour. For that reason, we start our yogurt breakfasts with the highest % fat Greek yogurt that I can find.

If you haven’t tried Greek yogurt yet, here’s a good article on the nutritional difference between regular and Greek yogurt. I disagree with the author of that article when it comes to the fat content of my yogurt. Since I am trying to increase the protein and fat in my childrens’ breakfasts, my first choice in Greek yogurts is Cabot’s Plain Greek Style Yogurt as it’s the highest fat content yogurt that I can find. However, I’m also happy to use Fage and Chobani 2% plain Greek Yogurt too. I always choose plain yogurt because I want to control the amount and type of sweetener that is added.

For those of you who need to be dairy-free, there are non-dairy yogurts. Godairyfree.org is a great resource for finding non-dairy yogurt alternatives. The author of that site, Alisa, has also written Go Dairy Free: The Guide and Cookbook for Milk Allergies, Lactose Intolerance, and Casein-Free Living which contains recipes for making soy, coconut, and cashew yogurts.

Choosing a Fruit:

All of these fruits pair well with yogurt, but I’ve listed them with the fruits we like most at the top.

strawberries
mangoes
orange supremes
blueberries
peaches
nectarines
blackberries
raspberries

Choosing a Topping:

My children would completely revolt if I didn’t add honey to their yogurt, so that is a given. However,if we have nuts, then I’ll also give them the option of adding nuts to their yogurt and fruit. More fat and protein, you know?  The following nuts pair well with yogurt:

almonds
pecans
walnuts
pistachios

Perfect Fruit & Yogurt Combinations

Now that we know which flavors work well with yogurt, we need to know which of the fruits play nicely with a given nut or spice, so that we get the full effect of great flavor combinations. In developing the following recommendations, I referenced my copy of The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs.

Try one of these combinations for your next fruit and yogurt breakfast:

Yogurt with mangoes, topped with almonds and lime juice, and sweetened with honey or light brown sugar
Yogurt with strawberries, topped with orange zest and almonds and sweetened with honey or sugar
Yogurt with blueberries, topped with toasted pecans and cinnamon and sweetened with maple syrup
Yogurt with orange slices, topped with walnuts or pistachios, and sweetened with honey or sugar.

For several years, we’ve been using Sally’s GF Orange Peel Chicken recipe as one of our go-to recipes when we had a Chinese take-out craving. It’s a very yummy recipe.

This week, as we were brainstorming meal ideas on the way to the grocery store, one of us remembered Orange Peel Chicken. Once it was mentioned, we had to have it! But then I went to the recipe and realize that it was not at all Paleo friendly. A half a cup of sugar plus fried chicken just did not need to happen that night.

Instead, I came up with a more paleo, primal friendly recipe by replacing the sugar with half as much honey plus orange juice. The recipe is also a bit more RV friendly, since I substituted red pepper flakes for the sriracha sauce in the original recipe. Our fridge is very small and there is not any room for ingredients that are not used frequently!

The recipe received rave reviews on the first night and the leftover night. The kids were a bit puzzled about eating orange peel, since we would generally throw that away. However, they were not so puzzled that they didn’t eat supper.

Since I was not sure how our kids would like this recipe, I prepared their plates with rice and chicken only. I had added enough red pepper flakes to the sauce that it didn’t seem wise to add additional sauce to their servings. The adult plates had cauliflower pilaf, then chicken, and then a big ladle full of sauce. Everyone was happy!

Paleo Friendly Gluten Free Orange Peel Chicken

Sauce:
1/2 Tbsp. coconut oil
1 head of garlic, minced (yes, you read that right)
2 8 oz. cans of tomato sauce
8 oz. water
1 Tbsp. ginger, minced or very thinly sliced
2 Tbsp. tamari
1/4 c. honey
Peel of two oranges, julienned
Juice of two oranges
Red pepper flakes to taste
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

Chicken:
1/2 Tbsp. coconut oil
3 – 5 chicken breasts, cut into 1/2″ pieces

Instructions:
Start by preparing the sauce. In a large saucepan, heat the coconut oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and stir frequently so that the oil becomes seasoned, but the garlic does not burn. Then add all of the remaining sauce ingredients and bring to a simmer. Turn the heat down to low and let the sauce simmer while you prepare the chicken.

