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See why.The Best Store-Bought Gluten-Free Flour Blends
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What You Need To Know
In traditional baking recipes, which all-purpose flour you use isn’t terribly important. That’s because all of them contain the same single ingredient—wheat flour. Yes, protein levels in the wheat will vary slightly among different flours, but this typically has a minimal effect on the finished product. But in gluten-free baking recipes that call for a gluten-free flour blend, the blend used has significantly more impact on the final baked good. That’s because each flour blend relies on a mix of different ingredients, yielding cookies, cakes, breads, and muffins with varying textures, colors, and flavors.
To find the best, we tested 10 store-bought all-purpose gluten-free flour blends in three well-vetted gluten-free test kitchen recipes for chocolate chip cookies, blueberry muffins, and sandwich bread. Twenty tasters from our test kitchen participated in these blind taste tests, which also included samples of each recipe made with the ATK homemade flour blend (the control). Tasters were asked to rate how close each sample came to the control.
While all of the blends produced edible cookies, muffins, and loaves of bread, there were significant textural and flavor differences. Our two favorite blends are made with neutral-tasting white rice flour as their main ingredient, and they produced relatively light, tasty baked goods. While some of the lower scoring options also included white rice flour, they either contained additional distinctly flavored ingredients (like sorghum or bean flours) whose flavors were detectable in the baked goods, or they made breads, cookies, and muffins with heavy, dense textures.
For the best results with our gluten-free recipes, we recommend that you use our custom-designed homemade ATK flour blend, which has the added advantage of being cheaper than store-bought blends. If you choose to use a store-bought blend, King Arthur Gluten-Free Multi-Purpose Flour is our winner. Our second choice is Betty Crocker All-Purpose Gluten Free Rice Flour Blend.
A WEIGHTY ISSUE
When using a store-bought all-purpose flour blend, we strongly recommend that you weigh it (as opposed to measuring by volume). Because each blend is made with different ingredients, it packs into dry cup measures differently. A scale ensures that you have the right amount of flour, no matter the blend.
Everything We Tested
Recommended
This blend performed well across the board in terms of delivering good structure and having a neutral, not-too-starchy flavor. It finished at or near the top for all three recipes. A few tasters found it too sweet in cookies and muffins, but overall it won out for its superior flavor. Some tasters noted a grainy, gritty texture, but it wasn’t enough to significantly downgrade the flour.
This versatile blend performed well in all three recipes, particularly in the chocolate chip cookies. Tasters thought its flavor was very similar to our homemade blend. In terms of texture, a handful of tasters noted a “bouncy” texture in muffins and a “gummy” crumb in breads.
Recommended with reservations
This blend made good muffins but failed to satisfy tasters when baked into cookies and bread. Due to the relatively high proportion of potato starch in the mix, tasters found the bread and cookies to be “doughy” and “pasty.” The blend also changed the way the baked goods performed in the oven, producing “squat” muffins and cookies that “didn’t spread.”
This blend works better for savory recipes, as our tasters did not like the distinctive taste of bean flour in their baked goods. There were complaints that items tasted “stale,” and most panelists picked up strong “earthy” notes. Structurally speaking, muffins were “dense” and “crumbly,” cookies spread into very thin crisps, and while bread had a “good structure,” many noted that it was “dry.”
Made up primarily of cornstarch, this blend left a starchy coating on the tongue and produced a “tight” texture in baked goods. Many tasters complained that the samples were “gummy.”
Since this blend includes some of the most unique ingredients (pea hull fiber, acacia gum, and rice protein) we’ve seen in any blend, we were interested to see how it would perform in our recipes. Unfortunately, the added ingredients came with additional flavors that our tasters didn’t appreciate. Muffins had a “bitter vegetal” flavor, cookies had a distinct “bean” taste, and the bread was “sour.”
This blend fell short in both flavor and texture, producing muffins that were “heavy” and “dusty,” cookies that tasters called “gritty” and “biscuity,” and bread with an “odd flavor” and “lemon-like aftertaste.” Many tasters found the “almondy” and “nutty” tastes in the finished products to be out of place in the bread.
Although tasters were partial to the muffins made with this blend, the chocolate chip cookies and sandwich bread fared poorly. Many noted that the samples had a “grainy” quality and that the bread had an “off vegetal flavor.”
While tasters were partial to the “sweet buttery flavor” of baked goods made with this flour blend, the “gritty” texture distracted from the taste. Cookies were “crunchy,” muffins had a “strange coarseness,” and loaves of bread were “tough and chewy.” All of the samples failed to rise as much as the control, resulting in squat breads and muffins.
Bread made with the Trader Joe’s blend had “good structure,” a “tall rise,” and a “tender” crumb; it was one of the favorites of the tasting panel. The chocolate chip cookies and blueberry muffins, however, didn’t stand up against the rest, as they “lacked structure” and had an “off aftertaste.”
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The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing.
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