Advice/info re flours

[Pine Marten]

In these days of lockdown Mr Marten and I have been trying out low carb recipes.

Before I go mad in Holland & Barrett buying more stuff, can anyone recommend alternatives to almond or coconut flour, eg. is chickpea flour good? Quinoa flour? I'm not keen on the taste of quinoa so is it ok in cakes? Any other suggestions?

I'm not a natural baker, and to be honest these past weeks have seen me bake for the first time!

 

[Thebearcametoo]

Chickpea or gram flour as it’s also called isn’t really a cake baking flour. It’s good for a sort of savory pancake like farinata or in bhajis etc. You can replace about half of wheat flour in a bread recipe but it gives an odd texture. Better in flat breads than full loaves. I have baked with coconut flour. It’s very thirsty and I’m not sure how well it would make cakes good for diabetes as I tend to use it with a lot of liquid sugars like maple syrup. It’s good for raw brownies and things like that but not the best in cakes (when I’ve used it) but I guess is similar in texture to almond so might work as a like for like replacement. I’ve not used quinoa flour. I would find recipes that interest you that already use the types of flours you’re looking at to give you an idea of the sorts of results you can get.
Are you struggling to get almond flour or just looking to try different things?

 

[Pine Marten]

Thanks, @Thebearcametoo, there is plenty of almond flour in our local Holland & Barrett, but it was more the environmental damage aspect of it that I was thinking of - although having read some more about it, the industrial production of normal flour isn't overly good for the environment either.

We try and be eco-friendly in what we buy and use at home, but perhaps it's a case of choosing which battles to fight rather that try to win all of them.

 

[Thebearcametoo]

Yeah I think it’s tricky to get the balance.