Karina's gluten-free bread recipe

As you may have noticed, I love making bread. After I discovered that I may have a gluten sensitivity, I lived without bread for over a month because I didn't want to invest in the crew of gluten-free flours and baking aids until I knew that gluten was indeed my problem. Well, there were a couple of weeks when I had to cram it down my throat in order to have an accurate test for celiac disease, but I definitely didn't enjoy it when I knew that it was the thing making me miserable. I finally dug into my savings last week and acquired all of the necessary supplies for gluten-free bread. But where to start?? The first place I turned was Karina's Kitchen. Karina has a beautiful blog that I've been reading for an extremely long time (far before I ever suspected that I may have a problem with gluten). She has a number of dietary restrictions (gluten, soy, dairy, almond, eggs) yet still manages to create fabulous recipes. Karina came through for me with this amazing bread recipe.

Karina's gluten-free bread (adapted from Karina's Kitchen)

(Printable version)

1 cup sorghum flour

1 cup potato starch

1/2 cup millet flour

2 tsp xanthan gum

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 Tbsp instant yeast

1 1/4 cup room temp water

3 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp honey

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar (or other vinegar or lemon juice)

2 eggs, beaten

Combine flours, starch, gum, and salt in a small bowl and set aside. Add water, oil, honey, vinegar, and eggs to a 1 1/2 lb bread machine. Pour the flour mixture on top, and add the yeast to the top of the flour. Cook on the quick cycle (or gluten-free cycle if your machine has one). Check the dough on the last kneading cycle, and push down any flour on the sides of the pan with a plastic or wooden spatula if necessary. Also, the dough should be like muffin dough (not in a ball like wheat bread dough), so add more flour or water if it is wetter or drier than this. Remove from the machine after it's done baking - don't let it go through the cooling cycle or it will get soggy. Let cool and slice. I store my bread in the freezer (in a ziploc freezer bag) and toast it when I want a piece. It keeps extremely well this way.

If you would rather make this bread by hand, Karina has great instructions. I may try this next time just for fun.

I have to admit that I was nervous all day. I've heard so many horror stories about gluten-free bread. Many people say that it's never as good as wheat bread, but you learn to get used to it because that's your only option. Well, Karina broke these "rules" because this is fabulous! It's not like your typical wheat bread, but it has a great flavor that reminds me of a mix of cornbread and biscuits. It didn't rise as much as it could have, but got about as high as my 100% whole wheat breads once did. It has a great texture, with an almost buttery feel in my mouth. Basically I loved everything about this bread.

I'm extremely happy about how this turned out. I knew Karina would lead me in the right direction, but I had no idea that she could work miracles! I'll probably play around with this recipe and try others just for kicks, but it's great to know that I have a solid bread recipe that works wonderfully. Right now I'm not missing gluten at all!!

Bulgur, oats, flax, and bran bread for bread machine

**This is not a gluten-free recipe and was posted before I eliminated gluten from my diet.**

For months I've relied on the same bread recipe, only changing subtle things (like using different nuts and seeds). It's incredibly good, so I figured there was no reason to veer from it, but Kalyn managed to change my mind when she posted a recipe for whole wheat bread with lots of yummy additions, including bulgur (one of my favorites!).

Bulgur, oats, flax, and bran bread (adapted from Kalyn's Kitchen)

1/2 cup bulgur

2/3 cup boiling water

2 1/4 cup whole white wheat flour

3/4 cup rolled oats

2 Tbsp wheat bran

2 Tbsp flax meal

2 Tbsp wheat gluten

1 tsp salt

1 Tbsp raw sugar

1 cup lukewarm water

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp honey (or agave nectar)

2 tsp instant yeast

Soak bulgur in boiling water for an hour. Combine flour, oats, bran, flax, gluten, salt, and sugar in large bowl. Stir in bulgur. Add ingredients to bread machine in order suggested by manufacturer's directions (I added liquid ingredients, then dry ingredients, then yeast). Use whole wheat setting if you have one. Keep an eye on it during kneading, and add more water or flour if it's not typical dough consistency. Makes 1 1/2 lb loaf.

This was incredibly good. It didn't taste remarkably different than my usual bread, but had a great texture from the bulgur and oats. It didn't rise quite as much as my usual recipe, but it isn't a big deal and isn't heavy and dense at all. I didn't use dough enhancer, and I'm curious if this would have made a difference. If I can find a cheap version, I may try it out to see. I'm happy with how my loaves turn out, though, so it's definitely not necessary.

I missed the nuts/seeds that I usually add, and I'll add some next time. But, as is, I couldn't stop eating it. In fact, I didn't let it cool very long before I sliced into it because it smelled so good. The only downside is that this takes a little bit more time because you have to wait for the bulgur to soak. It's not a huge deal if you're at home, but it would be tough for me make this after getting home from the lab (unless I ate the whole thing and didn't have to wait for it to cool to store it!). This bread will definitely be making another appearance in my machine.

