Can quinoa be used instead of flour for cookies?

Question

I use a non-gluten flour combination of:

• 4 cups brown rice flour
• 2/3 cup tapioca flour
• 1/3 cup potato starch

Would it work to use quinoa in this combination as an addition or substitute for all of part of any of the ingredients?

Answer 1

I have used quinoa flour in various recipe and it would have a similar effect as the brown rice flour, though its taste would differ. I would recommend against substituting it (at least not 1:1) for the tapioca flour as that is likely working as a kind of binding agent to some extent. Experimentation may yield different results based on the ratio, but also tapioca has less flavor (which may be ideal as a balance).

Answer 2

Linda,

I'm wanting to be really careful to answer your question directly. But in our case our diet is so restrictive that not only can we not have gluten. But we also try to steer clear of some of the other gluten-free flours. Plus we're vegan, so eggs are out as well! And we try not to consume sugar... You get the idea!

So we just ended up making a cookie recipe using no other flour than quinoa flour. Here's the ingredients if you're interested...

• Quinoa flour
• Quinoa flakes
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• Ground flax seeds
• Carrots
• Vanilla
• Stevia
• Grapeseed oil
• Water

If this sounds like something you'd like to try, you can find the details on the Quinoa Cookies page we made.

I'd appreciate your feedback, especially if you try the recipe.

Answer 3

I don't know about quinoa, but we have used white beans to bake cookies. Turns out great and tastes delicious.

I am sure you could use beans of any colour, so long as you could mash/grind them into flour after soaking under warmth heat. Warmth heat to facilitate softening the beans but not to cook them.

Also, as +mfg mentions either corn or tapioca flour could be used to stabilise the bean flour by providing the starchiness.

Since both tapioca and beans are kosher for pesach, this is a good way to have passover cookies.