Heat the coconut oil for the chicken in a large skillet and add the chicken pieces once it’s hot. Let the chicken cook on one side until it’s begun to brown and then flip the chicken pieces over to cook on the other side. Once all sides are at least white, spoon some of the sauce over the chicken. Use just enough to give the chicken some color and flavor. Once the chicken pieces are completely cooked through the center, you can turn the heat off and prepare to serve. Or, if you would like, keep the heat on and add a splash of tamari and a drizzle of honey to the chicken and give that a few tosses before turning off the heat.

Notes on the oranges: I peel the oranges with a knife, attempting to get the peel off in one long strip. Then I move the peel to my cutting board and julienne the peel lengthwise, so that I end up with long thin strips of orange peel. I add these to the sauce, and then squeeze the juice from the peeled oranges directly into the sauce.

Notes on the chicken: This recipe makes a lot of sauce. Since I had cooked the sauce separately, we put the sauce leftovers in the refrigerator and then used it later in the week with freshly cooked chicken. The amount of chicken that you choose to use should be based on what you think your family will eat for that meal. Since the sauce and chicken are not cooked together, the relative proportions of each are not as important. This recipe made enough sauce for two generous suppers for our family of five.

I recently grabbed a bottle of San-J Thai Peanut Sauce and used it to make a delicious, vegetable-filled meal that we served al fresco. We had just arrived at a beautiful Virginia state park after a long day of driving and I needed a quick meal. After a brief shopping trip  I headed into the kitchen and whipped this up and then took it all out to the picnic table so that we could continue enjoying the warm spring day and the newly leafed out trees.

I was going to say that it was a peaceful dinner, but then I remembered that one of the children crawled under the picnic table, grabbed a handful of small gravel, and then dropped it right onto his plate. I may have screamed all three of that child’s names. So, not peaceful.  But it was delicious….and luckily that child was mostly done with dinner anyway.

I may be strange, but I find slicing vegetables into long strips to be quite peaceful. Especially when I’m the only one in the kitchen and the children are all outside playing superhero in the woods under the supervision of my husband. So while this meal does require some prep work, it’s easy prep work and the payoff is delicious.

Thai Peanut Chicken
(Yield: 4 servings)

4 zuchinni, approx 6″ long
2 summer squash, approx 8″ long
2 green bell peppers
1 red onion
3 large chicken breasts
1 10 oz. bottle of San-J Thai Peanut Sauce
coconut oil

Cut each of the vegetables into long strips of approximately the same thickness and set aside. Slick the chicken into long thin strips. Heat a tablespoon of coconut oil in a large skilled and cook the chicken until it has browned nicely and there is no pink in the center of each strip. Remove the chicken from the skillet and set aside – we’ll add it back in at the end.

Add more coconut oil to your skillet, if necessary, and cook the vegetables on high heat. Stir frequently and only cook the vegetables until they are tender, but still a bit crisp. Add the chicken back in. Pour the entire bottle of San-J Peanut Sauce over the top and stir so that all of the chicken and veggies get a nice coating of sauce.

Serve over rice, quinoa, or pan-fried cauliflower.

What to you do when you’re craving pizza, but don’t have the ingredients? I faced this dilemma the other night and the result was a new recipe that we enjoyed so much that John and I ate the leftovers for lunch and had to make the recipe again a few nights later for supper.

This recipe has some up-front prep work, but then you pop it into the oven and let it bake away. Add a few easy vegetable sides and you have a gourmet meal without a lot of effort. That’s what I like for mid-week meals!

Pepperoni and Olive Baked Chicken
Yield: at least 5 serverings

Ingredients:

5 large chicken breasts
24 oz. jar of pasta sauce
1 6 oz. can black olives
1 6 oz. can green olives
4 garlic cloves
approx. 50 slices pepperoni
marinara or pasta sauce
mozzarella cheese, grated
parmesan cheese, grated

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 and get a baking pan out. Roughly chop the olives and garlic and set aside. Trim any excess fat from the chicken breasts and then slice them so that they open up like a hoagie roll. Open up each breast and cover one side with pepperoni slices. Place a layer of the olive mixture on top of that and then close up the chicken breast. Repeat for each breast. Pour a thin layer of pasta sauce into the baking pan, place the chicken breast in the pan and pour the remaining sauce over the top. Place the chicken into then oven. When the chicken has finished cooking, sprinkle the mozzarella over the top and turn the broiler on for a few minutes. to melt the chicken.

