Sunday, January 15, 2012

Mindy's Gluten Free Bread

I recently met a girl named Mindy who can't eat gluten, yeast, dairy, corn, soy, chicken, vinegar, and more.  HOLY COW, right?   Now my favorite food in the whole wide world is homemade bread and since I love to play with recipes I was bound and determined to find/create a recipe for bread that she could eat.   Now when I say bread, I didn't want it to be muffins, I wanted B-R-E-A-D!!!
      
My first attempt ....
I'd researched all the things that you could substitute for white flour, milk, yeast, and eggs.  Basically I could use any of the following:  bean flour, rice flour, potato starch, oat flour, knox gelatin, flax, mashed potatoes, pureed beans, baking soda and lemon juice, but wasn't sure how much of each would work.  I couldn't find a bread recipe, only muffins so that's where I decided to begin. I took a generic muffin recipe and with my substitutions from above (things I had in my own kitchen) I made what turned into a mashed potato/bean blob. -TRASH

My second attempt ...
I tried a recipe that I'd found online and just substituted ground oat flour for the white flours and water in place of the milk...  YUCK... Have you ever had plain oatmeal with nothing on it?  Yep, that was basically what it was.

 Attempt number three!
  OK, so I was still determined. I studied a little more, and after church I decided to look for a recipe online again!  I decided to use brown and white rice flour, ground flax and ground oats. This should give me a variety of flavor since I already knew plain oats was nasty and I'd read that white rice was pretty bland as well.   I used honey, salt, baking soda and cream of tartar (in place of baking powder), and regular milk with the assumption that I could substitute it easily with Mindy's coconut milk if it worked out!  I also didn't want to make a huge batch in case this flopped so I divided the recipe into sixths or something like that and put it in my little omelet maker.  (I didn't want to heat up the oven for 1 muffin).     and..... This time God blessed me with a good recipe.. :) Thank You!
   I turned out to be moist, soft, flavorful, slightly crumbly but I was able to slice it like BREAD :) !!!!!
I could eat it in a slice and it didn't just fall apart or resemble a blob! Did I really have a winner or was it a lucky fluke?     I  tried it again, just to make sure I could repeat the goodness, this time I put them in muffin tins in the oven.  Yeah!!! I had wonderful results again!  The only bad thing is.. well I don't know if it's a bad thing, but, they're very addicting and I had fresh black raspberry jam that made them even more delicious!

The fourth test! 
OK, yesterday I went shopping and I'm finally prepared to make it for Mindy!!!    I've got gluten free oats, coconut milk, and all the other ingredients that Mindy CAN eat...        Here's how it went!
I used my little Tribest blender to grind up the flours, baked it and took it to her.....

  SUCCESS!!!!  She liked it! :)

The Finale
At our Church women's Relief Society activity last night, I brought some bread for Mindy.  If you know me I can't leave a recipe alone and.... yep I tweaked it a bit more. I'd read more about using potato flour, not potato starch, but ground up potato flakes in bread.  It helped the bread hold together and be more moist! Another lady was there who also can't have gluten. I asked how this bread compared to other GF bread, since I've only had what I've made experimenting above...  She said it was really good and didn't have that nasty gritty rice flavor!  YEAH!!!!!!!

Here's everything I used to make the recipe! ENJOY!



  Mindy's Gluten Free Bread
1 c. oat flour (use instant, regular or steel cut oats)
3 T. ground flax
3 T. potato flour (ground potato flakes)
1/2 c. brown rice flour
3/4 c. white rice
1-1/4 t. baking soda
2 t. cream of tartar
1/2 t. salt
2 T. lemon juice
1 T. olive oil
1 c. coconut milk
3 T. honey

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Oil a 1.5 qt. bread pan or 12-18 cupcake tins (I used olive oil)

Mix the dry ingredients.
The different flours shown are... (clockwise starting with the dark brown) flax, brown rice, white rice, oat, potato.


Mix the wet ingredients (left).


 When the oven is preheated, combine the wet and dry ingredients and pour into an oiled pan.



Bake for 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack or towel! Slice when cool.


  There are no preservatives in this bread and I was told last night that GF bread loses a lot of its flavor by the next day and becomes hard and stale quickly. To preserve freshness, slice the loaf and place each portion in a freezer bag in the freezer. Thaw each piece as you want it by putting it in the microwave for 10 seconds.

What I'm going to try next time....    Line a 1.5 qt bread pan with Parchment Paper.  This should prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pan and crumbling before we get it out!

Please let me know your results or any tips that could help me. 
My next challenge will be to make cookies for Mindy!

No comments:

Post a Comment