SUCCESS!!!

 

Don't you just love it when you solve a major problem.  You feel like you just really accomplished something, beat an adversary even.  My adversary these last few weeks was gluten...or Celiac.  I mentioned recently that Mike has been diagnosed with Celiac disease.  Since then, I've been working, reading, researching, and experimenting (poorly).  But then I had a victory, a day of victory actually, and I finally feel like I'm over the hump.

Some of you may remember the Delicious Pumpkin Bread recipe I shared so long ago.  This is Mike's crack.  He doesn't just like this stuff, he loves it.  He really believes that I could (and should) sell this stuff for $10 a loaf.  I am not really on board with this idea, but appreciate his exultation anyway.  Anyhoo, this was one of the first things I wanted to master in this new gluten-free world of ours.

Okay, the original recipe calls for a different order of building, but I really wanted to make sure all the dry stuff got mixed together properly, so I put it all in first and got it all stirred up.  Flour is obviously the biggest obstacle when baking gluten-free, so how did I deal with that?  First I had to find a good all-purpose substitute.  It seems as if everyone has their own preferred AP GF flour recipe, but I like this one best of all the ones I've seen.  I mentioned milling my own flour about two weeks ago, and it was from that batch that I was able to get the 2 cups flour, plus one teaspoon guar gum for the elasticity.  That was really the crux of the issues I've had so far, so I was pretty nervous at this point.

 

There it is, the finished batter.  It looks pretty normal.  Now time to say a little prayer--not kidding, I really didn't want this to fail--and pop it into the oven.

 

Well, it looks pretty normal.  The best sign so far is the fact that it rose and stayed.  I made a sad batch of cookies about a week previous to this that rose and then melted everywhere into a big mess, so those pretty, little loaves are a really good sign.

When the bread was cool, I had Mike come over and try a piece with me.  Guess what?  It was perfect.  He loved it just as much as the stuff with wheat flour.  I seriously almost started crying for joy.  Being able to cook and bake the things that Celiac tries to take away from him is very important to me, and this is, quite possibly, the biggest win I could have had.

To review, the GF AP flour recipe consists of 2 cups brown rice flour, 2 cups white rice flour, and 1 cup cornstarch.  I added a teaspoon of guar--xantham will work too, but it costs about three times as much--gum to the rice flour mix for elasticity and voila!  Pumpkin bread flour!  With this victory, I now know I can overcome anything. :-)

I did say it was a day of victories, right?  I also made GF shrimp Alfredo, another favorite of Mike's, for dinner that night, but I'll share that recipe another time.