Gluten free flour blends are, really, the most important resource on this entire gluten free blog. A slightly more complex blend of flours (like my Better Than Cup4Cup Blend), including xanthan gum, is essential to success in most of my gluten free recipes. But lately I find myself using a more basic, 3-ingredient flour blend without the benefit of xanthan gum in some recipes, and it’s strangely liberating. Woohoo! I still believe that xanthan gum is a critical component of most gluten free baking, but this basic gluten free flour blend is an important resource, too, in a certain type of more delicate recipe. Scroll all the way down for the infographic that makes short work of remembering how to make this simple flour blend (it has also taken up permanent residence on my gluten free resources pages), but first, let’s review all the wonderful recipes this blend has made possible so far. Who knows where we’ll go from here!

[If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know the drill with the clickable collage, but just in case—hover over each photo for the recipe title, then click the picture to open a new window with that post and the entire recipe]

Here’s the 10¢ tour of these recipes made with my xanthan gum-free basic gluten free flour blend (remember – the links are all above):

Gluten Free Crêpes: The ultimate in delicate, crêpe batter without xanthan gum swirls around that frying pan with ease.

Gluten Free Fluffy Chocolate Chip Pancakes: These gluten free pancakes are made extra fluffy by the yogurt in the batter, but without xanthan gum the batter is still easily pourable.

Gluten Free Chocolate Pudding: Most chocolate pudding is made with cornstarch, but cornstarch will cause pudding to leak liquid when it’s chilled. This pudding, made with my basic xanthan gum-free gluten free flour blend, is smooth as silk—hot or cold.

Gluten Free Cornmeal Pancakes: I have made these pancakes both with a more traditional gluten free flour blend and with my basic xanthan gum-free blend, and the xanthan gum-free variety has a much nicer bite.

Classic Gluten Free Pancakes: Ah, the classic gluten free pancake. You can make it with a more traditional gluten free flour blend, one that contains xanthan gum, but you have to begin with a super hot skillet and work quick quick quick, as the batter will thicken as it stands. This xanthan gum-free pancake batter pours with ease and makes for a tender pancake that tastes just like you remember.

Gluten Free Microwave Chocolate Cake for 1: Disappointed by every other gluten free microwave cake I had ever made, I finally got it! No xanthan gum in the flour (along with a few other secrets I spill in that post and recipe) makes for the perfect moist, tender cake for 1—even once it’s cool. Quick chocolate fix!

Finally, as promised, here’s that handy infographic with the basic blend itself (which also lives on the Resources page with all the other All Purpose Gluten Free Flour Blends). And Pin It so you don’t lose track of it!:

Love,
Me

P.S. Don’t forget your copy of Gluten-Free on a Shoestring Quick & Easy! Your support means the world to me. For real.

There used to be a recipe for gluten free rice pudding on this blog. It was an early one, too. Soon after I started a blog (March 2009) and long before I even know that blog was short for web log and even longer before I knew what web log even meant, I put up recipes for different gluten free puddings: chocolate, rice, vanilla, even tapioca, if memory serves. Variations of some of them ended up in the first Gluten-Free on a Shoestring cookbook. But somehow many of those early blog recipes disappeared into the ether. I even got some upset emails from some very flustered early readers about that very disappearance. It’s taken me this long, but stovetop no-bake sweets are back on the blog, baby!

It’s easy to forget how elegant something as simple as rice pudding can be. There’s no flour and no cornstarch, and not even any egg yolks. You’ll need nothing but the arborio rice plus some milk to make this thick and creamy gluten free pudding. Sometimes, when I’m feeling like feeling virtuous, I make it with brown arborio rice (Lundberg family farms makes it). It will tolerate any sort of milk at all, as long as it’s not nonfat, and you can dial back or dial up the sugar, too.

Single servings of gluten free pudding (like we did with this no-cornstarch gluten free chocolate pudding), especially in these little 4 ounce Weck jars, are perfect for stashing in the back of the refrigerator for an after-school, or a late night, snack on the double.

 I like to steep some whole cinnamon and whole nutmeg in the milk, too, just to dress it up. And all you need to remember about cooking the rice is not to overcook it. Simmer it in water just until it has absorbed most of the liquid before pouring in the simmering milk.

If you’d like an even quicker and easier version of rice pudding (one that’s dairy-free, too) that requires almost no tending, kindly turn to page 179 of Gluten-Free on a Shoestring Quick & Easy. That one even has a thin and lightly sweet crust on top that just … sends me.

There are lots of different recipes for pão de queijo. But this time I went with a copycat recipe of an original cheese bread dry mix that shall remain nameless since they sent me an e-mail telling me to remove reference to their product, which honestly is little more than tapioca flour and salt.* I’m still a bit partial to pan de bono, but I know so many of you love your mixes from this company and, to be honest, they feel like smoke and mirrors to me so I’d at least like you to have the option to do it for less at home. I’m nothing if not cheap (for reference, see the name of the blog).

*This original mix has “modified manioc starch” as one of its lesser ingredients, which it claims is necessary for binding the wet and dry ingredients. Since both the dough and the bread are extremely chewy and stretchy without any modified manioc starch, I can’t for the life of me imagine how that is necessary. So I didn’t knock myself out trying to find some of my very own modified manioc.

