Gluten Free Cooking School » gluten free bread recipes

Gluten Free Bread Experiments: Free Form

Mary Frances — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 14:36:30 +0000

Loaf #7: Gluten Free, Soy Free, Corn Free Trial #4:
So, the best laid plans all fail when you realize that it’s 2:30 and that you need to be out of the house, with bread in hand, by 5:00. I had planned to make a double loaf of bread today and bake one in the bread machine and the other in the oven after a 2 hour rise on top of the stove. That did not happen.

When I started to measure out the flour I discovered that I only had 20 oz. of the flour mix made up. Two full loaves would require 25 oz. I’m not really sure why, but rather than just making one 12.5 oz. loaf, I decided to make one 20 oz. loaf and just back in the water measurements based on the ratio of flour:water that I had been using.

After a little math on the back of a scrap of paper, I determined that I needed 15 oz. of water for 20 oz. of flour or a 4:3 flour to water ratio. This is still a little off from the 5:3 ratio that wheat bread uses (see yesterday’s newsletter on more about that). In Ratio, Ruhlman says that the amount of yeast and salt in a recipe can be variable, so I didn’t bother to measure those out with measuring spoons. (I has in a hurry!!) I still wanted a pretty quick rise so I estimated about 1.5 Tbsp yeast, 1 tsp. sugar and 1.5 tsp. salt. I did measure the xanthan gum and used a heaping tablespoon.

By this time, I wasn’t following any recipe strictly and I still needed to make a decision about how many eggs to add and how much oil and vinegar to use. Ruhlman does not address whether water portion of the bread ratio (5 flour: 3 water + yeast and salt) needs to be adjusted if you add eggs and oil, so I wasn’t sure what do to. I ended up just sticking with the 3 eggs and 1 tsp of vinegar that is in my usual recipe and leaving the oil out.

The dough was a little on the dry side (for gluten free dough) when I mixed it all up, so I added 1/8 c. water (1 oz) and that got the dough to just the consistency that I was looking for. Since I wasn’t sure if my loaf pan would hold this much dough, I put it all into my largest bowl, which I had greased first, and left it out to rise for 1.5 hours. This first picture is the dough before it has started to rise.

The dough rose magnificently. I didn’t get a picture, but it easily doubled. Maybe more than that. I had this bright idea that I’d separate the dough into 4 pieces and make little round mini-loaves.

That was a disaster!

I ended up with hands covered in sticky dough that would not come together into anything. The children also chose this time to squash one another’s fingers in the cabinet, explore electrical outlets and try to climb up my body.

Thankfully, my sweet husband rescued them and me, and fixed up a baking sheet with a nice thick layer of GF cornmeal. I scraped all of the dough back into the greased bowl, formed something of a round shape with a wet spoon and then dumped it onto the baking sheet.

Into the oven at 400 with a prayer that something edible will result and some time later this is what came out of the oven.

We headed out to the car immediately after I took these pictures, but I managed to snitch a couple of bites with Lucy while we were driving. The crust was so crunchy! And the interior was so soft! It was the perfect loaf of bread to just tear a hunk off of and dip in olive oil. Which is what I expect that we will be doing today =)

Gluten Free Bread Experiments – A Loaf of Gluten Free Bread Every Day

Mary Frances — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 21:26:29 +0000

Let me give you a brief sketch of what life is like right now. John and I both work at home. He works on his internet marketing business in the morning. I work on Gluten Free Cooking School in the afternoon. Except for the days that we switch.

Whoever is not working is taking care of the kids. Lucy (10 mo), Grant (23 months), David (4 yrs) are all at home all the time now too. None of their nap schedules completely overlap. And none of them are at quite the right age to play happily together for more than 5 minutes. It’s sometimes crazy. To say the least.

Last week I wrote out a huge schedule to follow when I’m in charge of the kids. I think that it is the secret to maintaining my sanity. And right smack dab in the middle of it is 20 minutes that are allotted for bread baking.

Bread baking is one of my favorite parts of the morning. The kids are generally ready to have a snack in the kitchen and watch Mom bake. David and Grant both like to help. David, who is almost 5, has been helping me bake since he was 18 months and is an old hand at whisking eggs and mixing the dough. For me, it’s time to spend on something that I’m interested in.

So far, we’ve made 4 loaves of bread. I’m currently working on refining two different versions of Finally, Really Good Sandwich Bread (“FRGSB”). One will be gluten free, corn free. The other gluten free, corn free, and egg free. Many, many of you have asked for these variations and I’ve finally figure out how to work the necessary experimentation into my schedule. After that, I’ll move on to other variations. I know that I want to do a sourdough recipe and a yeast free recipe. I’d also like to experiment with some more strongly flavored loaves. What sort of bread recipes would you like to see? Email me at maryfrances [at] glutenfreecookingschool [dot] com and put Bread Recipe Request in the subject line.

I’m tentatively planning to start taking pictures and blogging about each day’s loaf. We’ll see how long I manage to stick with that. But so far, I’ve been reminded of a few interesting things.

