Oat Flour for Wheat Flour: What Actually Works
It starts with a simple idea: swap wheat flour for oat flour, one to one, and keep baking like nothing changed. Sometimes that works. A lot of the time, the loaf comes out gummy in the middle or crumbles when you slice it. Oat flour has no gluten, so it cannot build the stretchy network that holds a wheat dough together. It also drinks up more liquid. When a recipe depends on gluten for structure (yeast breads, pizza dough), a straight swap fails. When the structure comes from eggs, fat, or leavening instead (muffins, quick breads, pancakes), oat flour usually does just fine. A few rules make the swap work. Replace no more than half the wheat flour on your first attempt. Let the batter rest for ten minutes before baking so the flour hydrates. And use certified gluten-free oat flour: ordinary oats are routinely contaminated with wheat in the field and at the mill. The best results come from recipes built around oat flour from the start. This gluten-free honey oat bread treats ...