Saturday, April 21, 2012

Bread!

Alright, I keep saying that I'm going to post my bread recipe and then life gets in the way. But here it is! And unfortunately I'm not even sure that I know equivalent volume measurements for the dry ingredients anymore, but I will give my best guesses, but seriously consider trying to bake this by weight if you want the best results. This was inspired by/modified from a few recipes in the book "You Won't Believe It's Gluten-Free!: 500 Delicious, Foolproof Recipes for Healthy Living" by Roben Ryberg. I like to mix the dry ingredients in ziplock bags ahead of time and have a bunch in my pantry so that when I decide I want bread it only takes about 5 minutes to mix it up and then ~30 minutes in the oven.


Ingredients:
Dry:
75 grams brown rice flour (about 1/2 cup)
1 tbsp ground flax seed (this is approximate - just for flavor and fiber - you can leave it out, or add more/less)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp sugar
pinch of sea salt
1 3/4 tsp xanthan gum


3 egg whites
1 tbsp oil (I usually use grapeseed, sometimes olive, if you're into coconut oil you can use that, but you have to melt it first)
1/2 cup water (you can also use milk or non-dairy milk)
1 tbsp vinegar (I usually use white wine vinegar, but plain white vinegar, rice vinegar, and apple cider vinegar are all good choices)


Preheat oven to 375 F. Beat the egg whites until they are frothy, but not starting to form peaks. Add the other wet ingredients and mix well. Add the dry ingredients and mix until it thickens. You can use a mixer or do it all by hand. Either way works. The texture will seem really weird, but trust me, it will work. Place in a greased loaf pan or into a greased jumbo muffin pan to make buns. Smooth out the top a bit with wet hands. Bake for about 30 minutes, but check it after 2o minutes. It should be lightly browned and pulling away from the sides of the pan and it should slide out of the pan easily. Makes 1 small loaf of bread or 6 buns. 1/6 of the recipe has 2 Weight Watchers points if you're into that sort of thing.


Variations (note that adding things like raisins and cheese makes it stick to the sides of the pan a bit more, so slide a butter knife around the edges before trying to get it out):
-I like to add basil, garlic powder, and onion powder for herb bread.
-Add the above herbs plus 3 oz grated cheese for cheese and herb bread.
-Add just grated cheese and make in muffin pans for cheese buns.
-Add cinnamon and raisins for raisin bread.
The possibilities are endless...