Slice the chicken before serving and then spread it out slightly on the plate so that the pepperoni and olives can be seen.

Notes: Cooking times will vary based on the thickness of the chicken. A meat thermometer inserted into the middle of the breasts is one way to check for doneness. According to Harold McGee in n Food And Cooking, you need to insert at least an inch of the thermometer into the eat, so you’d need to insert the thermometer sideways. The FDA recommends cooking chicken until the internal temperature is at least 165 F.

I generally check for doneness by leaving the meal alone until it starts to smell good, and then I test for doneness by cutting into the center of a few of the breasts.

Are you thinking that you’ll save a ton of money by saving all your grocery receipts and deducting the cost of your gluten free food? Before you collect a lot of paper, take a minute to see if the savings are worth the effort. This article was originally published in 2011 and has been updated to reflect current tax law.)

At a recent celiac support group meeting a couple of people asked me what I do to calculate my tax deduction for gluten free foods. They were greatly surprised when I told them that I’ve never seriously considered taking that tax deduction. Why? Too much paperwork for too little benefit!

The Basics:

Here are the basics of this tax deduction. Several court cases and IRS Revenue Rulings make the case that (1) if you have a diagnosed medical condition AND (2) your doctor has prescribed a gluten free diet as treatment, then you may deduct the amount by which the price of the gluten free food exceeds the price of a comparable non-gluten free food as an itemized medical deduction on Schedule A.

The above paragraph becomes much more important now that so many people are taking their medical care into their own hands. If you read though the remainder of this article and still think that this tax deduction would save you money, then you MUST get a diagnosis from a doctor and he MUST “prescribe” a gluten free diet for the treatment of your diagnosed condition. The deduction for the excess cost of gluten free foods only applies to diagnosed medical conditions for which your doctor has advised you to eat a gluten free diet.

Calculating the Deduction and Record-Keeping:

Deducting your food costs from your taxes sounds great, right? It does, until you realize that you’ll have to save every single grocery receipt and then calculate the difference between every single gluten free food purchase and the price of a comparable non-gluten free food. Oh, and if you’re audited, you’ll need some way to support the prices you used for the non-gluten free food.

Some of you may still be thinking that this is worth your time. Wait, there’s more. So, once you’ve calculated how much extra money you’ve spend on gluten free groceries, you may not be able to deduct that amount. Out-of-pocket medical expenses are only deductible once they exceed 7.5% of your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI). So, if your AGI is $50,000, you can only deduct the out-of-pocket medical expenses that exceed $3,750.

I’ve prepared many, many individual tax returns and the only people that I’ve ever seen with itemized medical deductions are the ones that pay their own health insurance premiums (i.e., they have an individual health insurance policy) or they have very high out-of-pocket medical expenses due to a condition that their medical insurance doesn’t cover.

But, for argument’s sake, let’s say that you have other medical expenses that will put you over the 7.5% threshold. The actual amount of taxes that you will save from taking the deduction are only equal to the amount of the tax deduction multiplied by your tax rate. For example, if you are able to deduct $200 related to gluten free expenses and your tax rate is 15%, then the deduction will only lower your actual tax liability by $30.

How to Estimate Your Deduction:

I know that there are still some of you out there that are saying, “I don’t care! I hate paying taxes and I love saving money, so I’m still going to save all of my grocery receipts.” As a former tax professional, I hate to see anyone wasting time on their taxes that could be better spent on something else. Here is how you can do a quick calculation to see how much money you could save by deducting the extra prices of gluten free foods.

First, grab your most recently filed tax return. You’re going to need your AGI, which is on pg 1, line 37 of Form 1040 and your medical/dental expenses from Schedule A, Line 1. Follow the following steps to determine how much, if anything, this may save you on your taxes.

