The Great Experiment, a Test on Flour Measuring

All my life I have been a math person. I love it! I can't spell to save my life, and grammar has never been a gift. However, put me in front of a calculus or a trigonometry equation and I am in heaven. Sick I know. So as far as cooking goes, it has always been approached from the perspective of a fun and phenomenally messy science experiment. I love how different ingredients react. This has been a blessing since I started a gluten free life. Without gluten, g-free flours just don't rise. Sad but true. So to learning to cook without gluten requires finding the right ingredient or ingredients that recreates a similar chemical reaction. My favorite is probably baking soda and vinegar, because you get a big reaction quick. Just like the volcano in you made in elementary school. FUN!! However, this does not work if you start trying to roll out cinnamon rolls, because your dough will not re-rise. This is a onetime only reaction that eventually stops. In cakes you can beat your egg whites and add them in for extra fluff, but that also won't work for cookies and bread. I love adding citrus fruits to my baked goods. You get extra vitamins and nutrients, along with your extra fluff. So these are all tricks to make your baked goods more like their gluten filled predecessors, but what about that flour…….. Hmm!

This has had the biggest mean time to failure in my kitchen. Really!?! I made 5 different cakes and each one turned out different, even when I used the exact same ingredients. The issue was not so much what was in my cake mix, as how much was in my cake mix. So I invested in one of these……

GF-Experiment

It has really taken some of the variability out of my baking. I would love to tell you that I am an amazing person and that I weighed and measured all these g-free flours myself, but I didn't. Don't worry, I did better than that, and I found an awesome blogger who did. Thanks Janice!! @ Realfoodmadeeasy! This chart is awesome, and you can print it too! Woohoo!

Another source I have found helpful is the Celiac Sprue Association Gluten-Free Flour Formulas, if you want to try and mix your own flour blend. I hope this is helpful. If you have any questions, you can always email me, or better yet leave me a comment.

Other sources:

Gluten Free Lifestyle-Solving the GF flour mix mystery.

Celiac Sprue Association- Gluten-free Flour Formulas