Monday, September 2, 2013

Gluten-free Heaven


Since we switched Eric to gluten-free back in June, I've been attempting to make my own gluten-free bread.  I will not lie, I have had many, many failures.  So many, that I resigned to buying the super expensive loaves, that mostly taste like cardboard, from the grocery store freezers.  I continued my search though for an easy recipe that didn't tell me I needed to weigh my flours, seeing as I don't own a kitchen scale, and didn't feel like running out to buy one.  Low and behold, I came across the recipe below, on the Bob's Red Mill website.  Not tested by the company's kitchen, but posted by someone else.  I decided to give it a try, modifying it for the ingredients I had, and from the recommendations from others who had tried the recipe.  And it actually turned out AWESOME!  Even my husband commented on how it tastes and looks like regular bread, not the crumbly and dry mess you usually get with GF breads.  This is a keeper for us!  Especially since Eric has been bugging me lately with: "Why do you only make wheat bread mom?  Can't you make me some gluten-free stuff?"  And now I can!

Everyday Bread - Gluten Free

Ingredients


3-1/3 cups GF all purpose flour blend (1 cup sorghum flour, 1 cup brown rice flour, 1 cup white rice flour, 1/3 cup tapioca starch) 
3-1/2 tsp guar gum 
1/2 cup Non-Fat Dry Milk Powder 
1/2 cup coconut sugar (or brown sugar) 
1 3/4 tsp salt
2 large Eggs 
1/4 cup Vegetable Oil 
1-1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons Water
1 Tbsp Active Dry Yeast


Directions

1. Grease a 9x5 bread pan. 
2. Combine 1/4 cup of the total water (warm) with 1 tbsp of total sugar and then sprinkle with yeast. Allow to sit 5-10 mins until foamy (proofing). 
3. Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl (including remaining sugar). I used the bowl of my stand mixer, which I will use to beat the mixture later. 
4. In another bowl, combine the remaining water, oil and eggs. 
5. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients, including proofed yeast mixture, and mix well. 
6. Beat the batter with paddle attachment until smooth; approximately 2 minutes (or by hand). Batter will be sticky and wet, like a cake batter. 
7. Form batter into boule in the bowl, cover with a dish towel, and allow to rise for about an hour. 
8. Then pour batter into bread pan and smooth out top (shaping to look like a loaf of bread) with a rubber spatula dipped in water (prevents it from sticking to the spatula). 
9. Let rise again for about an hour or until the batter is slightly above the rim of the pan.
10. Bake in a 375°F pre-heated oven for 25 minutes. After 25 mins cover with tin foil and continue baking for another 25 mins. (50 mins total) 
11. Cool briefly (5 min); remove from pan and cool thoroughly on a rack.