Step 1) Multiply your AGI by 7.5%.

Step 2) Subtract the non-gluten free medical/dental expenses on Line 1 of Schedule A.

Step 3) Divide the result by 52.

The number that you arrive at in Step 3 is the amount of money that you would have had to spend on gluten free groceries on a weekly basis before you could deduct $1. (And remember it’s the difference between the price of the gluten free item and a comparable non-gluten free item. Naturally gluten free items like produce would not qualify.)

Before you spend a year saving receipts and tracking prices, do it for just one week to see if the extra cost of gluten free groceries is more than the amount you calculated in Step 3. If you do spend more than that, then complete the following calculation to estimate your potential tax savings.

Step 4) Add up the cost of the gluten free items that you purchased. Subtract the cost of comparable non-gluten free items.

Step 5) Subtract the amount calculated in Step 3 from the the amount calculated in Step 4. If the
amount is zero or less, stop. Your estimated deduction will not exceed the 7.5% threshhold.

Step 6) Multiply the result in Step 5 by 52.

Step 7) Multiply the result in Step 6 by your marginal tax rate**.

The result in Step 7 is the actual amount of cash that you may expect to save on your taxes by taking an itemized deduction for the excess cost of gluten free food items. (This, of course, assumes that your income and medical expenses for future years will be consistent with the tax return you use to complete this calculation.)

Some Examples:

Here’s an example of how this might work for a family with an AGI of $80,000 and no out-of-pocket medical expenses other than gluten free groceries.

Step 1: $80,000 x 7.5% = $6,000

Step 2: $6,000 – 0 = $6,000

Step 3: $6,000 / 52 = $115

Step 4: Cost of gluten free foods ($50) – cost of non-gluten free foods ($10) = $40

Step 5: $40 – $115 = -$75 STOP!

Here’s another scenario where the deduction would result in tax savings. In this scenario, the family has income of $40,000 and pays $2,400 a year for an individual medical insurance plan (i.e., their insurance is not through their employer).

Step 1: $40,000 x 7.5% = $3,000

Step 2: $3,000 – 2,400 = $600

Step 3: $600 / 52 = $11.54

Step 4: Cost of gluten free foods ($50) – cost of non-gluten free foods ($10) = $40

Step 5: $40 – $11.54 = $28.46

Step 6: $28.46 x 52 = $1,480

Step 7: $1,480 x 15% = $222

Since this family is only making about $20/hour ($40,000 / 2080) then they may very well decide that the required record-keeping is worth their time.

So, to sum it all up, if you want to take the medical expense deduction for your excess grocery costs, you’re going to be in for a lot of paperwork.  Relatively few people will benefit from the deduction even after doing all of the paperwork.  But, unless you actually crunch the numbers (and remember the calculation above will only give you an estimate), you won’t know whether all of that paperwork is worth it or not.  If you have an extremely low taxable income (some retirees and very low income employees) and have high out-of pocket medical expenses, then it may be worth it. If you are an employee and have employer based health insurance, you probably won’t be able to get any deduction at all.

**To find your marginal tax rate, take your taxable income from Form 1040, Line 43 and compare it to the tax rates on pg 14 of this document For example, if you are single and have a taxable income of $63,000 then your marginal tax rate is 25%.

Buying gluten free flour in bulk is convenient and cost-effective. When you’re doing a lot of gluten free baking, it’s lovely to have a 25 lb bag of brown rice flour at hand, so that you’re not constantly running to the store. The price of a large bag of flour, even with shipping costs, is usually less than you’d pay at the local grocery too. In some cases, much less.

However, there is a bit of upfront work required in order to figure out the best place to order your bulk flours. Obviously you want to make sure that the flour IS gluten free. But even after doing that, there are many online stores that offer gluten free flours in bulk, so you have to do a bit of comparison shopping.

I recently took a look around to find the least expensive place to buy a 25 lb. bag of GF brown rice flour. Here’s what I discovered.

