Best. Bread. Ever!

     I have a few comfort food standbys that I turn to when my tummy is unhappy, cereal in warm weather, toast and tea in cool. I came home from work the other night, in a fog of migraine pained haze only to find that I had no bread for toast. No amount of sad face, or cat cajoling was likely to make more appear. My options were to get back into my car and go to the too bright store to spend obscene amounts of money for some frozen cardboard masquerading as gluten free bread... or I could pull out my Wall-E wanna be bread machine and make my own. 

     Who ever imagined that baking would be the most rewarding use I would find for my Bio/Chem degree?  I used to bake my own bread years and years ago when I worked for a place that was in the process of opening a bakery and I thought it would be a cool skill to have. But it was messy, and I got bored... enter my first bread machine. Add ingredients in order, (I like order, and measuring cups), let machine do all the work, enjoy fresh bread. I like fresh bread, (really, who doesn't?), that first piece that's really too hot to eat, that the butter just disappears into while the smell fills the house. Yeah, that's the stuff.

     Baking is chemistry, and my kitchen it is an experiment, not always successful. But sometimes...

This is the recipe for the best loaf of gluten free bread I have made to date. Cobbled together from several other recipes and repeated 3 times so far it is flavorful with a dense, moist crumb and keeps for at least 2 weeks in the fridge. I will be the first to admit that there are a lot of ingredients in this bread, but once you have everything in your kitchen you can probably get ~6 loaves out, and most of this stuff is pretty standard in GF baking. So here goes.

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Xan's (Gluten Free) Multigrain Bread

3/4 cup garbanzo bean flour

1/2 cup buckwheat flour

1/4 cup sorghum flour

1/4 cup teff flour

1/2 cup potato starch

1/4 cup tapioca starch

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup oats

3 Tbsp millet or quinoa

2 Tbsp almond flour

1 Tbsp xanthan gum

1 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 3/4 cup warm water

1/4 cup olive oil

2 Tbsp honey

2 eggs lightly beaten

1 tsp cider vinegar

     Add all all of the ingredients into your bread machine in the order that it recommends. (Wet then dry in my case with the yeast in a well in the middle, the underlined things are optional.) The dough should have a thick cake batter like consistency, if too wet add more garbanzo flour, if too dry add water. (It should just pull away from the sides when the paddle turns it). This makes a 1.5 lb loaf, and I use the medium crust setting.

     There will be pictures when I find a loaf that hasn't disappeared.

     Some accidents should be enjoyed...from my kitchen to yours.