Gluten-Free bread... A Reprise

Gluten-Free bread (Shaded shot)
Originally uploaded by qwickening

Ok. I think I've got it... Finally.

In the bottom of the pan, I toss...

1 cup of warm water

Many recipes call for 1 1/4 cups of water. They're crazy. Here in Seattle, the Breadman TR875 can't really handle that much moisture.

2-3 tablespoons of Brown Sugar

I never really measure this. I just take out a big spoon and drop the brown sugar in the bottom of that pan. It seems loosely related to how much sugar I'm craving at the time.

2-3 tablespoons of Smart Balance

I used to warm this up. It doesn't matter. I just grab a clean butterknife and slap a few large chunks into the bottom of the pan with the warm water and brown sugar.

1 warmed egg

When I start the process, I fill a cereal bowl with warm/hot water and throw an egg in it. When I'm done mixing the flour, I throw the egg in the bottom and swoosh it around with a fork or breadknife to break up the egg yoke. To be honest, I'm not sure if this is even necessary.

That's the end off the wet ingredients.

In a separate metal mixing bowl, I toss...

1 cup of rice flour.

My current rice flour is a mix of brown and white. (Laziness. Lack of proper flour storage devices. Etc.) It's mostly white flour. It's the cheap stuff from Lenny's or HT Market. (~89 cents a bag.)

1/2 cup of tapioca starch

This is also the cheap stuff from Lenny's or HT Market (~79 cents a bag)

1/2 cup of "exotic" flour

For the loaf pictured, it was 1/2 of sorghum. For the loaf currently in the oven, it's millet flour.

1/2 cup oats (optional)

If I don't throw in oats, I usually up the flour amounts to 1/3 cup. (e.g. 1 1/3 rice; 2/3 tapioca; 2/3 sorghum.) The goal is to have UNDER 3 cups of dry stuff. (Around 2.5 cups.)

3 teaspoons of X

Xanthan gum. The magical X powder. I try to keep the total flour / oat amount less than 3 cups -- but I always put in 3 tablespoons of X to get a decent amount of "stretch." (X allows us to have that nice structure you see in this loaf -- i.e. those air bubbles wouldn't be possible without gluten or X.)

1 scant teaspoon of salt

Sometimes I forget the salt and nobody notices. :P

Mix all the flour / oats / salt / X really, really well.

Drop the dry ingredients gently on the wet ingredients in the mixing bowl of the bread machine.

Make a tiny divot in the top of the dry ingredients and drop in 1 heaping tsp of yeast.

Then... let the machine do its thing...

I let it get mixed up to the wet dough stage, sometimes using a spatula to get the sides pulled in.. and then I drop potato starch on it to give it that "freshly floured" look on the outside. I am pretty liberal with the starch. (This can be my downfall.) Perhaps this is where the last 1/3 - 1/4 of dry ingredients can come from.

And finally... WAIT to cut into it. This is a "good thing" for gluten breads, but it seems even more crucial with dense/wet gluten free breads. They need that "rest" period to even out the moisture content internally.