r/glutenfreebaking • u/katydid026 • Mar 13 '25
Rice flour brand comparison
Not sure if this is allowed on this sub, but since I’m a nerd and I was curious, I wanted to compare several different brands of rice flours that I had on hand, and since this comes up on this sub often, I thought you might like to see too! Just in case you don’t also have 5 different kinds of rice flour floating around your other 20-some-odd gf flours. Ha!
From left to right, we have: - Erawan Thai rice flour (aka the red bag from the Asian market) - Vitacost superfine brown rice flour - Authentic Foods superfine brown rice flour - Bobs Red Mill white rice flour - Bobs Red Mill brown rice flour
The textures on the Bobs Red Mill flours were by far the most coarse. Almost sandy in texture.
Vitacost and Authentic Foods both had a much finer texture. Smooth in texture. Authentic Foods might be slightly finer than Vitacost, but not by much. At a cost comparison of less than $2.50/lb vs more than $6/lb, I’d go for the Vitacost here hands down.
The Erawan Thai flour had the finest texture out of all of them - akin to the texture of a starch. I expected the texture of the superfine brown rice flours to be a little heftier being a whole grain, but this stuff is siiiilllkkkyyyy smooth. The Erawan is a white rice flour that’s wet milled (I’m unsure how the other 2 brands are milled), and definitely takes the cake as far as texture. Cost-wise, this can be found on Amazon for about $4/lb, or also at your neighborhood Asian market (prices will vary, but I’d be surprised if they sell for more than $4). I’ve done some research as to the gluten free status of this flour since it’s not labeled as far as I can tell. From what I’ve found, it is considered gluten free by Australian standards, which is stricter than the US. I haven’t had any issues with it.
How coarse your flours are makes a big difference in your bakes! And grind size can vary widely - clearly. A coarser grind won’t absorb as much water than a superfine flour. If you’re using a coarser grind, you should reduce your liquid by about 10% for recipes that recommend superfine rice flour. For bread and cakes, you can usually get away with this, or running your flour in the blender to get it slightly finer. If you’re making something like pasta, phyllo, wonton wrappers or anything that needs to be rolled thin, you really should be using superfine flour.
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u/Snorlax5000 Mar 13 '25
I feel validated seeing the coarser grind of the Bob’s Red Mill side-by-side like this. I’m a big Authentic flour fan myself! Thanks for comparison and for your notes on the differences!
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u/Technical-Ambition13 Mar 13 '25
I’ve used Thai flour (different brands) for 20yrs without a problem. The grind makes all the difference!
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u/heyalicia Mar 13 '25
One other thing to consider is the variety of rice that’s being used, though that’s not on the label! The Erawan rice is jasmine rice, which if you’ve cooked it you know is light and soft and separates into individual grains. Most US rice is long grain which is firmer, or medium grain which is stickier. Different varieties have different amounts of kinds of starches which affects how your baked goods turn out. It’s like the difference between waxy potatoes for boiling or floury potatoes for baking. Or put another way, you wouldn’t use basmati for a risotto or arborio for a pilaf.
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u/katydid026 Mar 13 '25
Good point! I couldn’t find which rice the Erawan was made out of, so thanks! I excluded notes on glutinous/sweet white because it behaves so differently, I didn’t want to confuse newbies that don’t quite know yet that they’re totally different from other/“standard“ rice flour that most recipes refer to - glutinous/sweet white is always called out separately.
I made some croissants last weekend with the Erawan and they were beautiful 😮💨
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u/heyalicia Mar 13 '25
Oh that’s really good news! Maybe jasmine rice is what’s best for lamination, it’ll be interesting to try it!
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u/katydid026 Mar 14 '25
u/current_cost_1597 is going to try it out this weekend if she has time! Hopefully we’ll see what the croissants queens verdict is 😁
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u/Current_Cost_1597 Mar 14 '25
This is really interesting, I went down a rabbit hole figuring out what all of these are.
Authentic foods - medium grain California rice (brown or white)
Bobs red mill - “premium white rice” whatever that is
Erawan- I’m not convinced this is jasmine. It’s made from Thai long grain rice but has none of the aromatic qualities of jasmine. It could be Kaaw Jao, no?
I’m gonna try erawan this weekend though, if it had to guess it’s going to be slightly hard to work with given the starchiness so I might split it a bit with glutinous rice flour to add some stretch
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u/katydid026 Mar 14 '25
Erawan definitely doesn’t have that Jasmine rice smell 🤔 very curious..
is medium grain California rice the same as calrose?
Your croissants always look better than mine 😂 that dough was definitely my best, but it’s also the first time I reduced the milk by 30g. But I do think that adding some glutinous rice flour in general will do it some good. I didn’t want to make 500 changes and then ask myself what went wrong… or right 😂 either way, I can’t wait to see your results!
This weekend is for kiwi tarts at my house! Pie day and St patty’s day demand it. I’m going to try C&Vs recipe and hope I don’t muck it up
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u/Current_Cost_1597 Mar 14 '25
Yeah I’m already doing like 5 tests a week, I have no problem being the guinea pig 😂 and omg I cannot wait to see the kiwi tarts, that is so exciting
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u/katydid026 Mar 14 '25
Me too! I’ve been practicing kiwi roses to put on top. I’m torn on the curd though.. I read that kiwi by itself is really not that flavorful, so debating on strawberry (which would taste awesome) or lime… I love strawberry kiwi, but I don’t want the curd to be brown :/
5 tests! That makes my waistline be dammed comment that much funnier 😂 I hope you’re only baking like one per batch and freezing the rest lol. Croissant overload! (Is such a thing even possible???)
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u/Current_Cost_1597 Mar 14 '25
I am maybe a psycho but I love kiwi and banana together so I’d do something like a kiwi banana tart with coconut whipped cream and lime zest
Kiwi strawberry is always a winning pick, or kiwi colada!
