Review: Better Batter All Purpose Flour

I have always enjoyed baking and when I started this gluten free diet I took it as a personal challenge to bake gluten free foods that actually tastes good. I had a lot of duds and quickly found out gluten free baking is hard. I searched online for recipes for gluten free flour blends but it quickly became overwhelming. Rice flour, potato starch, xanthan gum, coconut flour, almond flour, tapioca flour and so on. After looking at all these recipes I decided it was best to buy an all purpose flour mix even though it does cost more and I began to research which ones got the best reviews. Eventually I found Better Batter flour and with my first order discount on vitacost.com I decided to try it. I ordered the 20 oz box for $7.29.

Better Batter flour is a mix of rice flour, brown rice flour, tapioca starch, potato starch, potato flour, xanthan gum and pectin. It is vegetarian/vegan, OU Kosher and acceptable for Feingold I and II. What attracted me most to Better Batter is that it states cup for cup substitute for regular flour for most recipes. Once it arrived the first thing I baked with it were soft pretzel bites from a recipe that I found on the Better Batter website. I also baked mini pumpkin muffins and vanilla bean biscotti.

The soft pretzels tasted good but you could definitely they were gluten free. The mini pumpkin muffins tasted great but again you could tell they were gluten free, however I think the gluten free flour worked in it's favor making the muffin's texture soft and fluffy. The winner was using the Better Batter flour in the vanilla bean biscotti, it did not taste gluten free whatsoever and actually baked better than when I use to make this recipe using regular flour. Even though this flour is on the expensive side I would buy it again and use it for baking recipes but probably not for savory types of breads. The pros to this flour would be the texture it gives baked goods and it truly is a cup for cup substitute in recipes. The muffin and biscotti recipe I used were not a gluten free recipe and I substituted the regular flour with no problems. The cons would be the price, a 5 lb bag of flour costs $21.95 so I wouldn't do too much experimenting with this flour since it would get costly. Overall I would highly recommend buying this flour and trying it in sweeter recipes such as cookies, scones and muffins.