Rice flour is a gluten-free type of flour that you can use for cooking and baking. In this article you will find out what you should consider when using it and how you can make your own rice flour.
Rice flour: properties and uses
When making rice flour, machines grind raw rice grains into a fine flour. If polished rice is ground, you get a snow-white flour. Brown rice flour, on the other hand, is made from whole grain rice. Since the shell is preserved here, this flour is richer in minerals and vitamins.
Rice flour is often used as a binding agent in Asian dishes, especially for sauces and desserts
Rice flour is only suitable to a limited extent as a substitute for wheat flour. It is not suitable for fluffy pastries such as muffins, biscuit bases etc. Since the flour lacks gluten, the dough would not rise in the oven. However, you can use rice flour for flat pastries like flatbread.
If you want to bake gluten-free bread, it is advisable to combine rice flour with other gluten-free flours. So wheat flour cannot be replaced 1:1 with Asian flour. It is therefore best to consciously use gluten-free recipes when baking.
How healthy is rice flour?
According to the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), rice and rice products contain relatively high levels of inorganic arsenic compounds. These are considered carcinogenic. The BfR therefore recommends consuming rice in moderation and alternating it with other types of grain as part of a balanced diet. Parents in particular should take this into account when feeding small children.
Also make sure to buy organic rice flour. So you can be sure that farmers did not use synthetic pesticides during cultivation.
How to make your own rice flour
You can easily make rice flour yourself. It is up to you which type of rice you want to use. Usually rice flour consists of long grain rice. A grain mill is best suited for the production. However, since rice is softer than wheat, the grinder should be able to grind very finely. Otherwise the grains will be too large and the flour will become crumbly.
If you don’t have a grain mill, you can also grind rice flour in a stand mixer. Be careful not to add too many grains of rice to the blender at once. Otherwise, less powerful devices in particular can quickly become clogged. Therefore, only add one to two cups of grains of rice to the blender at a time. Then, on high, grind the grains into a fine flour.
Alternatively, you can grind rice in the coffee grinder. Slowly add the rice to the mill, spoonful by spoonful, so that nothing gets clogged here either. Then put the flour in an airtight container (e.g. a mason jar) and store it in a dry and cool place.
