ChufaNetherlands

Can you just use Chufa flour as a substitute for any other flour and in what proportions? There are a few things to consider.

First, the benefits of chufa meal:

• free of allergens, nuts, soya, gluten
• sweet in itself
• a distinctive flavour to match many ingredients
• contains the minerals magnesium, iron, zinc and copper
• rich in phosphorus, manganese and potassium
• rich in fibre
• rich in vitamin E
• raw

Replacing gluten-containing flour with chufa flour

If you want to replace a flour that contains gluten, you will find that the result will fall apart faster if you just replace gluten-containing flour with chufa flour. To keep things together, you can use different products depending on what you eat and the type of recipe:

• arrowroot, our favourite. About 1 part arrowroot to 4 parts Chufa flour
• (chufa) oil
• chia seed
• dates
• gelatine
• eggs

Replacing white flour with chufa flour

Besides the difference in gluten, you will also notice that chufa flour is drier. We haven't experimented with this very precisely but the advice is to start with half the amount of white flour and then add a little more if the result is still too moist.

Replace almond flour with chufa flour

You can use 1 to 1 chufa flour in a recipe with almond flour, but because chufa flour is much sweeter, you can easily use half as much sugar. Chufa flour is also drier and contains half the amount of fat, to compensate you could add some more moisture or fat. For instance in the form of sweet potato or parsnip puree, apple sauce, chufa oil or coconut oil. What works really well is yoghurt!

Here you can read all about the differences between almond flour and chufa flour.

Replace coconut flour with chufa flour

Chufa flour is again slightly less dry than coconut flour and a lot sweeter. Again, you can use less sugar and substitute coconut flour 1 to 1. There is a catch because although coconut flour appears drier when eaten, it actually absorbs moisture for baking. This means that if you replace coconut flour 1 to 1 with chufa flour, your mixture is likely to remain wetter. In that case, you can either use a little more chufa flour or add chia seeds when mixing the ingredients and let it stand for a few minutes.

Replace other flours with chufa flour

There are now very many types of flour on sale. They are all slightly different and each has its own properties. Substituting these flours for chufa flour is a matter of trial and error, taking into account:

• the absence of gluten
• the lower amount of fat (than nuts, for example)
• the high sweet content