Where to Buy Gluten Free Flour In Bulk

In the past I’ve found the best price deals when I buy a 25 lb bag of flour, rather than cases of smaller bags. Three of the online stores that I checked carried 25 lb bags of brown rice flour: Amazon, Bob’s Red Mill, and Azure Standard.

Amazon:

Amazon is not usually my first choice for bulk flour buying, but every now and then you’ll find a great deal. Check out the Lundburg brown rice below. That’s an amazing price!!

Lundberg Eco-Farmed Brown Rice Flour, 25-Pound: Cost is $22.94 and estimated shipping and handling is $24.34, for a total of $47.28 or $1.89/lb. That’s a big improvement! But wait,this product qualifies for free shipping with Amazon Prime, which brings the cost down to $0.92/lb!!! There were only 15 bags left in stock when I checked this morning. Go and buy this now!

New Grains Gluten Free Sweet Brown Rice Flour (25 lbs) Cost is $53.75 and shipping and handling is $34, for a total of $87.75 or $3.51/lb.

Great River Organic Milling Gluten Free Brown Rice Flour, 25-Pound
This rice flour is organic and more costly. The price is $63.78 and shipping is free with Amazon Prime. Cost per lb is $2.55.

Bob’s Red Mill:

In the past I’ve always gotten the best price by ordering directly from Bob’s Red Mill. The only catch is that the least expensive shipping option is USP ground and that is SLOW…at least when you’re accustomed to Amazon Prime 2-day shipping. Obviously, if you live closer to Oregon you’ll get a lower shipping cost and faster delivery than I did.

Brown Rice Flour: Costs $25.16, shipping costs range from $35.12 to $192.98 (I estimated shipping costs using our old Alabama address). Total cost for the slowest shipping option for the location that I chose is $60.28 or $2.41/lb.

Organic Brown Rice Flour: Costs $40.52. The shipping options were the same, so total cost for me would have been $75.64 or $3.03/lb.

Azure Standard:

I haven’t ordered from Azure Standard yet, since I haven’t figured out where I’d store bulk flour in the RV. However, I’ve had several people recommend the site to me as a great place to get gluten free flours at a low cost. They do offer a couple of different shipping options, so if you live on the Western side of the country you may be able to get much better pricing on shipping than I did.

Lundberg Rice Flour, Brown, Eco-Farmed: The cost is $23.80, and I’m assuming that shipping would be about the same as with Bob’s Red Mill since both companies are located in Oregon and Azure Standard uses UPS Ground too. That brings the total cost up to $58.92 or $2.36/lb.

Lundberg Rice Flour, Brown, Organic: The cost is $34.40 and as I mentioned, shipping costs will vary as Azure offers various shipping options. My total cost after shipping would be $69.52 or $2.78/lb.

PlanetRice Sprouted Rice Flour, Brown, Organic: This is a unique product. The flour is made from organic rice that has been sprouted. The cost, as you would expect, is higher than either regular or organic gluten free brown rice flour. At $64.10 for a 25 lb bag, plus the cost of UPS ground shipping, my total cost would be $99.22 or $3.97/lb.

5 Tips For Buying Gluten Free Flour in Bulk

1. Always shop around – If I hadn’t been writing this article, I probably would have gone straight to Bob’s Red Mill and place an order. However, there are always new stores, new brands, and new sales. Taking the time to comparison shop can get you a great deal.

2. Use a virtual assistant – Now, I know some of you are saying, “I don’t have time to comparison shop!” I know. I don’t either! My virtual assistant did all of the research for me and sent me an email with my options. Sending in the request took 1 minute and the cost of the task was $2.60. If I’d actually been buying flour, the deal that the assistant found on Lundburg flour would have saved me $37. That sort of leverage is what allows me to juggle a business, household, and homeschool. If you’re too busy to get through your to-do list, must less everything that you wish were on your to-do list, I highly recommend FancyHands. It’s a great virtual assistant service.

3. Double-check your source – Just make sure that you’re familiar with the company that produced the flour and that they are doing their due diligence to make sure the flour starts out gluten free and stays gluten free.

4. Make sure of your storage - It’s not a good day when you come home to a power outage after you’ve stocked your freezer full of great deals. If you can’t afford to replace what’s in your freezer, then you can’t afford to not have a generator.

