We are still putting up a fight against gluten. It is much harder than you'd think. Six months gluten free and kiddo is still testing positive for celiac. While he is MUCH better than before, he's still not healthy yet and hasn't started to heal. It's very frustrating. I am beyond diligent when it comes to keeping him gluten free and yet it seems it's not enough. So I continue to clean and read labels and hope that at some point something will be enough to get my kid healthy.
In the meantime, I've been asked frequently for the bread recipe I've been using. It took me a long time to get a recipe I like and it's still not perfect, but I'll share should anyone out there want to give it a try. It must be simple, because I can make it. I started with this recipe from food.com. It's a really good french bread recipe as is and I've been able to make it into rolls too so it's pretty versatile. But I wasn't really happy with it so I made a few tweaks. So this is MY bread recipe, or at least as it stands for now...
Sandwich Bread
Ingredients
1 cup white rice flour
1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup tapioca flour
2 Tablespoons ground Flaxseed
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
2 1/2 teaspoons yeast (1 package)
2 Tablespoons butter (melted) or oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vinegar
Directions:
In the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer, place flours, flaxseed, xanthan gum and salt. Mix together on low or with spoon. In a small bowl, dissolve sugar in water. (Water should be about 110-115 degrees-I have had fine results with honey or brown rice syrup in place of sugar) Gently stir in yeast. Wait until mixture begins to foam and then add to dry ingredients with butter, eggs and vinegar. Mix all on high for 3 minutes. Scrape dough (which will look like batter) into greased bread pan. Let rise in warm room until doubled in size (25-35 minutes). Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake for 40-45 minutes. (Bread is done at 205 degrees if you use a thermometer) Remove from pan to cool.
This is my current day-to-day bread. It tastes AMAZING right from the oven, but gets dry quite quickly. That, unfortunately, is the nature of gluten free bread. The good news is that it toasts up quite nicely so it can still be used despite being dry. Also, it can be left out to dry for a day or so and then ground up in a food processor to make awesome gluten free bread crumbs. Inevitably I will tweak this some more, maybe someday I'll figure out a bread that stays moist for a few days. If so, I'll be sure to share!
