Gluten-free Girl Day!!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

A couple of weekends ago my friend Hillary came over and we tried our hands at making gluten-free bread. Since I counsel students with Celiac disease on a daily basis, I wanted to gain a little experience with the gluten-free world. My husband was out of town and Hillary was game for a little baking, so it was girl day the gluten-free way!

When I went to the store to pick up the ingredients, I opted not to purchase all the individual ingredients, but instead to purchase a mix. Mainly because most of the items are sold in bulk and we weren't sure if we would like the bread or not; so why have a lot of items around that we weren't ever going to use again?

So, I chose Pamela's Wheat-free Bread Mix. It's all purpose, so it can be used for pizza dough, bagels and a variety of breads. It's dairy-free, which is a plus, and the yeast is included. The only thing we had to add was egg, warm water, and oil. (The bag even included a recipe using egg replacer instead of egg for those allergic to eggs.) I borrowed my mother-in-law's mixer, Hillary came over and we began.

To start, the mixture was so dense and heavy that we burnt up the mixer. Fabulous, right? So, we switched to a pastry blender: not quite as effective, but it worked. Needless to say, both of us got a workout for our biceps!

Then, the instructions say to "pour" the dough into a greased bread pan. Yeah right! Not happening! We spooned it out and plopped each spoonful into the pan.

Next, the directions say to "let the dough rest for 60 minutes." Rest? O.K. Will do. Wedding video! (Hillary's suggestion, I might add. I would not make someone watch my wedding video, unless of course you're my husband. )

After the dough had a 60 minute nap, it was time for the oven: 60 - 75 minutes to bake. Wedding pictures! (Once again, Hillary's suggestion!)

After the timer went off, we were like silly school girls, dancing through the apartment singing, "our bread is done, our gluten-free bread is done!" We took it out, admired it for a moment of two. It needed to sit for 10 minutes in the pan and then onto a cooling rack to cool.

When the timer went off again, we were ecstatic: time to cut it! Man, was it dense! But it smelled so good! We couldn't wait to taste it!

We broke out the jam and had a second piece. The original goal was to bake the bread, sample it and then slice it and put it into baggies for Hillary to freeze. Well.... she took a half a loaf home.

We were both surprised at how wonderful it tasted. I think we were expecting it to be tasteless and in no way shape or form resemble bread. We were wrong. And very glad to be wrong.

All in all it was a fantastic experience and we have vowed to do it again. I loved the mix, although I do recommend using a more heavy duty mixer than the one we used, or if you are so inclined, mix it manually.

So for those of you who may be gluten-free, here's a word of encouragement: you can still enjoy a great piece of toast and have some fun doing it!