Gluten-Free Brown-Rice Flour Mix

Former Gourmet food editor Annalise Roberts developed this gluten-free flour blend after her 12-year-old son was diagnosed with an intolerance to wheat. She discovered there’s a definite art to replacing all-purpose flour in baked goods. “There were pioneers before me who mixed flours,” said Roberts at the time. “But they often recommend a different blend for each cake or cookie. I developed a basic combination that works with most of my recipes—it’s hard enough to find time to bake without having to measure out eighteen kinds of flour.”

When Roberts delivered a tray of her gluten-free chocolate chip cookies to the Gourmet offices, senior food editor Kemp Minifie reported they disappeared as fast as they’d appeared. Same goes for Roberts’s lighter-than-air gluten-free lemon cake. These recipes are so good, in fact (there is also a gluten-free pizza crust, by the way), we think they’re worth making, even if allergies are not an issue. “The cookies have a light, delicate crispness,” said Minifie. “We’re so conditioned in this country to use wheat flour for everything; maybe mixing in different kinds of flour would give our bodies a break from the daily grind.”