If your baking cupboard is looking a bit bare right now, we’ve got plenty of ideas for cakes and bakes that don’t require wheat flour.
What does flour do in baking?
Flour provides a scaffold – the network of gluten proteins activated when flour comes into contact with liquid ingredients are what gives sponge its structure and bread its backbone. Knowing this, you might think that baking without flour is a fruitless pursuit, but it can be done – either by using wheat-free substitutes or clever replacements that contain it within their ingredients.
Please note that some of the recipes mentioned below do still contain wheat and or/gluten, so if you are cooking for someone with an allergy or gluten intolerance, please double check the ingredients before baking.
Here's everything you need to know about flour-free baking, plus some of our favourite flour-free recipes to try...
Best wheat flour alternative
Available from even a basic corner shop, cornflour can be used to make excellent baked goods, particularly chocolate recipes which require a slightly gooey, fudgy result, such as these Bounty Brownies or our exceptional Salted Chocolate Cookies.
How to make pastry without flour
If you want to make a killer wheat-flour free pastry, rice flour works wonders. Use the pastry in our lemon tart recipe (just don’t add the zest) to make a sweet pastry that’s perfect for all kinds of desserts or just embrace a satisfying shortcut and grab a pack of pre-made pastry
Replace flour with eggs
In the absence of flour, the protein network contained in whisked eggs or egg white can mimic chains of gluten, giving a fluffy sponge with a cloud-like lightness. Our flourless chocolate cake is super-soft and gluten free, or you can give our three-ingredient chocolate cake a go.
Made with whisked eggs, a yule log isn’t just for Christmas, either – make it at any other time of year, decorate it simply with a dusting of cocoa or icing sugar, and it’s an elegant chocolate roulade.
Best flour alternatives
If you don’t fancy trying your hand at a flour substitute or aren’t catering for someone with a dietary requirement, you can also cheat your way through a flour shortage with our biscuit/breadcrumb hack.
Use crushed biscuits to make one of our many show-stopping cheesecakes. There’s also flour aplenty in Lotus Biscoff spread, so provides all the wheaty goodness you need to make this epic Biscoff traybake. Or squish ready-made cake to make these simple truffles – perfect for cooking with kids.
In a pinch, breadcrumbs work to make a delish dessert too, like this Apple Brown Betty.
Use nuts instead of flour
Packed with protein, ground nuts and nut butters can replace flour (but be warned, the flavour often is fairly strong, or the texture can be a bit grainy, so it tends to take a starring role in whatever it’s put in). These Peanut Butter Cookies are a little bit of baking magic.
No eggs or flour are required for this easy, oaty traybake flapjacks either, and you can customise it with chocolate chips, nuts, your favourite dried fruit or spices.
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