Friday's Flours: Glutinous Rice Flour

This flour is a fairly recent discovery for me, but it has been a fabulous one! Do not despair fellow gluten sufferer. Glutinous does not mean "containing gluten" but "sticky." The type of rice from which this flour is taken is often called sticky rice, and it is also known as sweet rice. Of course, this is the flour that you are used to hearing - sweet rice flour.

I've used several brands so far, but the only one that really works well for cakes and breads (for me, at least) is this kind that I pick up at our local Asian food market. I know, I know. It is hard to know for sure the gluten content of food produced outside this country. So far, my little guy has had no problems with this flour. Also, I am trying other types of sweet rice flour to see if they work as well.

The comparison with Bob's Red Mill sweet rice flour is obvious straight out of the bag. I know they love their stone ground method, but their flour is much more course than the kind I like, and it just doesn't bake up as well. I'm thinking about trying to grind it up a little finer in my high powered blender, and I'll let you know how that turns out.

I've also ordered the Ener-G brand of sweet rice flour, and I'll let you know how that turns out as well.

But for now, I find that nothing works better than the glutinous rice flour in cakes, cookies, and brownies. So now that I've explained that to you, you can expect that brownie recipe I've been promising you early next week!!