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GLUTEN-FREE LIFESTYLE:
Tricks to Gluten-Free Bread Baking By Rachel Kay NFCA Intern  Like many celiacs, I have been battling with bread since my diagnosis. Rice cakes make horrible sandwiches and most pre-made gluten-free breads tastes either like a rock or cardboard, or maybe both. In our society, life without bread is one of the worst punishments imaginable, we eat bread for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and often as a snack. Fortunately celiacs are not sentenced to this fate. With a little time, even the laziest cook can have an edible loaf of gluten-free bread. I have always been an inventive cook so I decided to try my hand at baking gluten-free bread. My first attempt did not turn out well, I spent four hours mixing, waiting and baking for a loaf of French bread that was so hard and spiky on the outside that it had to be peeled before you could eat it and should have been used as a weapon of war. I didn’t give up after this, I was determined to make a loaf of bread that was edible when not toasted, grilled, or smothered in sauce. On June 19th, 2006—a day that will go down in history, at least in my house—I created my first fully edible gluten-free bread loaf. It was the “New Formula” rice-based bread in Bette Hagman’s Gluten Free Gourmet Cooks Fast and Healthy. Since then, I have tried practically every gluten-free bread mix in existence and dozens of recipes, and I have some bread making tips to share with any aspiring bakers. Tips: 1) Invest in egg replacer, dry milk powder and xanthan gum. All of these ingredients will help replace the gluten that we cannot have and will make the bread tender by replacing the missing protein. 2)Try mixing your flours or buying premixed flours. Using plain rice flour is possible, but will not result in the best tasting or best textured bread. 3) Mix all of the dry ingredients together separately, and do the same with the wet ingredients, before mixing them together. This ensures that all of the ingredients are equally distributed throughout the dough. 4) Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Doing this will give you a lighter and more tender bread. 5) The dough that you make will be more like consistency of marshmallow fluff than traditional bread dough. If the dough comes out too thick, add one tablespoon of water until the dough reaches the right consistency. If the dough is too runny, add one tablespoon of flour at a time. To make the top of the dough even and smooth in the bread pan, wet your hands or a brush with water and smooth down the top. (A wetted spoon would also work). This creates a level dough that will cook evenly and without hard spikes or lumps on the crust. 6) Try different mixes and recipes until you find one that suits your tastes and specific dietary requirements. And once you find a bread that you love, don’t be afraid to tweak the recipe to change the taste. Add cinnamon and raisins, try including nuts or adding herbs into the bread, or making rolls by putting the dough into muffin cups instead of a bread pan. Using mixes is one of the quickest and easiest ways to bake your own gluten-free bread. They require only a minimal amount of work and ingredients, and you still get the fresh-baked bread smell filling your house and a very happy stomach. My two favorite mixes are the “Favorite Sandwich Bread Mix” by Gluten-Free Pantry and the gluten-free sandwich bread made from Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose Gluten-Free Baking Flour. Neither requires a day’s worth of work in order to yield a loaf of bread, nor are they too crumbly, too hard, too gummy, funny tasting, or need to be toasted in order to be consumed. Some of my favorite from-scratch recipes come from Bette Hagman’s Gluten Free Gourmet books. The Gluten Free Gourmet Cooks Bread has a fantastic variety of gluten-free breads, rolls and muffins. Making bread from scratch takes a little more time than baking bread from a mix, but it can be well worth it and ensures that you know exactly what is in the bread. The Four-Flour Bread recipe is one of my personal favorites, it is a tasty bread that makes great sandwiches and doesn’t have to be frozen or refrigerated to stay moist. Baking gluten-free bread is an art, but an art that is well worth learning. Although practicing is a long process and may become frustrating after you throw out your tenth loaf, the joy of eating good bread is the ultimate satisfaction. And what better art than one you can eat? There’s not need to force yourself to eat bread that can easily be replaced with cardboard. With a little time and work you can have delicious bread that even non-celiacs will enjoy—if you can bear to share any! Gluten-Free Sandwich Bread for Conventional Oven Contributed by Carol Fenster, Ph.D. Ingredients: 2-1/2 tsp Yeast, Active Dry 1-1/2 cups Warm Milk (cow, rice, soy or nut) 3 cups Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour 2 Tb Sugar 1 Tb Potato Flour 1 Tb Xanthan Gum 3/4 tsp Lecithin Granules (Plain Soy) 3/4 cup Whole Egg, must measure 3/4 cup* 1/4 cup Vegetable Oil 1 tsp Cider Vinegar 1 tsp Guar Gum 3/4 tsp Salt In a small bowl add yeast to warm milk and let foam for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl of heavy-duty stand mixer, combine all ingredients. Add yeast/milk mixture and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes, scraping down sides of bowl with spatula, if needed. Place dough in a greased 9” x 5” nonstick pan. Smooth dough with spatula. Cover and let rise in warm place (75°-80°) until dough is level with top of pan (approximately 30-40 minutes). Bake in a preheated 375°F oven for 60-65 minutes. Do not under-bake. To prevent over-browning, cover with foil after first 15 minutes of baking. To see if the bread is done, tap loaf with fingernail. A crisp, hard sound indicates a properly baked loaf. Turn out of pan and cool thoroughly on a wire rack before slicing with electric knife or serrated knife. *For lighter colored bread, use one whole egg and enough egg whites to equal 3/4 cup. Better’s Four Flour Bread From The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Bread, by Bette Hagman Ingredients: 3-1/3 cups Bette’s Four Flour bread mix 2-1/4 tsp Yeast 1 whole Egg + 2 Egg Whites 4-1/2 Tb Margarine or Butter 3/4 tsp Vinegar (or Dough Enhancer) 1-1/2 cups Warm Water or Milk In a small bowl mix dry ingredients (flour mix and yeast). In a separate larger bowl combine all of the wet ingredients. Beat the wet ingredients together and slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, continue beating for 3 ½ minutes. Grease and flour a 9” x 5” bread pan and then spoon the dough into the pan. Wet hands (or the back of a spoon) and smooth the top of the dough. Cover and let rise in a warm spot for 35-45 minutes, until the bread has reached the top of the pan. Preheat oven to 400ºF and bake bread for 50-60 minutes. To see if bread is done, tap the top of the loaf, if it makes a hollow sound the bread is done. Remove bread from the pan and place on a wire rack to cool thoroughly before slicing. |
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