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How to Meet the Fire Marshall
May 28th, 2010 | caitlin | Categories: The Basket, Uncategorized
Tagged: Bob's Red Mill, Gluten Free, Gluten Free Arlington VA, Gluten Free Bread, Gluten Free Bread Machine, Gluten Free Calgary, PaneRisco Foods, Schar Gluten Free

Ever wondered how you could meet the local Fire Marshall AND be able to enjoy a sandwich while you were at it?

It’s as simple as baking you’re own bread.

Finding decently tasting, relatively affordable, GF bread has been a bit of a challenge. So in light of these challenges I went where I have gone before – to the kitchen. (insert dark, intense, suspenseful music here)

Having been given a bread machine from my parents, I set out to find as many varieties of GF bread mix as possible. I was a girl on a mission to be all awesome and domestic and budget conscientious and generally just be a whole lot of greatness in one person. As things progressed I really felt like I was on my way. I had chosen three very different breads: Bob’s Red Mill Homemade Bread Mix, PaneRiso Foods Rice Bread and Baking Mix, and Schar White Bread Mix.

As I thought out how I was going to present this post to everyone I decided that I would evaluate the breads on the following criteria: Taste, Moistness, and Ease of Use. Well, that shortly changed to Taste, Ease of Use and Flame Potential. When you stop laughing and looking at the page puzzled, I ask you to stop for a moment and remember who I am – I should have been able to guess that somehow fire and destruction would find there way in to my kitchen adventure.

So here we go, this is what I discovered:

1. Bob’s Red Mill Homemade Bread Mix.

I heart Bob. Bob has been this steady loving man in my life. He never disappoints and he always has a smile on his face. Another thing that I love so very much about Bob is that he’s not afraid to dumb things down for Domestic Anti-goddesses like myself. The mix came with the yeast needed. Let’s be honest people, there is a very large chance that I would mess even that part up if it hadn’t been handed to me. And the instructions couldn’t have been any easier to follow.

So in the machine it went. In hind sight I probably should have checked to see if the mix was compatible with bread machines. But that’s hind sight. Only useful when it’s too late.

As Husband I were enjoying the smell of freshly baked bread we jolted out of our chairs by a smell. The smell of burning. Initially I thought the neighbours were burning their dinner and I was about to make a snide comment about it when Husband interrupted my evil thoughts screaming: The Mushroom Collapsed.

After the 30 seconds it took me to decode what he actually meant, I rushed over to the kitchen where he was standing, digging out the chucks of bread on fire in the bottom of the machine. See..

I’ve since learned that bread in a machine has a tendency to rise above the rim of the bowl and start to resemble a mushroom cloud. And sometimes, that mushroom breaks off, and pieces fall on to the heating element and light on fire. If you have the ability to extrapolate and find humor in the oddest places, that series of statements will provide you with hours of comedy material. Anyhow. Turns out the mushroom collapsed and we had ourselves are very own fire in the machine.Thanks to Husbands quick thinking and skills with utensils from Ikea, he got the pieces out and the fire contained and the smoke cleared and I had bread.

After all that I will say, the bread was really nice. It was a little dense and thus I only used it for opened faced sandwiches, but all in all, Bob did good. That’s the thing about Bob. He can still make it good when I try to burn the house down. Points for Bob.

2. Schar White Bread Mix

Moving past our fire from before I decided to tackle the next round. I was again happy to discover that the yeast was included. NICE. I really love being able to narrowly avoid another trip to the grocery store. The directions were Glutastic proof and we loaded up the machine. In an attempt to be all Martha Stewart with a better hair cut, I decided to pick a different setting. This time I chose light crust setting. Why not, right?

The smell of fresh bread began to fill the apartment. Pleasantly surprised when there was no fire, we waited anxiously for the bread to be ready. Turns out that our Albino bread was worth the wait. It was moist, and held together well. From a taste standpoint, it was good. It still had the trade mark GF taste where you know that what you’re eating is GF but it wasn’t overwhelmingly “not normal”. I would say that the bread was again a little to dense for a sandwich, so open faced was the only way to go.

3. PaneRiso Foods Rice Bread and Baking Mix.

This one is for my people. Why? Because it’s Canadian. I was really happy to find this product. I have never seen them before and thought it was really very funny to find the Canadian brand only after moving to the USA.

As I sung the National Anthem and began getting everything I would need to start mixing it all together I noticed one major issue. I would need to buy yeast. Yarrgg. So after a few days we made our trip the grocery store and 30 minutes later left with yeast. Seriously people, you can judge me all you want but I really did not find the experience fun. There were too many choices and labels and packages. I’m not one for having too many choices. Simple is best.

Oh well. Moving past the extra trip, I decided that this was going to be awesome. So I loaded up the machine and prayed for sunshine. Again, I think hindsight would have helped. 30 minutes later Husband and I were in a familiar place – him digging out the fire and me fanning the fire alarm so that the entire 12 story building wouldn’t be evacuated over my inability to be in a kitchen without disaster.

Pushing forward and unable to claim defeat when I see it, we finished the bread cycle and kept an open mind. Things did not look like they were going to end well. The bread imploded.

Not being one to waste bread I decided to carry on and make a sandwhich. The following interaction best describes the experience:

Husband: How’s your lunch?

Me: My sandwich tastes like campfire.

Husband: The couch smells like burning.

Me: Grab the fabreeze and tell no one that this happened.

Husband: I’ll add it to the list.

All in all, I have no comments on the taste of the bread. All I can think is campfire, campfire, campfire.

I’m sure many of you are wondering where this little adventure has left us. Well, it’s left us with a few wonderful little life lessons. We’ve learned that random fires in a bread machine will cause said bread machine to cease working. So now we are the proud owners of a new machine. It’s a hand me down so we have less guilt if it goes up in flames. We’ve learned that anything can be funny with the right perspective. And it’s been reaffirmed that I am not able to accept defeat. I will not be taken down by these fires, I will try again. And as I attempt not kill another bread machine, I will bring you along for the ride. Because let’s be honest. I make you feel better not only about your own culinary skills, I make you feel better about your life in general!

Happy bread making everyone.

(if you’re wondering where I found these mixes here is where you can start looking: Wegmans, Harris Teeter and Giant. The stock is always in consistent so keep your eyes open.)

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