Willow's Gluten-Free Flour Blend

or:
My Ultra Top Secret Flour Mix, Divulged

When I went gluten-free, there weren't a lot of GF flour blends on the market yet. And those that were contained potato starch, which I was also eliminating. After several attempts with different blends, I settled on a simplified one inspired by a recipe in Living Without magazine.

To me, it's too fussy to have three different blends for different baked goods and I've had great success converting recipes with a 1:1 replacement of the following blend for wheat flour regardless of recipe (pizza crust vs. cookies vs. muffins). Should my baked goods fail, the blend is something I'll consider if the other fixes don't actually fix the recipe.

In a large bowl combine:
2.5 C Millet Flour
2 C Brown Rice Flour
4 C Tapioca Starch/Flour

I advise layering them in the bowl in that order, ending on the tapioca starch. Otherwise you're likely to create plumes of tapioca dust as you add the other flour. But hey, at least it's not sticky like powdered sugar! Gently whisk the flours together, more vigorously as the tapioca starch becomes incorporated.

Once it's well blended, transfer to an air-tight container and store in the fridge or freezer for prolonged life (some grains spoil more rapidly than others). I tend to move mine to the fridge in the hottest part of the summer, but we generally go through it so quickly it doesn't have time to go rancid. Don't use it if it smells off (so make sure to smell it as you make it and use it to become familiar with what it should smell like, I'd say that's a good idea for any flour).

This recipe can be halved but make sure to store any leftover bags of flour in the freezer until you mix up some more of your blend. I use Bob's Red Mill, buying one 23oz bag each of the brown rice and millet flours and two bags of the tapioca which makes this recipe twice (I think!).

As a general rule, I add half a teaspoon xanthan gum per cup of flour to the dry ingredients for non-yeast baked goods and 1 teaspoon per cup of flour for yeasted goods. At times, this addition may require you to add more liquid which is typically indicated by a batter so thick you can barely stir it. Gradually add more of your liquid until you get a consistency that looks more familiar to you (and couldn't be used to spackle a house).