Is there a gluten-free substitute for self rising flour?

Question

I recently found out I have a gluten allergy and I want to make my chicken and dumplings casserole, but it calls for self rising flour. As it bakes in the oven, it turns into biscuits on top. Is there any gluten-free flour that maybe I can mix with baking soda to make it a gluten-free self rising flour so that it would turn into biscuits once baked in the oven? I am not a baker, so I’m not familiar with flours. I literally only use self rising flour for this recipe only.

Answer 1

Self rising flour is equivalent to regular flour mixed with a bit of baking powder (about 2 tsp per cup). There’s no issue with substituting one for the other.

The gluten-free aspect is trickier. I don’t have any experience with gluten-free dumplings but I wonder if they would tend to dissolve during cooking.

If I were you, I’d look for a gluten-free biscuit recipe and use that as a starting point. It’s always easier to adapt a gluten-free recipe into a similar gluten-free recipe, than it is to adapt a regular recipe into gluten-free. And when possible, get your recipes from the producer of your chosen brand of gluten-free flour. They vary a lot, and the producer will know how to get the best results from their own product.

Answer 2

It's pretty standard for bakers to substitute a mixture for self-rising flour, as only folks who make American biscuits every week will have it around. There is no reason to believe that the same set of substitutions will not work for gluten-free flours.

Your challenge here is that self-rising flour formulation varies. For example, here's three different formula for substituting for self-rising flour:

• Just flour and baking powder
• Flour, baking powder, and salt
• Flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda

So you really need to find a bag of the self-rising flour you used to use and check what's in it. You'll also likely need to add more things to your biscuits than just swapping the flour. Gums, to replace the missing gluten, are common.

There is, however, some good news here. It's very common to make biscuits from very low-protein flours, making them one of the easier baked goods to swap out gluten-free.