Due to health reasons, in 2007, I switched from using bleached white wheat flour (a very common staple used by most Americans when cooking) to Rice Flour. I chose this particular flour because it did not have an odd taste or texture to it like Rye Flour. I especially did not want a flour that added a flavor of its own to what ever I was cooking or baking. At my regular grocery store, I was able to find medium grind Rice Flour; another plus in its favor. No extra trips to another store to purchase it.
The best part about cooking with Rice Flour is its diversity. You can make cakes, pancakes, crepes, cookies, and biscuits. I have further experimented with gravies and found adding a very small amount of corn starch to the gravy mixture with Rice Flour, Rice Milk, garlic salt, and meat drippings creates a smooth and tasty gravy.
While baking with Rice Flour I noticed it to be a lighter flour compared to the bleached white wheat flour. This aspect of Rice Flour removed the sifting process completely. No sifting meant less time spent preparing batter for cakes, cookies, and other confections. I am all for saving time.
One of the drawbacks I found with using Rice Flour is that it takes more Rice Flour (compared to the bulkier bleached white wheat flour) to use in order to obtain the same amount, size, or number of item cooking. For example it takes 1 1/4 cups of Rice Flour to make the same as one would with 1 cup of bleached white wheat flour. I have had to adjust by adding the extra 1/4 cup of Rice Flour whenever a recipe out of a cookbook required 1 cup of flour; or 1/2 cup if the recipe listed 2 cups of flour. Sometimes I had to by trial and error, as in the case of pancakes, crepes and biscuits, come up with my own recipe from scratch because Rice Flour’s texture is smoother than ordinary bleached white wheat flour and it takes less baking soda, baking powder, and salt to make and have these items come out tasty with proper presentation. There is nothing worse than having a funny looking and peculiar tasting pancake, crepe or biscuit because of too much baking soda, baking powder, or salt. For some inexplicable reason, I found cakes and cookies cooked perfectly as long as I remembered the extra 1/4 cup of Rice Flour per 1 cup of flour requested if using a cookbook recipe.
Not the same experience with baking bread. It takes a lot of Rice Flour to make one loaf and the texture is not the same as one gets with rye or wheat flours. The bread I made out of Rice Flour had the texture of a cake, but looked like a bread. I did not care for it. Still experimenting with adding other types of gluten-free flours (oat, buckwheat, almond, etc) with Rice Flour in order to come up with a good bread. Have been able to make tasty dinner rolls with an Oat Flour and Rice Flour mixture (1/2 of each).
If you are concerned about wheat gluten, Rice Flour is gluten-free. There is no gluten in rice. The cost for medium grind Rice Flour is about the same as unbleached wheat flour, a little more than the bleached white flour. I feel, because of my dietary concerns, Rice Flour is well worth its price. There are many dishes, sweets, and gravies that need flour that I have not had to give up eating, because I was able to substitute with Rice Flour.
Alicia Rose, personal experience 2007 to present
Flour Power, article by Beth Hillson, Living Without Magazine website: http://www.livingwithout.com/2010/decjan10-flour.html
Rice Flour, Wikipedia website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_flour
Rice, Wikipedia website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice
