Stop and smell the flours

Well, there are two main reasons for my relative lack of posting of late. The first is that I've just been having trouble getting back into the LJ groove; the second is that there's not too much more to report. Which is good! Because baking has become far less experimental, and more about just making food. Here's the scoop on the flour mixture I use (this yields just shy of four pounds):

<h2>Most-purpose flour</h2><ul><li>2 (16-oz) bags white rice flour</li><li>1 (14-oz) bag tapioca starch</li><li>1 (12-oz) bag potato starch</li><li>1 cup millet flour</li><li>2 1/2 Tbsp xanthan gum</li></ul>

(Net weights are based on the flours I've found at the Asian market. The exact ratios don't seem to be too incredibly critical.)

No protein, you ask? Ah, observant you are! I've been finding that the protein is redundant if I'm making cookies, muffins, or anything else that contains eggs. Since that means extra cost, and extra protein intake (which isn't great for the ol' kidneys), I abstain when mixing batches of flour. I'll add some protein powder to the mix if there are no eggs, though&mdash;as well as extra xanthan gum if I'm making something like bread or bagels, which require more gluten-like oomph. About a tablespoon of soy protein powder and a teaspoon of extra xanthan gum per cup of flour usually does it.

I find the texture with this mixture is closer to wheat flour than any of the component flours/starches, which I believe is because wheat has an unusual starch granule size distribution. If you measure the starch granules in wheat flour, you'll find two predominant sizes. Almost all other starches have a more bell curve&ndash;like distribution around a single size. So my theory is that having a combination of flours creates the same textural effect as wheat's dual-maximum distribution.

Like I said last time, I use this flour in just about everything. It often takes slightly more of this flour to get the right texture&mdash;up to 10% more&mdash;but otherwise I've been just substituting it for all-purpose flour in regular cookbook recipes.

I will continue to post recipes if I come up with things. For example, the English muffins I made a few weeks ago were actually an act of invention, since there aren't boatloads of English muffin recipes floating around out there. Will post it next.