Introducing…
Erin of For Him and My Family is a stay at home mom of 8. She is a homeschooling mom who enjoys teaching her children and watching them learn. She loves to cook and embraces the challenge of cooking for her gluten free/lactose free/soy free family. She is also a registered nurse with a BSN. Her husband works as an electrician to allow her to stay home and care for her family.
Hi everyone! I’m so excited to be able to share a recipe and post with all of you. My recipe is for a gluten free/sugar free bread.
I found out that I, as well as several of our children, am gluten intolerant. I have always loved baking and knew that I would have to find a new recipe for bread since my regular recipe required whole wheat flour. I knew I wanted to stay away from the starches and “white” gluten free flours. I wanted to use the whole grains of the gluten free world!
The flours I now use are not the ones I used on my first batch of bread. It took me several loaves of bread before I got the texture and taste that I wanted. The flours/grains that I use now are brown rice flour, amaranth, millet, and teff. These may sound strange to you so let me share a bit about each flour.
- Brown rice flour is made simply by grinding up brown rice. This is a common flour to use in gluten free baking. I substitute brown rice flour anytime I see white rice flour or sweet rice flour. It is a more nutritional flour.
- Amaranth is a very old grain as it has been cultivated for over 8000 years and was a staple food of the Aztecs. Amaranth is a high protein seed, rich in amino acids and higher in protein than other grains.
- Millet flour is like sorghum in that it has a bit of a sweet taste without the bitter aftertaste and the sugar in recipes using millet can often be removed. This flour also helps to make a lower carbohydrate bread. This is also an ancient grain.
- Teff is an ancient grain that serves as a primary staple in Ethiopia still. Teff is a very small fine grain that can come in several different colors. I use a fine brown teff flour. It is nutrition packed and is used by professional athletes for it’s nutitional and gluten free nature.
I am trying to get away from using gums to replace the gluten in bread and am still working on it. Right now I am trying to make a slurry from chia seeds and water. I’ve read that this works really well to replace gums.
Now that I’ve told you a little bit about the bread, here is my recipe. I started off with a recipe in a cookbook that called for brown rice flour, tapioca flour, potato starch, and corn starch. As you can see I’ve definitely changed it up a bit!
Ingredients
- 2 cups warm water
- 1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 cup oil
- 3 eggs
- 2 cups brown rice flour
- 1/3 cup amaranth flour
- 1/3 cup millet flour
- 1/3 cup teff flour
- 2/3 cup oatmeal
- 1/3 cup cornstarch/potato starch/tapioca starch
- 1 tablespoon xanthan gum/guar gum
- 2 tablespoons Flax meal
- 2/3 cup powdered milk
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tablespoon(scant) yeast
Instructions
- Mix the wet ingredients together and place in the bottom of your bread machine pan. Mix all the dry ingredients except for the yeast together in a bowl and carefully spoon over the wet ingredients. Create a small well in the dry ingredients without reaching the wet ingredients to place the yeast in and start your bread machine.
- Bake at 350 for around an hour. You will know if it is done by thumping for a dull sound or touching the top for a bounce back.
Notes
If baking by hand you will want to activate the yeast by placing it in the warm water and letting it set for a few minutes before mixing things together. Some say you do not need to let gluten free breads rise, but I find that this bread will rise if you give it the time to do so. I let mine rise in the pan for an hour before you bake it.
I hope you will enjoy this bread as much as we do!
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