5. Look for free shipping - Shipping costs for 25 pound bags of flour gets prices. If you can find a free shipping option, then you’re probably going to end up with a phenomonal price. Free shipping on gluten free flours alone may make the cost of an Amazon Prime membership worth it, without even considering all of the other benefits.

For many years I would attempt to make Irish Soda Bread on St. Patrick’s day. The results were generally less than spectacular, and didn’t hold much allure after the festivities of the day.

To be honest, I found this quite frustrating and I set out on an attempt to see if I’d just been using bad recipes. After quite a bit of wasted flour, I determined that if anyone did know how to make a gluten free, yeast free bread that rose well, tasted good, and could be used for sandwiches, then they were few and far between.

I set out to be one of them.

And two loaves later I had my recipe down. The sandwich loaf version of this recipe has been included in my Gluten Free Bread 201 class from the beginning. For this St. Patrick’s day I scaled the recipe down and made sandwich buns. As you can see below, they turned out delightfully. The recipe in included at the end of this post.

Why Gluten Free, Yeast Free Bread Doesn’t Rise

1. The first problem that I see with most gluten free, yeast free bread recipes is that they got off to a bad start. Ever year at St. Patrick’s day there are a flurry of Irish Soda Bread recipes which are generally based off of the traditional wheat bread recipes.

Basic wheat bread recipes do not convert well to gluten free flours. Adjustments to the flour/liquid ratio must be made and xanthan gum, or some similar agent, must be added or you end up with a brick.

2. The second problem is that most people want to make a nice, round, rustic loaf of soda bread and think that a stiff dough is needed if you’re baking without a loaf pan or form of some sort. If they’re starting with a recipe that was crafted for wheat flour, then they will end up with a nice, kneadable dough that holds it’s shape extremely well….and they think they are on the right track.

Imagine their sadness when the bread doesn’t rise much at all and their bread is more suitable for a giant’s hockey game, than an accompaniment to a meal.

3. The third problem lies with the leaven. Baking soda is tricky. To use it correctly in a recipe (assuming that you’re creating your own recipe), you have to know a bit about the proper proportions of acids and bases and do a bit of math.

Baking powder is much simpler, an it has the added benefit of being double acting. It works it’s magic for the first time when it comes in contact with the liquids in the recipe, and then again in the oven when the dough reaches a certain temperature. Baking soda is a single action leavener, and thus requires more careful attention when it is included in a bread recipe.

Why My Gluten Free, Yeast Free Bread Does Rise

To counter all of these problems, I started my gluten free, yeast free bread recipe with a gluten free bread recipe that I already knew worked extremely well. Then I chose to substitute baking powder for the yeast, rather than baking soda. Finally, I tweaked the initial recipe so that it works for baking powder. Even if you start with a good gluten free bread recipe, a simple substitution of baking powder for yeast, does not work well. The baking powder needs quite a bit more of a helping hand to do it’s work than yeast does.

For all of these reasons, this recipe is a bit more advanced than your general gluten free bread recipe. The last bit of mixing, in which you incorporate an egg white foam, is one of those things that’s just easier to do when you’ve seen someone else do it a few times. And, to be honest, beating the egg white foam will probably be a new step for many home cooks.

Because of these techniques, I’ve never published my gluten free, yeast free loaf bread recipe on the blog. It’s only available in my online cooking class – Gluten Free Bread 201 – so that you can watch the videos and see what the egg foam and dough should look like. The recipe below will give you a chance to take a trial run at the recipe and see if you want to give the full, sandwich loaf version a go.

Irish Cousin Sandwich Buns

yield: 6 large buns

8 oz GFCS gluten free flour mix
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. xanthan gum
a few dashes each of garlic powder and Italian herbs

8 oz. water
4 oz. olive oil
2 egg yolks

2 egg whites
1/2 tps. sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a large cookie sheet with greased foil or parchment paper.

Measure out the flour by weight and to that add the salt, baking powder, xanthan gum, and herbs to taste. Mix these dry ingredients together with a fork, as you want to make sure the baking powder is spread evenly throughout the flour mix.

