Great ideas, everyone! I knew about corn starch for sauces... but had no clue what to do about soups or gravies that call for flour. I'm very interested in the potato flakes substitute and will definitely give that a try. One of my favorite soups to make is Julia Child's French Onion Soup... strange to think about substituting potato flakes for the flour. Do you substitute equal amounts? CJ's idea about building your own Cup4Cup substitute is great and I'll forward that to my gluten free friend, and check out the site for myself. Thanks for the wonderful ideas. Equipped with these, I'll invite my friend and her husband to dinner.... I've delayed too long, because I just didn't know how to get around the thickener issue. P.S. I have purchased many of the "weird" ingredients listed above -- xanthem gum, etc... because I baked this friend a couple of loaves of gluten free bread for a Christmas present, using the recipe provided by Healthy Breads in 5 Minutes a Day. The breads were excellent, and I was amazed.... but they certainly required very different ingredients -- all of which I was able to purchase at my local health store to make the bread. I'll check the ingredients of Bob's potato flour to see if I can use that. Another great suggestion! Thank you everyone!!

Thanks, Grainlady. Actually, I went ahead and experimented by sort of combining the above recipe and a recipe I found on line for spelt bread. I used a combination of King Arthur whole wheat flour and the white spelt flour, about half and half, partly because I had already made the biga with the whole wheat flour. Then, I used the following recipe, adjusting the spelt flour amounts and water amounts to try and have the correct total for each ingredient. I used the technique for making ciabatta, where I let it sit, turned the dough, let it sit, turned the dough, until I was ready to bake the bread. It ended up making 2 loaves, which I baked in loaf pans, instead of ciabatta style. Surprisingly, it turned out surprisingly well, considering at the last, I tried to make one loaf out of it, and when I saw the dough spilling out of the pan I realized I had to deflate it yet once again and put it into two loaf pans. Here's the other recipe I used. I used dark honey instead of brown sugar. It's from Versagrain.com. Spelt Flour Recipes Sweet and Hearty Spelt Bread Recipe To cook this Spelt bread recipe you will need a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan and patience. Unlike white bread this recipe for Spelt bread will take twice as long to leaven. From start to finish, it will take 2 - 3 hours. Ingredients (Makes 1 Loaf) 1 1/2 cups warm water (just barely hot to the touch) 1 package active dry yeast (1/4 ounce) 2 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar 1 tablespoon whole flaxseed (optional) 2 1/2 cups whole spelt flour 1 1/2 tablespoons butter, melted 2 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar 1/2 tablespoon salt 1 3/4 cups whole spelt flour 1 tablespoon butter, melted Directions In a large bowl, mix warm water, yeast, 2 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar, and 1 tablespoon of flaxseed (optional). Mix in 2 1/2 cups of spelt flour. Let set for 30 minutes, or until big and bubbly. Mix in 1 1/2 tablespoons melted butter, 2 1/2 tablespoons of brown sugar, and salt. Stir in 1 3/4 cups of spelt flour. Flour a flat surface and knead with spelt flour until it pulls away from the counter but is still sticky to touch. This may take an additional 1 to 2 cups of spelt flour. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to coat the surface of the dough. Cover with a dishtowel. Let rise in a warm place until doubled (about 30 minutes). Punch down and place in greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. Allow to rise until dough has topped the pan by one inch. Depending on your yeast this will take between 1 - 2 hours. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 25 to 30 minutes; do not over bake. Lightly brush the tops of loaves with 1 tablespoon of melted butter when done to prevent crust from getting hard. Cool completely. TIP: Place a loaf pan of the same size over the top of the loaf while baking to create a better crust. Substitutions and Additions Honey can be substituted for the brown sugar in this whole spelt bread recipe. Substitute white spelt flour, hard white wheat flour, or bread flour for the 2 1/2 cups of whole spelt flour to create an even lighter and fluffier loaf of whole grain bread. To give this recipe a crunch, consider adding walnuts. In this whole grain bread recipe we included the option for flaxseed because here at versagrain.com we are big proponents of incorporating flaxseed into your diet. Its high protein, fiber, and omega 3 fatty acids makes flaxseed a nutritional powerhouse your body can use to fight depression, cancer, and heart disease.

I looked it up on some substitution sites and they say a cup of self-rising flour has about 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder and a 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of salt. The recipe uses more than 2 cups of flour so that might be too much baking powder. If you have enough AP to do half and half, that might come closer.

Plain flour and self raising flour are not interchangeable in most recipes. Plain flour has no leavening (rising), whereas self-raising does. Of course, if the SR flour is a bit old, you might find that the leavening has 'died off', and you might be able to get away with using it. Mind you, I've used the wrong flour my mistake more than once. If you're making biscuits (cookies) which call for plain flour, and you use SR, they might rise more than you want and be softer in texture instead of crisp - but maybe you won't mind that! SR flour is great for things like cakes, scones, muffins, pancakes. It is far more commonly used here in Australia than in America, so I've learned.