Which gluten/grain-free flours do you use in your cooking?

There are so many options available, with new ones emerging all the time. Until now I have mostly dealt with almond/other nut flours, tapioca, arrowroot, coconut, flaxseed meal and besan (chickpea) flour. These flours are all great in their own way but none of them emulate or replace chewy, malleable, spongy wheat flour (c’mon, we all know it!;). Plus, we need to combine them to create baked goodies.

Well guess what? I’ve discovered something.

I have stumbled across a new grainless flour and it replaces wheat 1:1.

Really??

Yes (in most instances).

And another thing: it resembles wheat.

Really?

Yes.

Do you want one more? In most cases you can use conventional-normal-people-wheat-recipes and just sub the wheat for this flour. No special recipes.

Are you kidding me?

Yes.

(Just joking, no I’m not).

 

The story….

I’m Australian, but I follow many US-based paleo and other foodie blogs. I kept hearing about this ‘yuca’ flour that people were talking about. It sounded great, albeit hard-to-find, and I knew I couldn’t source it in Australia. I assumed it was either the same or similar to tapioca and would be a starchy flour like it. I’m all for easy-to-use and affordable ingredients so I didn’t look into it too much.

That was until a few months ago when I heard of a new flour hitting the Australian foodie supply and interwebs. It was called Cassava flour. I did some researching and discovered that this Cassava flour was actually the American ‘Yuca’ flour that I had heard about. Cassava was a familiar root vegetable to me, having lived on a pacific island. I had been under the general impression that Tapioca/Arrowroot/Cassava were all names for the same thing essentially, but I wasn’t exactly clear on that.

The lovely folks who supply this product, Otto’s Cassava flour, sent me some information and product to try.

And the rest is history, baby.

I’ve made cupcakes with it. I’ve made pastry (no photo as it did not look pretty, at all. Pastry skills: fail). What did I make the most with the Cassava flour, though?

Pancakes. Pancakes every weekend. Because I like almond meal or  gluten-free pancakes as much as the next grain-free girl, but oh man, nothing beats REAL wheaten pancakes. Chewy, bendy and stackable. Except for these, as they are just like real wheaten ones but without the tummy ache! Woot-woot.

I was going to give you some facts on cassava flour. But you can just read them here, from the source.

If you are in Australia you can now purchase Otto’s exclusively through www.pantryinnovations.com.au. Double yay.