What are suitable substitutes for soy flour and baking mix (carbalose). Any tips out there?

Margaret

It depends on what you are using it for. Nut flours for baking, flaxseed meal for baking. Coconut flour. I hate soy flour, never use it. Carbalose or CarbQuik once in a blue moon.

What did you have in mind to cook, so maybe we could give you some specific answers.

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Nita

I've just come across a lot of recipes that either call for soy flour or the premixed baking products. As far as I know, the baking mixes tend to use a lot of soy as well. I was concerned about the dryness of the coconut flour, is soyflour as dry? Also, I thought carbalose and carbquik have leavening agents in them. I was just wondering if people who had more experience with them could give any advice on what I need to consider when substituting for them in a recipe. I've never used the mixes and only had limited experience with the soy products a few years ago when I was providing baked goods for a local health food store (for people with celiac's disease, allergies, etc.)

We gave up eating soy last year and with that move alone dh lost 5 pounds (more of his eating is done at work where he doesn't really have control over what's used) and I lost 12 pounds. We felt a lot better as well.

Margaret, Carbalose, which is a l/c flour does not have any levening in it . Carbquick is made with Carbalose and does include a levening agent. While cooking is an "art", baking is a "science". Substituting ingredients in a baking recipe can produce different results from the original recipe. It is difficult to say how a change of ingredients will affect the outcome without working with a particular recipe. As a result, l/c baking tends to be very much of a trial and error process. I have a couple of different l/c flour blends that I have made over the years and use for different recipes. I have not used Carbalose by itself, although it is an ingredient in one of the flour blends I use and I am quite satisfied with it.

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Henry

True Henry, especially on the art and science thing. I have a lot of flour blends I used to use in the specialty baking days, but they all tended to be designed to be wheat free. Consequently they were made up of potato starch, rice/tapioca/amaranth/ flours, protein isolates etc., not exactly conducive to low carbing. I also did some reading up on the carbalose and carbquik and found they are actually made from a derivative of wheat.

Thanks guys for putting up with my blind questions. I can't get a lot of the mixes mentioned in recipes around here and although I know I can order them online, it's important to me to support local businesses...you know, keep your money home. So when I can, I try to get around any shortfalls in products with substitutions.

Margaret