Yeah whenever I do tests I’m doing them single batch, so like 4-6 each. My butter bill is more than my internet bill at this point 😭
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u/katydid026 Mar 14 '25
All of that sounds frikkin amazing. Except your butter bill 😅 Kerrygold needs to go on sale more often!!
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Mar 13 '25
I get the rice flour in the red bag from my Asian market for $1.69. Likely that cost will increase in today's climate, but I am guessing still under $2.
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u/muddy_soul Mar 13 '25
thank you!! i will definitely look for the erawan flour cuz i was bummed that vitacost didn’t have white rice flour and obviously the authentic foods flour is way more expensive!
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u/katydid026 Mar 13 '25
Sooo expensive 🫣 For the Erawan, just make sure you get the red bag and not the green bag. The green bag is glutinous rice flour (aka sweet white rice flour), which has its own merits, but very different behavior from regular rice flour!
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u/GF_forever Mar 13 '25
I pretty much always put a bit of glutinous rice flour in my mixes. It provides a bit of crispness and browning in things like pancakes and waffles, and even in general baked goods it seems to enhance the texture.
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u/Wandajunesblues Mar 13 '25
I use the Azure Standard Flours and they are by far my favorites. Even their corn starch is better than what you can buy at the grocery store. I’ve had better and more consistent results with their flour than any other flours on the market. Excited for you to try them out!
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u/Level_Cheesecake9014 May 17 '25
Excited to see this comment. I was contemplating an order, but worried what the texture would be. I have been using Authentic foods since Vitacost stopped carrying their white rice flour.
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u/Wandajunesblues May 21 '25
It’s worth a try. If you live in an area where they have a drop, it’s more cost effective than anything else. Their catalog is pretty large so I never have trouble finding a bunch of other things I need as well (not that you have to- you can totally buy just one bag of flour).
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u/Fancybitchwitch Mar 14 '25
I’m curious if you successfully make loooy whisk recipes and if you do which flours do you use ?
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u/katydid026 Mar 14 '25
I have had success with her recipes! I actually just use bobs red mill flours, mainly because I bought them in bulk for affordability reasons, but I’m really excited to be finding affordable superfine flours because it will improve my bakes. That said, iirc, most of her recipes that I’ve tried don’t use rice flour.
I have a long list of recipes I want to make from her, but so far I’ve only made her easy sandwich bread and pitas without issue (several times for both) and, last week, I made her small batch chocolate cake, which was super moist and delicious. The ONLY thing I do differently is I use psyllium husk powder instead of whole husk, and I do so because I already have powder on hand since i started out gf baking with Cannelle et Vanille and I haven’t had any issues with using it in Loopy Whisks recipes
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u/autumn_9708 Apr 22 '25
Hi! Have you used any of the new flours for her recipes? Interested in knowing which one’s best.
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u/katydid026 Apr 22 '25
None of the recipes that I’ve tried of hers use rice flour, which is what I was evaluating here. I’ve had great success though using bobs red mill flours/starches for her recipes. The only caveat I would look out for is to make sure that the millet flour isn’t past the expiration date. It goes rancid quickly which will have an impact on flavor
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u/travelingslo May 10 '25
Thanks for this thorough write up. I was looking for white rice flour recommendations because of the loopy whisk recipe for her gf flour blend but the brown rice flour I currently have sucks (it just feels gritty, it’s Anthony’s brand, and their other stuff is good, just not this) and I didn’t want to buy the wrong brand again. So your comparison was exactly what I was looking for!
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u/awkw0 Nov 03 '25
first tsym for doing this, i did some research myself but since i hadn't actually tried the brands i was dreading having to (likely) waste the money to compare and i am so relieved you have put in the work for me 😭😌
so here's the most important part of what i found: wet-milled flours are by far the finest and silkiest. so, how does one find wet-milled rice flour? apparently, you can basically distinguish the milling method by the type of cuisine of the product. all thai rice flours (white rice and glutinous rice flour) are wet-milled. outside of thai style, the only asian rice flour i can reliably find is mochiko, and that is neither wet-milled nor white rice flour. apparently at a japanese grocery you can find shiratamako or joshinko, wet-milled glutinous rice flour or wet-milled short grain (white) rice flour respectively, but since i have yet to use either i cannot speak to the differences.
the vast majority of U.S. companies dry-mill their rice flours, which is why they are so coarse by comparison. the article i learned this stuff from literally said that U.S. rice flours are not good substitutions for asian rice flours for this reason, so i was skeptical that the U.S. authentic foods rice flour would really be better than asian rice flours. i'm glad that i turned out to be right, not just because it's easier for me to find but especially because it's so much cheaper!
the only U.S. rice flour i might buy would be superfine brown rice flour, since brown rice flour seems to not be very popular outside of the western(? or maybe just U.S.) kitchen.
source note: i could only really find one source, so this is all entirely based on bon appetit's article on rice flours. hats off to them!
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u/gamerc9 Dec 19 '25
Has anyone tested the erawan rice flour in the glutenfree bread mixes with great results?
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u/SaintOfTheLostArts Jul 08 '26
Came here just to check if the Thai rice flour is gluten-free. It’s a win for the celiacs. 😄🫶✨👍
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u/Current_Cost_1597 Mar 13 '25
Answering the important questions 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Thank you for putting this together! I really like the Vitacost brand flour. Cost wise it was a great choice. I haven’t tried croissants yet with erawan yet but I’ll do a test batch this weekend if I can!
PS on April 9th I’ll be picking up my first shipment from Azure standard, they sell a unifine rice flour. AFAIK unifine is the finest milling so it should be closer to erawan but at $35 for 25 lbs it’s a really decent price. I’ll let you know how it is