1. Changing one flour in a recipe can dramatically change the required amounts of other liquids. I’ve always been aware that different flour are more or less able to absorb liquids, but this is the first time that I’ve actually measured that effect. The bread I’ve baked with my new gluten free, corn free flour mix only needs 2/3 of the amount of water as FRGSB.

2. Rising temperature is important. My first batch of gluten free, corn free bread did not rise very much at all. The culprit was that I put it in the oven to rise (because it was too cool in our house) and the oven was too hot. The top of the bread made a crust before the interior of the bread had time to fully rise.

3. Measurements matter. I’m also much more of a cook than a baker. I like to create recipes on the fly and rarely measure anything when I’m cooking. Baking has to be more exact if you want consistent results. John gave me a digital kitchen scale for Christmas and I’ve had a lot of fun scooping out my flour in measuring cups like I normally would and then measuring the flour by weight. You’d be amazed at how much difference it make whether you scoop the flour and then shake off the excess, scoop the flour and then scrape the excess against the bag, or spoon the flour into the cup and then level with a straight edge. I’ve also been intrigued by seeing how 1 cup of brown rice flour is a different weight than 1 c. of corn starch.

Gluten Free Southern Cornbread

Mary Frances — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 20:53:36 +0000

Cornbread is one of John’s favorite foods. He has been known to eat an entire pan all by himself, and yet somehow he is still a slim, trim hunk (I’m waiting to see how long it takes him to edit this!). We make when we’re having soups, stews, and any food that has yummy juices that we want to soak up. It is also the main ingredient in the Cornbread Dressing recipe that I’ll be posting in the lead-up to Thanksgiving.

For more ideas on how to make your favorite foods gluten free, so you can enjoy them this holiday season (or anytime!), make sure to check out my ebook, The Gluten Free Survival Guide. I packed it full of practical strategies to help you enjoy the holidays and still stay gluten free, plus it’s got all of my favorite recipes included too.

If you’re wondering why this recipe is titled “Southern” cornbread, it is because it does not contain any sugar. Cornbread should not have any sugar! It is blasphemous! I know Jiffy puts sugar in their mix, but they are just wrong. This may offend some people who were raised on sweet cornbread, but please don’t hurt your cornbread by adding sugar. Now that I’ve finished that rant, on to the cornbread.

I used to think that cornbread was the best bread recipe ever for a gluten free diet because you don’t need any special ingredients. (I do add some brown rice flour to mine, but you can just as easily use 1 3/4 c. cornmeal, if you want.) However, I’ve been having trouble finding a non-contaminated cornmeal at our grocery store, so I’ll probably order fromKinnikinnick next time. We’ve never noticed a problem with the cornmeal we’ve purchased at the local grocery, but we’re not as sensitive as some of you, so I don’t want to recommend it. Update John found gluten free cornmeal by Arrowhead Mills at Whole Foods so that’s what we will be using in the future.

If you do look for cornmeal at your grocery store be careful because most grocery stores carry cornmeal and cornmeal mix. The cornmeal mix contains cornmeal and wheat flour along with leavening agents. Read your labels and make sure you’re just getting cornmeal. I’ve also had friends tell me that their cornbread was gluten free only to find out that they didn’t realize that cornbread mix had flour in it (or they didn’t realize that “flour” is made of wheat!).

Gluten Free, Casein Free Southern Cornbread
(Yield: 8 slices)

Cornbread should really be made in a cast-iron skillet, but you can use a glass casserole dish in a pinch. The crust won’t be as crispy, but that’s the only difference.

1 Tbsp shortening or oil

1 1/4 c. white cornmeal
1/2 c. brown rice flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda

2 Tbsp cider vinegar AND enough soy milk to equal two cups
2 eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Add the shortening or oil to a 10″ cast iron skillet and put the skillet in the oven to heat up.

2. Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl.

3. Measure out 2 Tbsp. of cider vinegar into a 2 c. measure, and then add soy milk until you get to the 2 c. mark. The vinegar will curdle the soy milk, and give you a casein free buttermilk. Pour the milk and vinegar into a mixing bowl. Add the eggs to the milk and vinegar and whisk thoroughly.

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until well-mixed.

5. Check the skillet and see if the oil/shortening has started to smoke a bit. Once it has, pull the oven rack out (with the skillet on it) and pour the cornbread batter into the skillet. It will sizzle and some of the oil will come up around the sides and onto the top of the batter. This is supposed to happen and is what makes the crispy crust. Here’s what it will look like.

6. Cook the cornbread for 20 – 25 minutes. When it is done the top will be golden and the middle will be firm but slightly springy to the touch. If you like, rub some butter over the top of the crust at this point. After the bread has cooled for a few minutes, you can cut it into 8 wedges and then remove it from the skillet.

Gluten Free Cooking School » gluten free bread recipes

Gluten Free Bread Experiments: Free Form

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Gluten Free Southern Cornbread

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