Hi Everyone,
What’s Cooking is a series in which I answer questions you may have about food or cooking but are too shy to ask.
In a bid to eat healthy and to cope with the dietary restrictions if diagnosed with Celiac disease, more and more people are turning to other flours such as rice flour, coconut flour, breadfruit flour, cassava flour etc, all gluten-free flours.
Understandably, many people think that in order to use these flours to make the foods they regularly consume, such as breads, bakes, rolls, and roti, that it is simply a matter of switching out wheat flour with one of these other flours with a 1:1 ratio. Unfortunately, this is not the case because the structure of each of these flours is different from regular wheat flour. In part 1 of this 2-part series, I’ll discuss the characteristics of the more popular alternate flours, namely, cassava flour, coconut flour, breadfruit flour and sweet potato flour.
Wheat flour – regular all-purpose flour – contains gluten. Gluten in wheat is a protein that is created when water is mixed with the flour. According to food scientist, Harold McGee, the mixture creates gluten proteins that bond to each other and form an elastic mass that can be stretched, rolled and twisted. When yeast or other leavening agents are added to the mixture, the dough expands to accommodate gas bubbles resulting in raised breads, ballooning bakes, expanded pasta and elevated cakes. Cassava, coconut, breadfruit and sweet potato flours are all gluten free. This means that they lack the ability to be bound together with only water and thus cannot be manipulated the way that wheat flour can, even with leavening agents. Gluten in flour not only facilitates the rising and stretching of dough, it also contributes significantly to the improved quality, taste, texture, and appearance of the food.
To make the alternate flours mentioned above – cassava, coconut, breadfruit and sweet potato – the ingredients are grated or cut into very small pieces, dehydrated, and then ground into a flour. The dehydration processes extracts the natural moisture from these ingredients and because the structural make-up of each of these ingredients is different, it renders some of them extra dry. Because the flours also lack gluten, when water is added, they do not bond and work the way that wheat flour does. Therefore, it is important to note that extra moisture will need to be added to these alternate flours to bond and improve the texture of the dough. Ingredients such as water, milk, eggs, and fats such as butter and oil all have to be increased in mixtures using alternate flours. The extra addition of such ingredients apart from what is recommend for a recipe using regular flour is to add flavour, tenderness and improve the overall taste and texture when cooked/baked.
If you suffer from gluten intolerance (celiac disease), then you will find yourself having to buy and use additional ingredients (additives) such as Xanthan gum and emulsifiers to put into your gluten-free dough and batters so that they can provide some elasticity and stability to breads, bakes, rolls, or roti. You have to know also that they will not look and taste the same way as the same goods made with wheat flour. Too often, people think that their food made with alternate flours is going to come out looking and tasting just like their good old sandwich loaf.
On the other hand, if your reason for using alternate flours is because you want to add extra fibre to your diet or you prefer not to eat all-wheat flour products, then you can combine regular flour and the gluten-free flour to make your breads, rolls, or bakes – that is what I do. However, even though you are only replacing part of the required wheat flour, it is still not simply a case of
replacing the wheat flour with the same amount of alternate flour. In other words, if a recipe calls for one pound of all-purpose flour, you can’t automatically say that you are going to use 8 ounces all-purpose flour and 8 ounces breadfruit flour to make up the pound. You may also not be able to use 12 ounces of all-purpose flour and 4 ounces coconut flour to make up the pound.
It is for this reason that it is highly recommended that if you are going to use alternate flours that you work with established recipes that have been tested. In other words, use recipes that have been successfully developed and tested using alternate flours. Of course, if you’re the kind of cook who likes to experiment and can afford several trials and errors until successful, then go for it. I make the point of saying ‘afford’ because some of these alternate flours are not cheap; they often come in special packaging, are only available at select stores and are pricey. There is no stated general formula or ratio to combine gluten-free flours with regular flour, hence the recommendation to harness your experience to experiment, test and make your own judgments, or use established recipes.
The one scenario in which you can use alternate flours in exactly the same way as you use regular flour is when frying. Coat your fish, chicken, shrimp etc with gluten-free flours just as you would with all-purpose flour.
If you are going to invest in these types of flours, you need to know that they have a short shelf life and would need to be stored in a cool place – such as a refrigerator in an airtight container. Leaving them outside in our very warm climate can quickly make them rancid. That’s money wasted.
Finally, whether making things yourself with these gluten-free flours or buying ready-made goods, be sure to carefully read the recipe ingredients and the labels of the ready-made foods. The lack of wheat gluten and the need for the addition of more sugar, sodium or fat to make the items palatable, may result in the lowering of one vulnerability and the increase of another.
Next week, in part 2 of the series, I will share my experiences working with cassava, coconut, breadfruit, and sweet potato flours including the use of some of these ingredients in their fresh form. I’ll also tell you what I made with NAMILCO’s Multigrain flour, and working with cornmeal and semolina flours.
Cynthia
Cynthia@tasteslikehome.org
www.tasteslikehome.org