Bread revisited

**This is not a gluten-free recipe and was posted before I eliminated gluten from my diet.**

When I started making bread I intended to try out a bunch of different recipes, but I fell in love with the first one I tried and I haven't been able to try anything else. I vary it slightly, but mostly stick to the same recipe. It's somewhat hard to make a 100% whole wheat bread that rises correctly in a bread machine, so you might as well stick with what works, right?

I should note that this works fabulously in my Zojirushi S15, but doesn't rise nearly as well in Dad's cheap machine (I can't remember what brand he has). If someone is giving away a Zojirushi (which is a very lucky situation that I fell into), take them up on it without hesitation. I think there are cheaper machines that do a good job with whole wheat breads, but I don't have enough experience to give out advice. No matter what machine you use, it will taste great... but if you want a light and fluffy bread, you'll have to acquire a good machine.

100% Whole Wheat Bread (adapted from King Arthur Flour) - for 1 1/2 pound machine

1 1/4 cups lukewarm water

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp honey (or agave nectar)

3 cups whole white wheat flour

1 Tbsp wheat gluten

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp instant yeast

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Add all ingredients except walnuts (in this order, or according to your machine's manual) to the pan. Cook on raisin cycle (or the cycle that beeps for adding nuts and fruits). When it beeps, add the walnuts. During the last few minutes of kneading, check on it to see if you need to add more water or flour (the dough should be tacky, but not so sticky that it won't let go of the sides of the pan during kneading). The flour:water ratio will change depending on the humidity that day, so it's a good idea to get in the habit of checking every time you make bread.

I've also used other nuts (pecans or almonds), seeds (sesame or flax), or dried fruits (raisins) in place of the walnuts, and it's always good. My favorite is the walnuts, though. Either way, be prepared to be extremely happy because there's nothing better than the smell of baking bread.

I have every intention of making another loaf by hand, but it's hard to find a day when I'll be home long enough to let it rise. Until then, I'm still enjoying this kind...

Update: I suppose I should tell you how to store this bread. After it's completely cool, I slice it and put the whole thing in the freezer (unless I want to eat some immediately). I've found that it's just as good out of the freezer as it is right after it's cooked (and much better than if it sits out... even if only for a night). Then if I want some immediately, I throw a frozen slice in the toaster. If I want to pack some for lunch, I take it out of the freezer in the morning and it's thawed and ready to eat in about an hour. I've kept some frozen for as long as a month (while I was doing a lot of traveling), and it was still great.

Cooking up a storm

Last week I was incredibly busy and definitely didn't have time to cook.  Luckily I made do with leftovers until the weekend.  I finally had time yesterday, so I made up for the lack of kitchen time during the week.  I started off with my first loaf of homemade bread (sans bread machine).  I was reading Peter Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads", and he seems to be the expert in the field.  About 95% of the recipes in his book use 100% whole grains (the other 5% are transitional breads for people who can't make the switch right away), and he's done the experiments to figure out how to work with the grains correctly.  I've perfected the sandwich bread in the machine, but it's somewhat hard to make other whole grain breads because there's not enough time for gluten to form.  He has some interesting ideas, so I decided that I'd try it out when I got the time.  I chose the Oat Bran Broom Bread (some of the book, and coincidentally this recipe, is on Google books).  It involves preparing two "starters" the night before, and it takes a while to make, but it's not a whole lot of work.  His descriptions were good enough for everything to work quite well.  And on top of that I got to try out my new pastry mat, which definitely made things easier and reduced clean-up time!  It's really good bread, although I'm not sure that it's miles ahead of the machine bread.  I can see myself making some of his other breads, but on busier weeks I'm sure I'll use the machine.

While the bread was resting, I put on a pot of pea soup from a packet that Mom and I picked up at the farmers' market in Traverse City.  I added potatoes, carrots, and a smoked turkey leg (thanks to Mom's suggestion!) to the mix of peas and spices that was included.  Simply put, it's amazing.  The turkey gave it a wonderful flavor, and I'm happy that it made a ton because I don't think I'll get tired of it.  It was a perfect lunch today with a salad and some of my bread :)

Last night I was exhausted, but wanted to cook some spaghetti squash and kale (yep, I got some more at the market this week).  I decided to add some butter, parmesan, and pine nuts to the cooked squash.  It was good, but it could have used more parmesan (my hand got tired of grating).  Perhaps I'll grate more before I have the leftovers.  I found a good kale recipe from my new veggie cookbook - you boil the kale and add sauteed onions, garlic, and red pepper, and then pour some balsamic vinegar on top.  It's good, although it's hard to mess up with those ingredients.  So far my favorite kale recipe is still the one with the potatoes (with the bean and pasta one a close second).

