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Building a Gluten Free Diet: Gluten Free Flours

The demand for Gluten Free Products is moving at as rapid a rate as the ever increasing pace of our lifestyles. People are choosing, or even more so seeking, healthy natural alternatives.
Just about every restaurant, cafe or eatery offer Gluten Free products as a standard. But how can be can we produce these products at home?

Gluten Free Flours, are a great place to start when building the foundations of Gluten free diet.
There is a variety of Gluten Free flours, that we ourselves produce, including Besan Flour, Brown Rice Flour, Ivory Teff Flour, Millet Flour, the list goes on.

Over the next few week we will be looking a little more closely at the Gluten Free Flour market.
Today, we are profiling Amaranth Flour and Quinoa Flour, their health benefits and how you can incorporate gluten free flour into your everyday life!

Amaranth Flour

Amaranth flour is a gluten-free, protein-rich flour, produced from the Amaranth seed. Dense in protein Amaranth is known for it's superfood quality because its rich amino acids lysine and methionine contents and has more nutrients like calcium, iron, zinc than any other grain and also enjoys the status of one of the highest levels of fiber of all the grains.

This earthy, silky flour gives a nutty, buttery taste to muffins, cookies and pancakes. However this little gem is not recommended for use in things that need rise like breads or pizza.

A little bit of Amaranth flour goes a long way, and incorporating a maximum of ¼ cup in a recipe will give you the delightful health benefits of this wondrous little seed.

Quinoa Flour

The well known Quinoa grain, is renowned for its naturally gluten free state, rich in B vitamins, vitamin E, magnesium, iron and loads of calcium.

With its slightly sweet, nutty flavour, quinoa flour is regarded as one of the best gluten free flours for baking, making it easy to incorporate into a healthy diet. Things like muffins, cakes and cookies can go from a typically “carb” food to a protein rich food using quinoa as a flour substitute.

Similar to the Amaranth Flour, Quinoa Flour is not best used in baking for rise as it lacks elasticity.

To make things even better these two superfoods, can be incorporated into recipe together just like our feature recipe Chocolate Amaranth Quinoa Cake, from La Tartine Gourmande. Indulge in Gluten Free baking at it’s finest, with this recipe folks!


Amaranth, Quinoa and Dark Chocolate Cake
(Gluten free cake)
You need:

• 4.5 oz dark chocolate, 70 % cocoa
• 7 Tbsp butter, unsalted
• 1/2 cup blond cane sugar
• 3 Tbsp amaranth flour (1 oz)
• 3 Tbsp quinoa flour (1 oz)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup pecans, chopped coarsely (1 oz)
• 3 eggs
• Pinch of salt

Steps:

• Preheat your oven at 350 F.
• Butter a 2 x 7 3/4 “rectangular mould and line it with parchment paper.
• Melt the chocolate with the butter in a double-boiler (or a bowl placed on top of a pot full of simmering water).
• Separate the egg yolks from the whites.
• Beat the yolks with the sugar and vanilla until light and white in colour.
• Add the chocolate preparation and mix until well incorporated.
• Add the nuts and the flours, and mix well until smooth in texture.
• Add a pinch of salt to the whites and beat them until light and firm. Fold in the previous preparation, making sure that it stays light.
• Pour the batter in the mould and cook for 45 min or so. Check if the cake is cooked by inserting the blade of a knife. It should come out almost dry, but not totally (the cake is moist).
• Remove the cake and let cool slightly before unmoilding. Let cool on a rack.

Next Blog we will be profiling Brown Rice, Ivory Teff & Millet Flour, to give you the scoop on incorporating these wonders into your gluten free diet.