When you are baking, particularly when you are making stuff that is generally regional in flavor, you will find that not that many ingredients used in regional recipes can be found near you. This usually means that you will have to find replacements for these in the ingredients that are available where you are. This can mean that the taste of what you are making will not be exactly the same as the originals that you are trying to emulate.
Hard-to-find ingredients can be replaced but you have to do so with items that can produce similar results. For example, if you cannot find rice flour, you can use cake flour since it can produce a similar softness. Other replacements for rice flour include barley flour and pastry flour. If you truly want the flavor and texture of rice flour, you can try to make your own by placing the grains of rice that you have and pulsing this in a blender so that you come up with a flour-like substance.
One of the reasons why people need replacement ingredients for their recipes is when these recipes are region based and use ingredients that are indigenous to the area. When this happens, you can find similar ingredients that have the same flavor profiles as the ones that you need. For instance, with Bacolod based delicacies, you will usually need the local raw sugar called muscovado. If you cannot find this in your area, you can use a mixture of molasses and white sugar. For every cup of muscovado in the recipe, you should combine 1 cup white sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons molasses.
You can always try to find replacement ingredients for your regional recipes by scouring the internet for information. The internet offers suggestions from those who have also found themselves with problems regarding substitute ingredients, so you can pick the most commonly mentioned one as your substitute ingredient.
