One of my pet peeves with gluten free flour blends you find at the store, is that they are always completely dependent on starch. But why?

Traditionally, pastries and baked goods depended on the protein found in wheat, known as gluten. This particular protein is very handy when it comes to making things that are light and airy. When the gluten protein is activated, generally through mixing and kneading, it become more “glue-like”, holding the pastry together in a light, airy way.

Well, that’s great for those that can have gluten, but what about the rest of us? In gluten free cooking, our greatest challenge is replacing the gluten. Attempting to catch that airy, lightness without the help of the gluten protein. So looking out into the rest of world, we find a large variety of flours: rice, tapioca, potato, sorghum, millet, teff, and many others.

If we were to take those flours and put them on a scale from lightest to densest, the starches (rice, tapioca and potato) would be the lightest and the whole grains would be the densest. Knowing that you can make starches almost “glue-like” with assistance from xanthan gum or guar gum, most people start there. Your lightest blends will be combinations of starches and that is why most gluten free flour blends are very starchy.