Cornflour Instead Of Rice Flour In Banana Bread

Our answer

Nigella's Gluten-Free Banana Bread uses a combination of rice flour and ground almonds (almond meal). The combination of the two gives the loaf a light texture with a fine crumb. Rice flour is made from finely ground rice (it can be white or brown/whole grain rice) and has a very slightly grainy texture. Rice flour can be found in health food stores, larger supermarkets and on-line.

When cornflour is mentioned we assume this is the fine white cornflour, known as cornstarch in the US. This is made from the very starchy centre of the corn kernels. Unfortunately we don't think that you can use this as a substitute for the rice flour as cornflour absorbs a lot of liquid and could leave the banana bread with a dry and slightly heavy texture. Fine ground cornmeal would be a closer alternative to the rice flour, but as we have not tried the banana bread with cornmeal we are unable to recommend it as an alternative.