How to Cook With Rice Flour

Rice flour provides a gluten-free alternative to wheat flour, but in cooking and baking it does not produce the same results as wheat flour. Keep in mind that rice flour absorbs more liquid, making baked goods more crumbly. Gluten protein gives yeast breads their texture, and since rice flour lacks this protein, you need to make some adjustments to your bread recipes before using rice flour in them. For best results in substitutions, replace low gluten cake or pastry flour with rice flour. See the Resource section for recipes using rice flour.

Things You'll Need

• Potato starch
• Part tapioca flour

Instructions

1. Whisk a tablespoon of rice flour into baked custards, sauces and puddings to thicken the mixture during cooking.

2. Substitute a portion of all-purpose flour with rice flour. Examine your recipe for the total amount of all-purpose flour and divide that amount by four. Substitute one quarter of the all-purpose flour with rice flour for best results in baking. For instance, a recipe requiring 1 cup of all purpose flour, you could use 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour and 1/4 cup of rice flour.

3. Completely substitute cake or pastry flour with rice flour in delicate pastries. Decrease the amount of rice flour used by substituting 7/8 cup of rice flour for every cup of cake or pastry flour and add an extra egg for every cup of flour replaced in baked goods. A cake recipe requiring 1 cup of cake flour and 2 eggs would change to 7/8 cup of rice flour and 3 eggs.

4. Create an all-purpose flour substitution to use in a 1:1 equivalent in recipes requiring all-purpose wheat flour. Combine together 6 cups rice flour, 2 cups potato starch and 1 cup of tapioca flour. Replace each cup of all purpose flour with 1 cup of this mixture.

References

• Food Subs: All Purpose Flour
• White Rice Flour
• Using Alternative Flours

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• Recipes Using Rice Flour