Flour Talk #1: 1-1 Flour

taking a stroll through the flours....

1-1 FLOUR // FLOUR TALK // (✿◕ ˬ ◕)

There are a lot of gluten free flours around. That picture up there ^ is all the ones I have right now [unfortunately the name on the sorghum flour is covered up]. & I thought I also had coconut flour but after many searchings, & even cleaning out the fridge, it was discovered that I’d used it up. Huh! *I obviously have too many flours, because it’s right there in the photo, 3rd from the right on the top

Q: do you NEED all those flours?
A: no. absolutely not.

unfortunately, i like to Experiment. & if you’ve ever tried to bake anything gluten free, you’ve probably discovered the big Issue of Flour, which is there are TOO MANY OF THEM and they are all different. It isn’t like with wheat flour, which Behaves. Recipes with wheat flour are, well, for one thing they’re written with wheat flour in mind, so there’s that. But also, wheat flour is kind. It is approachable. It stays where you put it when you bake with it [this is because of the gluten]. (all wheat flour has gluten in it, but with some breads you add essence of gluten¹ to it to get it even MORE fancy.)

[p.s. if you’re reading this on substack & not in your email, you can read the footnote text by hovering over the number]

If you make any gluten free baking you will soon discover it’s a whole bunch of Science and also Disasters. You may also discover that many of the people online who claim to have figured out the Perfect Flour Recipe are lying.²

So why not just use a flour mix that you buy? These things, usually called a 1-1 flour, claim to recreate “flour” in a kind of bakeable way, so that you can take any³ wheat-flour-containing recipe and just swap in the gluten-free-ified version, created out of a mix of many other flours to the perfect scientific awesomeness of not having to think about what you’re doing.

It’s fake.

Well ok, it’s not actually fake. 1-1 flours do actually exist and they do work, sometimes. If you check that picture I’ve got, there’s some in the blue bag on the far left, lowest line. I actually use that flour sometimes, unlike some of those other unfortunate bags of flour that have never been opened for various reasons.

[yeah there are 18 different bags of flour in that picture. only 17 types, though. chickpea flour is twice.]

So here’s the thing. What a 1-1 flour does is assume it knows what kind of recipe you’re making and go from there. It’ll work nicely enough for most things. It’ll sort of even rise, mostly. The texture won’t be awful. Will it be great? …probably not. The other issue with 1-1 flours is that many of them come with powdered milk in them. they do this for… er, reasons? well y’know I guess it adds to their recipe, Scientifically. unfortunately if you don’t want dairy in your recipe that, uh. won’t work.

SO…

what to pay attention to when choosing store-bought 1-1 flour:

1. does it have dairy in it? (if you don’t want that; otherwise, you don’t have to pay attention to this bit)

2. does it actually work in the recipes you’re trying to use it to swap for? (not all 1-1 flours will work for fancy bread that’s supposed to rise, or for really light pastry-type items)

3. does the texture suck? (unfortunately you can’t test this without buying & trying)

4. does the taste suck? (same trouble as above)

#3 & 4 are the ones that end up being the key honestly. Most store-bought 1-1 flours will tell you what they’re able to, generally, do. they also will have ingredients lists. but will they tell you if you think they’re disgusting? no not really.

Let’s take Bob’s Red Mill’s⁴ gluten free 1-1 baking flour, & their gluten free all-purpose baking flour, as examples. The all-purpose claims to be better for yeasted baking breads that have to rise; the 1-1 can work for pretty much everything else. So far so good. What you won’t know until you try it is that the all-purpose flour tastes totally disgusting. What you can do if you’ve ended up saddled with it, is stick a small bit of that flour in with a bunch of other flours, to balance out the taste. But just don’t buy it in the first place, ok?

The 1-1 flour is totally… okay. Well, here’s a better way to show the comparison:

Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose Flour:

sucks ✓ / passable ☐ / great ☐ / perfect ☐

Bob’s Red Mill 1-1 Flour:

sucks ☐ / passable ✓ / great ☐ / perfect ☐

Now passable is… it’s, it’s passable. It’s like. You won’t enjoy it that much⁵, but you won’t want to stick it in a trash bag and jump on it. The real issue I have with this 1-1 flour is that, while it tastes fine—& by fine I mean it is completely bland, nothing to recommend it although fortunately inoffensive—it has a kind of "dusty" texture to it that I don't love. It can still be a good shortcut flour for adding to one or two others (usually almond) & you can get a really nice result from that. So by all means buy it... but don't expect it to Actually act as a "1-1 replacement" that you'll be happy with. It needs fiddling. It needs other flours.

(So why not just buy a different 1-1 flour then? A few reasons: • the most popular versions, like Cup4Cup, have milk in them. • Bob’s Red Mill is available in regular grocery stores near me & some of those other brands you have to buy online. • most of those 1-1 flours aren’t super nutritious • 1-1 is a misnomer since you’re gonna be able to bake only some things with it anyway, so why not try Experimenting instead?⁶)

That’s most of what gluten free baking is. Just dumping in a whole bunch of flours until you’ve created the perfect franken-flour that does what you need it to do.

In most cases. However, if you’re really lazy, there is one, amazing flour that you can use⁷ all on it’s own…

~ to be continued ~

1. not the official name

2. either that or their idea of a perfect flour is a sad sad thing

3. limitations apply

4. fun game: count how many flours in that picture are Bob’s Red Mill. i’ll wait…

5. at least i won’t

6. to the detriment of everyone around me

7. again, for most things