Tonight I decided to make a bulgur pilaf to go along with kale leftovers and a piece of sauteed tilapia.  I used a recipe from the Cooking Light cookbook that adds onions, shredded carrots, currants (I didn't have any, so I used raisins), and toasted pine nuts to the bulgur.  I'm not sure I've ever had bulgur before, and I was nervous about the raisins (I almost left them out), but it's delicious.  The raisins go perfectly with everything else, and the pine nuts give it a good crunch.  The bulgur has a really good flavor, too, so I'm sure I'll keep a regular supply of it.

This should keep me going for a while!

My first flop...

Ok, so it wasn't exactly a flop, but it wasn't what I expected.  It had been a week since I used my sourdough starter, so it was time to use more (or throw away some of it).  I decided to try making a sourdough loaf in the machine.  I enjoy sourdough occasionally and I hated to throw away some of my starter, so I decided to see what kind of loaf it would produce.  I added some sunflower seeds and raisins to a basic whole-wheat sourdough recipe.  For comparison, here's my first loaf of bread:

And here's the sourdough one:

No, I didn't cut the top off.  Needless to say, it's quite dense, but actually tastes pretty good.  I still don't think it's something I'm going to want often, which means I'll either stop keeping up with my starter or throw some away most weeks (probably the former).  It was a good experiment, but not exactly what I expected.

Fortunately I had other successes this weekend.  It's been raining (or pouring, rather) since Friday afternoon, so I've spent most of the weekend cooking, reading, and watching movies.  Yesterday I made a good stir fry with lots of leftover things I had (brown rice, chicken, peppers, and mushrooms), and today I baked some tomatoes that I had stuffed with ground beef, brown rice, and a bunch of spices.  I enjoyed both, especially along with veggies (which consisted of more sauteed squash, steamed spinach, and steamed carrots).  

Cooking with Mom

Even though Mom and I did quite a lot while she was here this weekend, we also managed to make a few things.  We went to Traverse City on Friday and spent the night, which meant that I missed my usual farmer's market trip on Saturday morning.  So, we decided to visit the one in Traverse City to make up for it.  It was HUGE, and even though I didn't intend to buy anything, we went home with some veggies (squash and zucchini, spinach, and corn) and some white-fleshed peaches.  We also tasted some jalapeno cilantro hummus, which prompted us to make some when we returned home.  We used this recipe but with much less oil (and a little bit of water).  It's very good (in fact, I was just enjoying some with my veggies), and has quite a kick due to the jalapenos and the enormous garlic cloves we used.  I bet it would be even better with dried chickpeas (unfortunately we didn't have enough time for them to soak).  It's a nice change from traditional hummus.

We also made some sourdough pretzels... mostly because I needed to use some of the sourdough starter that Jess gave me.  I let the bread machine make the dough, and I ended up adding a lot more water than the recipe called for because it was looking very dry.  Apparently I went a little bit overboard and we ended up with very sticky dough.  We had quite an adventure trying to roll it out and form pretzel shapes.  We were unable to achieve the traditional pretzel shape, but they still taste very good.  I added sesame seeds on top (instead of salt) for a new and different twist.

I also made Mom a loaf of herb bread by adding thyme and rosemary to the first recipe I used (and keeping the sunflower seeds).  It smelled good, and I can't wait to find out how it tastes...

I'm never buying bread again

Today the bread adventures began.  I was nervous because my machine doesn't have a whole wheat cycle, so I've been trying to read up on what wheat flour needs.  With the addition of a little bit of gluten and allowing it to rise longer, I wound up with the most delicious bread I've ever tasted.  And with only a few simple ingredients (whole white wheat flour, sunflower seeds, gluten, yeast, salt, olive oil, honey, and water)!  If 100% whole wheat bread can turn out this light and fluffy (and yummy!), I'm not really sure why people still make white bread.  It probably helps that I'm using quality flour that Jess brought me.  I've been nervous about how it would turn out for a few days now, but it turns out that I got it right.  And the sunflower seeds give it a great crunch.  Now I can start experimenting with new flours/nuts/fruits :)

I also cooked the patty pans tonight - I stuffed them with onions, tomatoes, a little bit of bread crumbs, and mozzarella (adapted from My Culinary Sanctuary).  They're tasty, but it was my fourth serving of squash today, so I probably didn't enjoy it as much as I could have.  With the addition of lots of tomatoes, I ended up with way too much stuffing, so I baked that separately and I'm looking forward to a tasty snack tomorrow.  I also sliced and roasted the japanese eggplant and sauteed the beans.  I couldn't stop eating both of those while the patty pans cooked.

I didn't think I would post this much when I started this blog, but with so many fresh veggies to use this week I've done a lot.  It will probably calm down for the next few days as I try to eat up all of the leftovers.  I'm excited to try a few new things this weekend (protein bars, baked falafel, and maybe even pita bread!).