Separate the yolks and whites of two eggs, placing the whites into a clean and dry mixing bowl, being careful to make sure that the whites do not come into contact with any water, oils or fats. Place the yolks into a separate mixing bowl.

To the yolks add the water and oil and beat these together. To the whites add the sugar, and then beat the whites with a clean, dry whisk until it reaches the soft peak stage.

Add the yolk/water/oil mixture to the dry ingredients and mix this for 3 – 4 minutes with a mixer. Finally, gently fold the egg white foam into the dough so that it is well-incorpoarated.

Spoon the dough out onto the prepared cookie sheet according to the size buns that you want. The dough will rise as it bakes, but it does not spread very much, if at all. Bake at 350 degrees until the buns are firm to the touch and have begun to brown. To encourage more browning, you can brush the tops of the buns with beaten egg whites before they go into the oven.

This is the first post that I wrote for this blog and it was time for an update. I’ve added the weights of the flours and changed a few of the alternative ingredients to reflect the flours I use now. Even six years later, this flour mix is still my first choice when I’m converting a recipe to gluten-free status. ~Mary Frances 3/20/13

My homemade gluten free all-purpose flour mix is the gluten free item for which I most often reach. After almost ten years of cooking gluten free, I am amazed at how well this mix works in so many different recipes.

When I make gluten free biscuits with this mix, they taste like biscuits. When I make gluten free pancakes, they taste like pancakes. I’ve even made onion rings with this! I know I’m a geek, but this really is exciting!

When I first started cooking gluten free foods, I bought a basic gluten free cookbook and rushed home to bake some goodies for my husband. I eagerly flipped to the section on flour blends and was incredibly disappointed to find that I did not have any of the ingredients on hand, and had no idea where to buy them.

You’ve probably had the same experience!

Eventually I developed my own gluten free flour mixthat uses gluten free flours that are relatively inexpensive and widely available in grocery stores. That’s the recipe that you’ll find below. Many of the baking recipes on the blog (and in my cooking classes) utilize this gluten free flour mix.

Gluten Free Cooking School’s Gluten Free All Purpose Flour Mix

210 g (approx. 1.5 cups) brown rice flour
195 g (approx. 1.5 cups) corn starch or tapioca flour
110 g (approx. 1 cup) sorghum flour or garfava flour
55 g (approx. 1/2 cup) masa harina

I’ve added links to the recipe so that you can see what options are available and purchase the ingredients online if you cannot find them locally.

The brands that I use are Bob’s Red Mill brown rice flour, sorghum flour, garfava flour; Argo cornstarch; Maseca masa harina, and Bob’s Red Mill or EnerG tapioca starch.

Tips for Measuring Gluten Free Flour

This recipe has been on the blog for years, and it was originally given as a volumetric ratio of 3:3:2:1. That is, I would use 3 cups brown rice flour, 3 cups corn starch, 2 cups sorghum flour and 1 cup masa harina. Or if I wanted a small batch of flour, then I would grab a 1/4 cup measure and use 3/4 cup each of brown rice flour and corn starch, 1/2 cup sorghum flour, and 1/4 c. masa harina.

While you’re still welcome to follow that ratio, I have since begun measuring by weight instead of volume. Weight measurments are much more accurate for flours, and if I measure by weight and you measure by weight, then we’re much more likely to get the same results with my recipes. That’s a good thing!

The only disadvantage to weighing this flour mix is that the weights are not easy to remember. Make life easy on yourself and jot down the weights on a piece of paper and tape it to the inside of a drawer or cabinet in the part of the kitchen where you do your baking.

Instructions for Mixing and Storing Gluten Free Flour Mixes

Combine all the flours in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. If you’re new to mixing flours, the goal here is to not see any clumps or streaks of indiviual flours. By the time you’re done it should be one homogeneous bowl of flour. Transfer the flour to a canister or other air-tight storage container and you’re done!

Since I use this mix so often, I usually make up a very large batch and store it in a large canister so that it’s ready whenever I decide to bake. I do keep my flour canister on the counter, but I go through it pretty quickly. If you don’t bake often, then you may have better luck storing the flour in a freezer bag in the freezer, so that the flours do not become rancid.