Multiple Flours
…flour, that is! Why just just one when you can mix and match to your heart’s desire? Just be sure to remember a few rules when baking standard recipes (gluten-free is a different ball game):
- You can freely substitute gluten-containing flours for one another. (Gluten is a protein found in some grains.) These flours include: wheat, kamut, spelt, rye, and barley.
- If you’d like to use some non-gluten-containing flours, you can substitute up to half of the gluten-containing-flours for ones that don’t. Case in point: if the recipe calls for one cup of wheat flour, you could use 1/2 cup wheat (or kamut, spelt, barley, or rye) and then 1/2 cup of anything else (nut flour, bean flour, grains-without-gluten flour). Substituting for more than half will require additional tweaking so as not to affect the final texture of the dish.
- While wheat, spelt, and kamut have a fairly similar taste, rye and barley do not–rye is quite powerful and heavy, and barley falls somewhere between rye and the lighter, more-familiar taste of wheat.
- The more different flours you use, the better off you are–food sensitivities/allergies can stem from overeating too much of a single ingredient (i.e., wheat). Besides, variety is good for the body and mind.
Lemon-Coconut Agave Muffins
I used the pictured combination of five flours (2 without gluten, 3 with) to make a batch of lemon-coconut muffins. Try coming up with your own variations!
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Prepare standard muffin tin by either greasing each cup or filling them with cupcake liners.
Whisk together in large bowl:
Total of 2 cups of flour (I used teff, brown rice, spelt, kamut, and wheat)
1 T. baking powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt
Whisk together in smaller bowl:
2 eggs
1/2 cup agave nectar
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 T. lemon juice
1 tsp. vanilla
Stir liquid ingredients into dry ones until mixture is just moist. (Batter will still be a bit lumpy.) Spoon into muffin tray and bake for about 15 minutes. Do a toothpick test to see if the muffins are done–if they aren’t, bake for another 3 minutes and test again.
Enjoy!
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Tags: agave nectar, baking, flours, gluten-free, lemon, muffin
