Is there an alternative flour similar in taste and texture to wheat flour?

Question

I'm Polish and a lot of my home recipes involve coating meats with flour or using flour and egg to bind ingredients together. My sweetheart, as it happens, is allergic to wheat of any kind. Are there any flours I can use that have similar taste and texture to wheat?

Even more complicated, what mixture of flours and ingredients can I use to bake bread for someone who is allergic to wheat that would taste similar, have more or less the same texture, and the same soft, spongy structure?

Answer 1

[edit] Other flours
Corn (maize) flour is popular in the Southern and Southwestern US and in Mexico. Coarse whole-grain corn flour is usually called corn meal. Corn meal that has been bleached with lye is called masa harina (see masa) and is used to make tortillas and tamales in Mexican cooking. Corn flour should never be confused with cornstarch, which is known as "cornflour" in British English.
Rye flour is used to bake the traditional sourdough breads of Germany and Scandinavia. Most rye breads use a mix of rye and wheat flours because rye has a low gluten content. Pumpernickel bread is usually made exclusively of rye, and contains a mixture of rye flour and rye meal.
Rice flour is of great importance in Southeast Asian cuisine. Also edible rice paper can be made from it. Most rice flour is made from white rice, thus is essentially a pure starch, but whole-grain brown rice flour is commercially available.
Buckwheat flour is used as an ingredient in many pancakes in the United States. In Japan, it is used to make a popular noodle called Soba. In Russia, buckwheat flour is added to the batter for pancakes called blinis which are frequently eaten with caviar.
Chestnut flour is popular in Corsica, the Périgord and Lunigiana. In Corsica, it is used to cook the local variety of polenta. In Italy, it is mainly used for desserts.
Chickpea flour (also known as gram flour or besan) is of great importance in Indian cuisine, and in Italy, where it is used for the Ligurian farinata.
Teff flour is made from the grain teff, and is of considerable importance in eastern Africa (particularly around the horn of Africa). Notably, it is the chief ingredient in the bread injera, an important component of Ethiopian cuisine.
Atta flour is a wheat flour which is important in Indian cuisine, used for a range of breads such as roti and chapati.
Tang flour(not to be confused with the powdered beverage Tang) or wheat starch is a type of wheat flour used primarily in Chinese cooking for making the outer layer of dumplings and buns.
Glutinous rice flour or sticky rice flour, used in east and southeast Asian cuisines for making tangyuan etc.
Peasemeal or pea flour is a flour produced from roasted and pulverized yellow field peas.
Bean flour is a flour produced from pulverized dried or ripe beans.
Potato flour is obtained by grinding the tubers to a pulp and removing the fibre by water-washings. The dried product consists chiefly of starch, but also contains some protein. Because the flour is made from neither grain nor legume, it is used as substitute for wheat flour in cooking by Jews during Passover, when grains are not eaten.
Amaranth flour is a flour produced from ground Amaranth grain. It was commonly used in pre-Columbian meso-American cuisine. It is becoming more and more available in specialty food shops.
Nut flours are ground from oily nuts--most commonly almonds and hazelnuts--and are used instead of or in addition to wheat flour to produce more dry and flavorful pastries and cakes. Cakes made with nut flours are usually called tortes and most originated in Central Europe, in countries such as Hungary and Austria.
Flour can also be made from buckwheat, soy beans, arrowroot, taro, cattails, acorns, peas, beans, and other non-grain foodstuffs.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

I use in a 1/1/1 ratio of spelt, brown rice, and barley a lot! This works well in a lot of baked goods, behaves similar to "all purpose" flour with more nutrition. So cookies, cakes, muffins, pie crust. For bread I like straight up white whole wheat, this produces a loaf fairly similar to a traditional loaf where things like spelt and brown rice and chick peas don't have the gluten to support the airy puffed up loaf. I haven't used the others you mentioned yet but have a couple of recipes in my "to make" pile that use them. They are often combined with other things to get the desired effect.