A Curious Eater's Guide to Alternative Flours

The COVID-19 pandemic boosted curiosity in a lot of domestic pastimes, but baking came out on top. Sourdough starters became a kitchen staple, and close-up photographs of handmade banana bread had their second on Instagram. Then there was a run on baking materials in the spring—when staples like wheat and bread flour bought out, several home cooks turned to alternate flours like oat and quinoa.

But it can be tough to stick the landing on your home made baked merchandise with something like rice or coconut flour. Non-wheat options have different nutritional profiles than wheat flour, and most really do not have gluten. Which is a great providing stage for everyone on a gluten-cost-free diet, but it has a massive effects on texture. Gluten gives dough its doughiness, serving to it stretch and increase, trapping air bubbles, and generating the finished solution chewy and fluffy. Never fret—as prolonged as you know how your choice can influence density, texture, and humidity, you can make excellent issues with different flours.

Whether or not you are looking to experiment for the reason that of shortage, a gluten intolerance, or culinary curiosity, here’s a valuable guide to the alternative flour landscape.

Oat Flour

You can acquire oat flour at the keep or make it oneself by grinding rolled oats to a fantastic powder in a food processor or blender. Elliott Prag, direct chef at the Institute of Culinary Schooling in New York City, explains that oat flour absorbs a lot more liquid than other flours, which makes for drier, denser baked merchandise. It’s fantastic in pie crusts or granola bars, but you are going to have to have to include a very little extra liquid or extra fat for humidity. If you are creating bread, cake, or nearly anything that’s intended to be fluffy, you just cannot use only oat flour—the batter or dough will not increase. But if you nevertheless want to add flavor and a crumbly texture, try mixing 3 areas all-purpose flour with just one component oat.

A quarter-cup serving of oat flour has a comparable dietary profile to all-function flour. It’s mainly carbs—22 grams—with 4 grams of protein and two grams of unwanted fat. It also packs in three grams of mostly soluble fiber, which gels up when combined with liquid, slowing digestion and reducing LDL cholesterol (the lousy sort).

Almond Flour

While common wheat flour is built up of mostly carbs, almond flour is mostly excess fat: 15 grams of it in a 170-calorie quarter-cup serving. It has fewer carbs and more protein than classic flour, with six grams of every single, and it is over-all far more calorically dense. The high fat material keeps items moist but can also weigh issues down. Prag suggests doctoring your recipes with components that insert rise, like eggs or baking soda, as well as insert-ins that can aid lend some composition, like bananas. Almond flour is flavorful, making it a terrific choice for a dense, nutty cake or a sweet quickbread.

Coconut Flour

Coconut flour has an even stronger style than almond, so Prag recommends working with it in recipes with complementary taste profiles, like pineapple upside-down cake or banana bread. While its relatively higher fat content—four grams for each serving—makes for denser baked goods, it’s however primarily carbohyrates. Eighteen grams of carbs lend sweetness and starch, so you can still get a cakey crumb when you bake with coconut flour. Just be prepared to experiment with added leavening brokers like eggs, baking soda, or baking powder. A 120-calorie quarter-cup serving has 4 grams of protein, which adds a little bit of chew. One particular issue to notice: all that extra fat is saturated, which the Dietary Recommendations for Us residents propose restricting to no far more than 10 % of your total each day energy. Which is about 22 grams for people today who eat 2,000 calories per day.

Chickpea Flour

Chickpea flour has typically been utilised in Mediterranean cooking to make carb-rich dishes like socca, a chickpea pancake. These days, persons are applying it to make all types of baked goods—including a mean gluten-free of charge pizza crust. Its high starch content can help bind batters and doughs jointly, contrary to crumbly oat or almond flour. With 120 energy, 1 gram of body fat, 21 grams of carbs, and 5 grams of protein, a quarter-cup serving is practically equivalent to all-reason flour in conditions of calories and macronutrients, but it has the added reward of 5 grams of fiber, which is fantastic for digestion and general well being. 

Rice Flour

Kimberly Hansan, who wrote an whole cookbook about rice flour, explains that it has normally been a staple in Japanese cultures—it just transpires to be booming in Western cooking suitable now thanks to the rise of gluten-free meal plans. Rice flour has practically no fat and just two grams of protein—about 50 % of what is in all-reason flour. It’s higher in starch, with 24 grams of carbs per quarter-cup serving, which usually means it can bind doughs collectively and build a chewy texture. Even though rice flour is usually utilized in dense, flat recipes like scallion pancakes or noodles, it also will work for baking since it’s pretty much flavorless and rises simply. Just be absolutely sure to use baking powder or soda to enable build and entice air bubbles.

Quinoa Flour 

Although quinoa has been a key part of South American cuisine for centuries, the idea of grinding it into a flour didn’t genuinely just take hold until gluten-no cost eating plans became well-liked. It has a bit a lot more body fat than all-intent flour—two grams for every quarter-cup serving—but is if not very similar, with most of its 105 calories coming from carbs. Prag explains that quinoa flour bakes likewise to oat flour, building a denser, more crumbly texture. You can attempt mixing all-objective and quinoa flour in a 3-to-1 ratio to add nutty taste to bread devoid of sacrificing that squishy, chewy texture. If you are performing with just quinoa flour, decide for anything like muffins or pancakes.