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Advertisement mr-Alt Flour Guide HeaderCredit: Greg Dupree; Food Styling: Margaret Dickey and Elise Mayfield; Prop Styling: Kay Clarke and Laura Evans
Once upon a time, buying a bag of flour was a relatively simple endeavor. You'd pick out whichever brand of snowy white all-purpose flour you’d pledged loyalty to. Maybe you’d put a bag of cake flour or bread flour in your cart too, if you were an avid baker.
Those days are gone.
You don’t have to shop at a high-end, specialty grocery store to have access to flours that go far beyond wheat. If you’ve taken a stroll down the baking aisle of your favorite supermarket recently, I don’t have to tell you that you have options. A lot of them. Nut flours, gluten-free flour blends, cereal grain flours, starch- and tuber-based flours… they’re all at your fingertips.
Not long ago, I took stock of just how many distinctly alternative flours lined the shelves at my local supermarket. Not including gluten-free and paleo blends, I counted 16 types of flour in addition to the traditional wheat-based varieties. Even for an enthusiastic home baker, that’s an overwhelming number.
But the thing is, all of those options mean something: opportunity. And despite the implication that accompanies the word “alternative,” alt flours don’t necessarily need to be a replacement for the traditional. Sure, plenty of people turn to these options because they are actively avoiding wheat-based flour for health reasons—but having an allergy or sensitivity isn’t the sole reason to embrace an alternative-flour lifestyle.
Here's an overview of ten of the nontraditional flours our team has found commonly available and deeply intriguing. And while each of these flour varieties offers its own perks and quirks, in researching and experimenting with them, one thing became crystal clear: Alternative flours can act as a replacement or as a supplement to your standby, but either way, they vastly expand what’s possible in a home kitchen.
As you’ll see from the recipes below, expanding your flour horizons isn’t all about going gluten-free. It’s about texture. It’s about flavor. And most importantly, it’s about fun.
Credit: Greg Dupree; Food Styling: Margaret Dickey and Elise Mayfield; Prop Styling: Kay Clarke and Laura Evans
Rice flour is made, unsurprisingly, from very finely ground rice. While it has a silky, powder-like texture that might seem dainty next to many wheat-based flours, rice flour is valued for the stable structure it gives to baked goods and is a common component of gluten-free blends for that very reason. Aside from GF baking mixes, you’ve likely encountered this flour in the form of rice noodles via dishes like pad thai.
Standard rice flour is available in two varieties: brown and white. Brown being milled from whole-grain brown rice and white being made from white rice. In most baking applications, the two are virtually interchangeable. Brown rice flour offers a slightly nuttier flavor and whole-grain health points, but also has a slightly shorter shelf life than white. Whether you opt for brown or white, go ahead and stash this flour in the freezer between uses to maximize its lifespan. (Actually, this is a good rule of thumb for every flour to follow, if we’re being honest.) You may also come across a product called “sweet” or “glutinous” rice flour, which is still totally gluten-free, but made from short-grain “sticky rice.” This is the variety of rice flour used to make Japanese mochi. And should you ever find yourself face-to-face with a bag a rice starch—no, it’s not the same thing as rice flour and should not be used as a substitute.
Now, there’s a reason I’m listing rice flour first in this guide. Because, to me, rice flour was the most exciting revelation to come out of my deep dive into alternative flour-ing. It’s a versatile flour that can be used for thickening sauces or soups, breading/battering, and making dumplings or noodles; however, I fell head over heels for rice flour due to the unique character it brings to baked goods.
Whether you’re baking something entirely gluten-free (like the Cashew Butter Cookies pictured above) or you’re simply supplementing a wheat-based flour, rice flour contributes a unique texture that I can only describe as pleasantly sandy. Sure, that may sound a little strange, but trust me, it’s a distinct substantiality that’s both delicate and delightful within the context of something like shortbread cookies or a batch of homemade cheese crackers.
WATCH: How to Make Butternut-Nut Butter Bars
Another important trait of rice flour is its capacity for embracing liquid—it's much more absorbent than all-purpose. This absorbency can be leveraged in the kitchen to achieve a crisp texture where you may have accepted “cakey” as the only option. Take these butternut blondies, for example. Most baked goods that incorporate a moisture-dense ingredient like pumpkin puree (or in the case of these blondies, butternut squash puree) are inherently going to be soft and fluffy due to the moisture content. That’s all well and good when it comes to something like a bundt cake or a quick bread, but it’s downright disappointing when you bite into a “cookie” that feels like an over-baked muffin top; enter, rice flour. Using the absorbent flour means you get the flavor you’re looking for when you stir mashed banana or pumpkin into a batter, but you can also have the substantial texture you want from a cookie bar.
Ready to give rice flour a try? Start with these easy, gluten-free Cashew Butter Cookies. We opted for brown rice flour for added toothiness and toasted it to deepen the nutty flavor.