A Gluten-Free Flour Taste Test: Chocolate Chip Cookies

I Tested Five Gluten-Free Flour Blends—Here’s What Happened

If you've been gluten-free for more than five minutes, you've probably stood in the baking aisle staring at all the bags of gluten-free flour and wondering: Which one am I supposed to buy?

I've been baking gluten-free for years, and I remember that feeling.

Recently, while working on my upcoming book, Gluten-Free: Now What?, I needed to choose a flour for the chocolate chip cookie recipe in the baking chapter. I could have simply recommended the flour I normally use, Authentic Foods Steve's Gluten Free Cake Flour Blend. But that wouldn’t work for someone standing in the store. The flour I use is amazing, but I order it directly from the mill in 25lb bags. That is not going to be practical for most people. 

Five Gluten-Free Flours. One Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe.

I chose four commercially available gluten-free flour blends and my favorite as the baseline:

• Authentic Foods Steve's GF Cake Flour Blend

• King Arthur Gluten-Free Measure for Measure

• King Arthur Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour

• Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour

• Great River Milling Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour

The four flour mixes I used for this taste test

Every batch was made using the same basic chocolate chip cookie recipe. Same ingredients. Same method. Same oven. Same temperature and time.

I intentionally kept the cookies basic. Normally, I'd zhuzh them up a little—by adding two kinds of chocolate, both chips and wafers. I love the addition of melty creamy disks! 

But this wasn't a test of my best chocolate chip cookie recipe. I wanted to test the flour using a basic chocolate chip recipe. 

Comparing Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Four adults in my family evaluated the cookies—two who eat gluten-free and two supporters. Three kids enthusiastically participated too. The kids’ scores weren't included in the final numbers. The youngest gave all of them a 10 on a scale of 1 to 5. The older two gave them all 5s. They love their grandma! But the data collection was skewed. 

Each adult evaluated the cookies for flavor, texture and appearance, with five points possible in each category.

And the Winner Was...

Rank	Flour Blend	Flavor	Texture	Appearance	Ave.Total
1	Authentic Foods Steve's GF Cake Flour	5.00	5.00	5.00	15.00
2	King Arthur Measure for Measure	4.25	4.50	4.75	13.50
3	Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1	4.63	4.25	4.25	13.13
4	King Arthur GF All-Purpose	4.25	4.25	3.25	11.75
5	Great River Milling GF All-Purpose	3.50	4.00	4.00	11.50

Samples of each cookie for comparison. Note the different textures and shapes, some thicker and others thin from spreading across the pan.

Authentic Foods Steve’s GF Cake Flour received a perfect score. I wasn't terribly surprised. Steve's is the best for pastries, cakes, croissants, and I love the results. It is recommended in one of my favorite cookbooks, Gluten Free Patisserie. 

King Arthur Measure for Measure performed better over all the others, particularly in texture and appearance. This is the choice if you’re looking for an all-round flour blend, one that would likely be carried in stores, and at an affordable price. 

The King Arthur All-Purpose was low on appearance. The recipe I used called for Konjac powder but that wasn’t enough binder. The cookies spread but still tasted good particularly for those who like the Tates style of crispy cookies. 

The Great River GF All Purpose lost points in all three categories but mostly due to the flavor. It had a slight aftertaste.

The Number That Caught My Attention: Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1

Look at the flavor score for Bob's Red Mill: 4.63.That's remarkably close to the 5.00 earned by Authentic Foods—and Bob's is less expensive and close in texture and appearance.

However, flavor is where I want to start strong.

So Bob's is going back into my mixing bowl for recipe development. This time, I'm not making the basic test cookie. I'm going to make my chocolate chip cookie—with both chocolate chips and chocolate wafers—and see whether I can improve the texture and appearance while keeping that flavor my testers enjoyed.

Why Test Gluten-Free Flour Blends

And this is exactly why I teach that one gluten-free flour blend doesn't behave exactly like another. What's in the bag matters. The recipe matters. And what you're trying to bake matters.

Sometimes it's the flour that gives you a great starting point and lets you do the rest.Stay tuned. Bob's has earned itself a second date with my chocolate chip cookies.

And this time, I'm bringing more chocolate.

Disclaimer: I purchased all five flours myself, so this wasn't a sponsored experiment. Although, one flour did make a rather dramatic entrance. My order for King Arthur Measure for Measure was delivered from Amazon—by drone! Apparently the chocolate chip cookie experiment reached a level of urgency that required air support.