Gluten Free Bread: Good Enough for Any Bread Lover

I am currently in my second week of eating entirely gluten free. I have not been diagnosed with Celiac, fortunately, but it does run in my family and there's a good chance that I'm gluten intolerant. My experiment is to see if eating gluten free for a month helps alleviate some health problems I've dealt with for many years. None of this is incredibly serious, so no need to worry. I debated even sharing this because, as of now, eating gluten free is not what my blog is about. There are a lot of great gluten free blogs out there but mine is more about recipes for every day using common ingredients. For the most part, you probably wouldn't have even noticed that I'm eating gluten free. My last few posts have all been recipes that just naturally contain no gluten.

Eating gluten free sounds a lot more intimidating than it actually is. Most natural foods don't have gluten in them. The things you have to watch out for are processed foods but there are plenty of great brands out there making everything from pancake mixes to chips to brownies, all without any gluten. I certainly don't recommend going gluten free if you don't need to, but if you do have an allergy--as many people do--there are a lot of options of great things to eat without feeling like you've given up a major part of your life.

Sandwich on gluten free bread: Recipe to come

I'm sharing this with you because I really wanted to write about a gluten free bread recipe that I made from the new cookbook out by Gluten Free Girl and the Chef. I figured I needed to explain myself before including a recipe for bread that uses millet flour and almond flour and a thing called xanthan gum. Bread was one thing I was really sad to even think about giving up. I love bread. And this bread is so good that even someone who can eat gluten would love it. Gavin, for one, thought it was great and probably wouldn't have known it was any different from most breads had I not told him. So I realize this recipe won't be a must-make for a lot of you but if you know someone with Celiac or with gluten-intolerance, pass it along. They will thank you, I promise. I also wanted to include this recipe on my blog in honor of my aunt and a good family friend who both have Celiac. Hopefully a great bread recipe will make their lives a little fuller. Because a life completely without bread would be a sad one indeed.

I recommend making the millet, oat and almond flours in the food processor using millet (a small cereal grain), whole oats and blanched almonds. The entire recipe could actually be made in the food processor by first grinding the three flours, in the order above, and then adding the rest of the ingredients and mixing with the dough blade. A stand mixer or by hand would also work. Weighing the flours is the best way to ensure the correct ratio of flours but volume measurements are also included if you don't have a scale.

Gluten Free Bread

• 1 1/4 cups (8 oz) potato starch
• 1 1/4 cups (3.5 oz) almond flour
• 2/3 cup (3 oz) oat flour
• 1/2 cup (3 oz) millet flour
• 1 tbsp active dry yeast
• 3 tsp xanthan gum
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/3 cups warm water (110F)
• 2 eggs
• 1/6 cup canola oil
• 1 tbsp honey
• Extra canola oil for oiling bowl

Sift together potato starch, almond flour, oat flour, and millet flour.
Add yeast, xanthan gum and salt, stirring to combine.
Pour the warm water, eggs, canola oil, and honey into the dry ingredients. Mix until the dough has fully come together. Mine looked like very thick pancake batter but it looks more like bread dough after it rises.
Put the dough in an oiled bowl and cover with a clean cloth. Let it rise for about 2 hours, until it has doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 500F. Divide the dough into two oval shaped loaves and make three small cuts on the top of the dough. Cook the bread either directly on a pizza stone or preheat a Dutch oven, line it with parchment paper, and cook the bread in that. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until a thermometer reads 180F and comes out clean.
You could also let the bread rise in an oiled loaf pan for the last hour. Then bake it at 375F for about 45 minutes to make sandwich bread.

For a printable recipe click here

Easy Focaccia Recipe: My First Bread Making Success

I don't bake. Not as a rule or anything but I'm really not comfortable doing it and I much prefer to make things up as I go along, which does not work well when baking. I've made the occasional batch of cookies before but we don't eat a lot of sweets, so I rarely take the time to make desserts. If we're craving something sweet, we usually head down to Local Yogurt, which is the most delicious frozen yogurt I've had (and I have had lots of frozen yogurt). So sweet baked goods aside, I have always wanted to explore making some savory baked goods. There's nothing better than fresh baked, homemade bread and I want to be able to do that. But the yeast and the rising and the kneading makes me nervous so I haven't ventured much into the world of bread making. I made a loaf of wheat bread once and it tasted ok but was kind of off. Definitely not something to write home about.

One week in my cooking class we made rosemary focaccia. I love focaccia and thought it would be fun to try at home. However, the recipe was pretty long and complicated, involving various rising, kneading and resting times. And then one day I was scanning the headlines on foodblogs.com and came across a very simple looking recipe for focaccia.  The blog Evil Chef Mom profressed to have a simple, surefire recipe for focaccia that was much easier than the one we made in class. I decided to give it a try as the worst that would happen would be a few cups of wasted flour and not too much wasted time. I am so glad I did! I basically did each step when I had a few minutes during the day and the result was a delicious, chewy focaccia bread that went perfectly with the carrot ginger soup I made for dinner (that recipe to come). The leftover bread heats up nicely to go with soup or sliced in half for sandwiches. The great thing about focaccia is that it's basically a blank canvas to put any flavors on top that you like. I did one half with simple sea salt and the other with Parmesan and black pepper. Chopped rosemary would be great as would sundried tomatoes and olives...or whatever sounds good to you! So if you are as nervous about baking as I am, this focaccia is a great place to start.

Focaccia

• 1 package (1/4 oz) yeast
• 2 cups warm water, divided
• 4 cups of flour (I used 1 cup whole wheat and 3 All Purpose)
• 1 1/2 tsp salt, plus more for sprinkling on top
• olive oil
• any toppings you like

Dissolve the yeast in one cup of warm water.
Mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl.
Pour in the water with the yeast and one more cup of warm water into the flour.
Mix together with floured hands until it all comes together. Mine was very sticky but shape it into a ball as best as possible.
Cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap or with a kitchen towel.
Let the dough rise for at least 2 hours or up to 24.
Cover a cookie sheet with olive oil (preferably good olive oil as you want the taste in the dough).
Spread the dough out over the cookie sheet (it might not meet all of the edges, which is ok).
Punch down holes in the dough with your finger and allow it to rise again for about 30-45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 475F.
When the dough has risen, punch holes again with your finger.
Sprinkle the dough with a bit more olive oil and salt, as well as any toppings you like.
Bake the bread in the top 1/3 of the oven for 15-20 minutes.
Check the dough around 10 minutes and if it's starting to get brown on top, move it to a lower rack.

Remove from the oven and let cool for a bit before slicing and serving.

For a printable recipe click here