Remember, when you buy the boxed mix, you still have to add allllll of these other ingredients (eggs, oil, cheese, water or milk – I used milk instead of water and dry milk, like in this mix, so you don’t have to go hunting for dry milk). And a note about cost-savings: This nameless company sells its 7.5 ounce original cheese bread mix for about $2.50 (on average, being kind). The gluten free tapioca starch/flour necessary for this recipe costs about $1.12 (on average). So you don’t have to take off your shoes (like I did), that’s less than half as expensive.

In my recipe directions, I recommend your chilling the dough before baking it, but really it isn’t entirely necessary. Chilling the dough simply makes it stiffer, which allows you to make a slightly more round roll. But a truly spherical pão de queijo would require a different, somewhat more complicated method entirely. So I chill the dough, but I consider that an optional step.

Since pão de queijo (or Brazilian cheese bread) essentially has only one dry ingredient (other than salt), and that dry ingredient is a starch (tapioca flour/starch), it won’t brown much unless you seriously overbake it. And if you seriously overbake the rolls, they will be dry as a bone. They should have a thin crust on the outside, and be quite chewy and stretchy on the inside. These are not intended to be light and fluffy rolls. They’re kinda fun and quick and easy to throw together, though, and when you make it yourself without the mix, it costs about half as much. Win-win? I’m here for you, in all my cheap and shoestringy glory. You my homies. You can officially stop paying double the price for a box of tapioca starch now. Please?

Chocolate gluten free Flourless Cake for 1 (just 3 ingredients!) was big news. Huge. And it has that whole molten lava thing going on, too. But it has eggs, and many of you asked if it could be made in the microwave. Sadly, no. I promised to work on a microwave “mug cake.” You need instant gratification! And this tender gluten free cake for 1 is different. It’s meant to be microwaved for just about 1 minute at 1000 watts (you can easily adjust any microwave down with power levels), and there are all sorts of secrets to its delicate, non-rubbery success. But you know I’ll tell you all my secrets, right?

This cake for 1 is the only microwave cake I have ever had that doesn’t become hard as a rock or bouncy as a ball as it cools. When I started working on this recipe, I figured I’d give you instructions for how to make it in the microwave, and when I made it again just for myself I’d stick to the oven. I’d just never met a microwave cake I could really get on with. Until…

now. This cake need only be made in the microwave. Even when it’s not too hot to turn on the oven (I see you around the corner, summertime). There are, of course, a few secrets to success in this microwave cake for 1.

First secret to success: what’s not in there. No xanthan gum. For real. Just a basic, xanthan gum-free gluten free flour blend. And no eggs. Hey, you can even make this vegan by using vegan chips, nondairy milk and vegetable shortening in place of butter.

Second secret to success: adding a few chocolate wafers or chips to the middle of the batter. They melt pretty gently in the microwave, and help keep the cake moist as it cooks.

Third and final secret to success: Adjusting the power of your microwave to approximate 1000 watts by microwaving at a reduced power level if necessary. For example, my microwave is a basic, countertop LG model. I had absolutely no idea what its wattage was. So I looked it up! It’s 1200 watts. I either microwave the cake for up to 1 minute 20 seconds at 80% power, or closer to 1 minute at 90% power. Don’t be afraid to stop the microwave, check with a toothpick, and restart it. And err on the side of undercooking, rather than overcooking. Trust me!

Without further ado, I give you the best gluten free chocolate microwave cake for 1 anyone has ever had, anywhere (too much?):

I hope the weather is warming, and the strawberries are flowing where you live. The best thing about this gluten free roasted strawberry cake? If your strawberries are not at their peak (like mine), this is the cake for you! Let’s make the most of those less-than-perfect, early strawberries in this gluten free cake that stays moist and like-new on the counter for days—if it lasts that long.

Maybe you have a batch of my make-your-own gluten-free vanilla cake mix from page 193 of Gluten-Free on a Shoestring Quick & Easy in your pantry? Use that in place of the dry ingredients in the recipe below (flour, xanthan gum, salt, baking powder, baking soda and sugar). It’ll work just fine! You could even make this dairy-free if you use the dairy-free vanilla cake mix on page 195, and replace the butter with an equal amount of melted and cooled vegetable shortening. So many options!

Want even more options? Make this a simple gluten free strawberry cake, and 86 the strawberry-roasting. Just eliminate that step in the directions, and bake the cake for about an hour instead of 40 minutes, as the fresh, unroasted strawberries will hold more juice than the roasted ones do.

Before you make that decision, though, just look at what happens when you roast the strawberries first. They release much of their juice and it caramelizes in the oven, turning even the wimpiest strawberries into sticky, bright red delights, with the deep flavor to match.

Then just nest them, cut side down, on top of the smooth, gluten free vanilla cake batter, and bake away.

The cake will really be so moist that it keeps for days, just sitting there on the counter, loosely covered (if you have a cloche that fits over a cake plate, that’s perfect, but some plastic wrap will do just fine). The tricks for success are: (1) cover the cake in the oven if it starts to brown too quickly, (2) bake it in a light-colored metal pan or it will bake too quickly on the outside, and (3) bake only until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean, not clean-as-a-whistle, as the top layer should have a bit of a custard-like texture.