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Several people responded to my email about the continued use (or overuse) of rice flour in 
purchased GF flour mixes, and asked if I would share my flour mixes that I make up myself. First, 
let me say that I'm no kitchen chemist. Everything I do I have found either here or in a variety of 
GF cookbooks. I prefer a flour mix that includes bean and sorghum flours. I seek out recipes that 
call for these. However, what I have on hand in my cupboard are two bean flour mixes that Betty 
Hagman has published (four bean and featherlight bean) in her cookbooks and a brown rice 
mixture (see below) that uses Authentic Foods super fine brown rice flour.  

For those who cannot eat bean flours, I prefer to use sorghum and have had success with a 
mixture of sorghum and tapioca starch and potato starch. I also like to use almond meal as a 
substitute once in a while, but this is expensive to use on a regualr basis.  Donna Washburn and 
Heather Butt have written a wonderful GF cookbook called 125 Best GF Recipes in which they call 
for a variety of non-rice flour mixtures. Their chocolate chip cookie recipe is the best and uses 
sorghum flour, bean flour, and tapioca starch.

My mistake this time was due to the fact that I was following a newly discovered recipe that called 
for a "GF flour cookie mix." Low on my brown rice mixture, I grabbed a box of a cookie mix on my 
shelf  made from rice flour...with disasterous results (it was like eating sand). When I try this 
recipe again (after going to the store to replace the 1/2 lb of butter, one bag of chocolate chips 
and dried cherries!), I will most likely use the brown rice mix with a bit of sorghum added in.

I wish I had a handy answer to a mix that works well with all recipes, but unfortunately our recipes 
are too complicated for a simple answer. Here is the info on the brown rice mix from a previous 
posting on this list serve:

In the November Gourmet there is an article, Sweets Without Wheat - Annalise
Roberts started experimenting with gf flour substitutes because her son was a
celiac.  She suggests:

2 cups  extra fine brown rice flour (by Authentic Foods)
2/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup tapioca flour

I hope this helps those of you still searching for a great GF flour mixture. And if anyone else has a 
recipe for a mixture to share, please do so. We are all here to learn, right?

Joy

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