Two Minutes to Homemade Bread
Aug 4th, 2008 by Mary Frances
The key to staying gluten free is to make being gluten free as easy and tasty as possible. One of my tricks is to keep a stash of gluten free bread mix in the freezer. It only takes 2 minutes to grab a gab of flour, mix in the liquid ingredients (handily noted on the bag), and pop the dough into the bread machine.
Even better, my husband can do it too, so bread making is not “my” responsibility. (This only works if he remembers that you showed him the new stash of bread mix in the freezer!)
And, if you’re thinking that it would be easier to pick up a bag of bread mix at the store, you’re probably right. But it wouldn’t taste nearly as good, and that’s more important than being easy.
If you’d like to make your own stash, grab you favorite gluten free bread recipe and follow along.
How to Make Homemade Bread Mix
First, mix up a big bowl of the main flours in your recipe. I used my “Gluten Free All Purpose Flour Mix” because I wanted to make “Finally, Really Good Sandwich Bread”. Since I use my All Purpose mix for lots of recipes, I didn’t do the math to figure out how much flour mix I would need for 8 loaves of bread. But you could certainly do that.
If you’re new to gluten free baking, the main flours would be any grain or bean flours, plus any starches like corn, potato, or tapioca.
Now, measure enough flour for one loaf of bread into each plastic freezer bag. I used a quart size bag. If you’re making a recipe for a 2lb. loaf you may need to go up a size. My recipe calls for two and a half cups of my All Purpose Flour Mix, so I don’t really have to think about how much flour to add. If your recipe calls for separate flours, add up the measurement for each of the flours you mixed in Step 1 to determine how much flour to add to each bag.
Take each additional dry ingredient and add it to each bag. For example, I add 1 Tbsp of yeast to each bag, and then 2 tsp. of xanthan gum to each bag, and then the sugar, and then etc. It’s very important to pay close attention during this step because it’s really hard to tell the difference between 1 tsp. of xanthan gum in a bag and 2 tsp. of xanthan gum in a bag. (Don’t ask.)
Now you can close each bag, lay it flat, squeeze all of the air out and seal. The only reason that you have to get most of the air out, is that it makes it so much easier to write the recipe on the bag. The bread mix will be in the freezer and should stay fresh for at least 6 months.
Using a Sharpie, write the name of the recipe and the amounts for the wet ingredients on the bag. You can also write any additional directions, if you (or any other bakers) will need them. I chose not do to that, because I follow the dump and stir method with this bread. Dump the dry ingredients in, dump the wet ingredients in, stir, bake.
Stack the bags in the freezer and forget about them till you need them. Be sure to tell everyone of baking age in your family about your stash, so that they can bake you bread in your time of need. (This is particularly handy if you’ve just had a baby or an illness in the family.) If for some reason your husband keeps making Flat Bread from scratch even though this easier option is available, he may have been distracted by a more enticing view (of you, of course)when you (proudly) showed him your stack of bread mixes and explained (in a very excited voice)how to use them. He may need a reminder.
What a good idea! I’m all over doing that this weekend.
Oh, Mary! We *so* do things alike! I have a dozen wrap dry mix baggies in the kitchen from my weekend “bagging” event too. LOL
And YES - It does save a TON of time!
[...] did I manage to do this so fast? Speed up your baking by prepping your mixes. (Mary Frances has a great post about it here.) Since I make the lavash wraps as our standard/basic for pizzas, pitas, wraps, etc, I make sets of [...]
It occurred to me that these pre-made bread mixes would be great to send to school with a gluten free college student. If they have access to an oven, then the only supplies they would have to store would be vinegar, egg, oil, and a loaf pan, bowl, and spoon. And measuring spoons.
I love it! I waste so much time making a different gf flour blend each time. Thanks for the idea, I’ll do this and “encourage” my husband to make the breads now too! I really like your site, you do a great job- I’m a new fan!
I keep trying to convince my husband that he can use the breadmaker himself so he doesn’t have to depend on me for sandwiches. Like everything else, I think the lazy side of his brain forgets we even have a breadmaker before I’m done telling him about the mix in the freezer. So, I still get to make the bread.
Hmm, I thought I had posted here once before, but it doesn’t seem to have taken. I made up a GF bisqcuit mix that I was able to take camping with me. By using all dry ingredients (like buttermilk powder and dried eggwhites…but these could be allergy subs as well), all I had to do was add some water. We then cook the bisquits on a stick. The GF worked just as well as the bisquick everyone else had.
Mary, I recently discovered your site through a Google search for gf flour tortillas (which I’m making later today). What a great resource this is for us, thank you! I definitely need to break out some of my mixes like this, but I find my biggest challenge is just figuring out how to store my dozen or so flour types. If you have a good system for storing all the flours, egg replacer, xanthan gum, etc, would you please share it on your blog?
I am very satisfied with the Really Good Sandwich bead using the soya free mix in that it works great in my machine, has good texture etc.
My frustration is that, to me, the bread has a slight bitter after taste. What would you recommend to correct that? I have tried adding milk powder and ground flax seed which helps to some degree. I do not think it is a brown rice flour problem because I made up other recipes from the same brown rice bag with out bitter after taste.
Thanks
June
@June: The bitterness may just be a personal preference thing. That is often an issue with gluten free flour mixes. My favorite flour may be one that you cannot stand! You might try substituting another grain flour (like millet) for the sorghum flour for or using almond flour instead of masa harina.
Thank you Mary Frances for the reply. I will try your suggestions. I have tried many mixes and like the performance of yours the best so I will try a lot of things to get it to match my taste buds. I would like to compliment you on your site. I have been GF free for many years and find great information, good recipes and responses to comments and quickly too. Thanks and keep up the great work.