The Gluten-Free Flour Guide: What Each One Does and What It Cannot Do

The reason gluten-free baking disappoints people is a category error. They swap one flour for another and expect the same result, when gluten was never doing a flour's job. It was doing a structural one.

In a wheat dough, gluten forms an elastic network that traps gas, gives the dough the strength to hold a shape while it rises, and keeps the finished crumb flexible. Remove it and you have starch and protein with nothing organising them. That is why the bread crumbles, the pastry cracks, and the flatbread snaps.

Getting a good result means replacing three things separately: bulk, structure, and moisture retention. Almost no single flour does more than one.

The starches: bulk and lightness

White rice flour

The workhorse of most blends. Neutral, cheap, available everywhere. On its own it is gritty and dry, and the grittiness is the giveaway in bad gluten-free baking. Buy finely milled if you can.

Brown rice flour

More flavour, more fibre, slightly heavier. Goes rancid faster because of the oil in the bran, so keep it in the fridge.

Tapioca starch

Adds chew and stretch, browns well, and gives the slight elasticity that makes flatbread feel like bread. Too much turns things gummy. Usually 15 to 30 per cent of a blend.

Potato starch

Holds moisture, produces a soft crumb, keeps cakes from drying out. Note that potato starch and potato flour are entirely different products and are not interchangeable.

Cornflour, also sold as cornstarch

Lightens and tenderises. Useful in cakes and shortbread, useless as a base.

The protein flours: flavour and body

Chickpea flour, also called gram or besan

High protein, holds together well, strong savoury flavour. Excellent for socca, pancakes and fritters. Poor in anything sweet, where the taste is intrusive. Cook it thoroughly, since raw chickpea flour tastes bitter.

Almond flour

Rich, moist, no starch structure at all. Wonderful in cakes and biscuits, hopeless as bread flour on its own. It is also the backbone of most low-carbohydrate baking, which is a different project entirely.

Buckwheat flour

Despite the name, no relation to wheat. Earthy, mineral, genuinely good in pancakes, soba noodles and rustic loaves. Strong enough that most people prefer it at 25 to 50 per cent of a blend.

Sorghum and millet

Mild, slightly sweet, the closest in behaviour to soft wheat flour. Underused, and worth seeking out if you bake often.

Teff

Tiny grain, deep flavour, naturally fermentable. The basis of injera, and the one alternative flour with a genuine bread tradition of its own.

The binders: this is the actual replacement for gluten

This is the part people skip, and it is the reason their bread fails.

Psyllium husk

The most useful ingredient in gluten-free bread. A soluble fibre that forms a gel, holds gas, and keeps the crumb pliable rather than brittle. It is what makes a flatbread bend instead of crack, as in our za'atar flatbread.