FOOD NEWS
The Flour Swap To Consider For The Best Gluten-Free Chiffon Cake
By Betsy Parks
The right flour is crucial to ensure your cake rises properly with a light, airy texture. To make a gluten-free chiffon cake, use a fine, low-starch flour like rice flour.
Baking with gluten-free flour takes some getting used to since the flours vary in manufacturing techniques and ingredients, meaning each kind has different starch levels.
Low-starch flour like rice flour for a gluten-free chiffon cake is important because the goal is a light, tender crumb, which only a super fine flour like this can achieve.
Since most of the leavening in chiffon cake is done with whipped egg whites, which trap air bubbles in the batter to make it fluffy, the batter should be as light as possible.
Using white rice flour for chiffon cake also avoids the gritty texture common with some gluten-free flours. Brown rice flour can contribute to graininess, so choose white instead.
However, chiffon cake still needs some starch to hold its shape, so you may need to add some other starchy things like tapioca flour or potato starch to get a pillowy-soft chiffon.