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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I’m back. You’re so happy right?!

Sorry it’s taken me a whole week to post. In all honestly, I just didn’t have anything to post about. But now I do.

I want to talk about spoons and the role they play in the act of eating chili. I don’t think that they should have a role at all. Don’t get me wrong, I think spoons make wonderful tools for getting the chili into your bowl, but the job stops there. Chili needs to be eaten with bread. Not bread on the side, I mean replace the spoon with a great piece of bread.

Yes, there are clearly some obvious issues with this method. If the bread bends how do you get the chili to your mouth. If the bread gets soggy, how do you avoid dripping everything down the front of your shirt? Normally, I would say lightly toast the bread so that it’s firm but not crumbly. Well, nothing about life is normal for me anymore. So there had to be a Plan B.

Meet Plan B.

Lakeview Bakery’s Brown Rice Red is the perfect solution. It’s firm so no bending under the weight of the good stuff. It’s dense so no soggy mess down the front of your shirt. And it doesn’t really have any sort of distinct taste, so it won’t interfere with the awesomeness that is your chili. And just think – that’s one less dish you need to wash.

Now, I will say this: I wouldn’t say that it makes the best sandwich bread – for all the reasons it makes a great chili bread. In the grand scheme of things, I don’t really think this is a case of needing to have your cake and eat it to.

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O’Doughs is getting much closer to making frozen GF Bread taste like homemade.

Fiance and I picked this up as our “Just In Case” bread. You all know what I’m talking about: “Just in case you run out of GF Patisserie bread and NEED a sandwich like a fat kid needs M&M’s”. We picked this loaf for two reasons, 1) it was a half loaf so if it went bad we weren’t wasting money, and 2) We haven’t tried it yet, so I could blog about it.

To our pleasant surprise it actually tastes better than every other frozen GF Bread we’ve tried. It’s lighter, moister, less crumbly and all around tastier than the others. Good Job O’Doughs, you’re making great strides in the frozen GF bread world and we appreciate it.

Fiance and I found this at Superstore (Deerfoot Meadows, Calgary). If you see it elsewhere please let us know. Some of our readers don’t have such wonderful Superstores in their area.

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In our house, Saturday morning’s are all about breakfast. The day cannot, and will not, begin until breakfast is consumed. And not just any breakfast will do – cereal is for weekdays, and omelette’s are for the uncreative.

So what do you serve a Celiac who isn’t impressed with cereal or omelette’s? You serve them french toast. Oh yes I said it – FRENCH TOAST.

French toast made from gluten free bread, isn’t always as easy to make as you would think. GF bread is often heavy and sponge like. This usually translates into french toast that is cooked on the outside and soggy on the inside.

Not too worry, Fiance found a solution.

The first thing you need is well made GF bread. It needs to hold together and not be as dry as the desert. (I might suggest GF Patisseries sandwich bread.) Once you’ve chosen the best bread, you need to apply the ‘double dunk’  technique. Step one: GRAZE the bread over the egg mixture – do not submerge. Fry both sides. Step two: Remove from pan and dunk bread into egg mixture again. Repeat frying until cooked through.

I know that this process seems a little redundant. But it’s totally worth it! The double dunk technique is great because it prevents the bread from soaking up all the egg and turning into a soggy mess. SO WORTH IT!

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BIG Craving.

MUST have a sandwich.

Don’t have bread.

Quick stop at Community Natural Foods.

Picked up Maggie’s Gluten Free Kitchen Multi Seed Bread.

The verdict: Will do in a pinch.

It’s no secret that I’m addicted to GF Patisserie’s sandwich bread. That being said, I knew that when I picked this loaf up I would have to keep a very open mind.  And not to toot my own horn, but ~ TOOT TOOT~ I kept an open mind.

I was impressed with the fluffy nature of the bread. GF bread in general tends to be heavy and ridged, add to that the fact that this is multi seed bread and I would have assumed that it would be like a rock. Pleasantly, it wasn’t.

What I wasn’t too keen on was that it falls apart fairly fast. I lost two pieces just pulling them from the bag. that was heartbreaking, that means one less sandwich I can have. I would also warn you that the bread is a little dry, it’s one of those loaves that sucks up the condiments like a sponge.

Here’s the straight up truth. GF Patisserie makes the best sandwich bread of all time. BUT, if you need a sandwich pronto, and you can’t get out to Cochrane, Maggie’s Gluten Free Kitchen is a good alternative.  Not the best GF bread I’ve had, but definitely not the worst.

(I’ve attempted to find their website but have not found it. The website on the bread label does not exist, and a google search brought nothing up. So all I can tell you is that you can find this bread at Community Natural Foods – not sure where else)

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This is a big deal to us. This never happens. So of course, we had to make some plans because free time freaks us out. We chose to shop.

First Stop: GF Patisserie.

GF Patisserie is like Disney Land for Celiac’s. As we pull off the highway I begin to vibrate in anticipation.

On the list this weekend:

• Sandwich Bread (you haven’t lived until you’ve had their sandwich bread),
• Cupcakes
• Hot Dog Buns.

The only thing they didn’t have was hot dog buns – SOLD OUT. I had mixed feelings about this. Happy that they sold out – selling out means that they will make them again and it means that I am not alone in my quest for hot dogs. Sad they sold out – selling out means I didn’t get a chance to have  hot dogs this weekend. All is not lost. I will have a hot dog soon!

Second Stop: The Calgary Farmer’s Market.

Once you get past the fact that farmer’s markets are listed #5 on the Stuff White People Like list, it really is an enjoyable time.

Here is a list of notable favourites at the market:

Old Country Sausage Shop.

Very knowledgeable staff and an epic selection of GF goodies. This is also where we get hot dogs. Seriously people, they taste like normal hot dogs. It’s like a trip into your childhood with these hot dogs.  The selection is huge: cold smoked sausage (7 varieties), fermented sausage (8 varieties), fresh sausage (11 varieties), cooked sausage (4 varieties), and hot smoked and ready to eat (14 varieties).

Absolutely Fabulous

Absolutely Fabulous is the not only the name of the company, but also indicative of the items they sell. Some notable favourites are: Coconut Chicken Skewers, Smoked Trout Cheesecakes, Crab Cakes and Springrolls. There is also a selection of Fresh Weekly GF Specials, featuring things like: Chili Avocado Mousse, Layered Sombrero Dip and Spinach & Artichoke Heart Dunk. Oh so good!

Little Jack Horner Homemade Meat Pies.

All be it not a place you would assume had GF options, they have some great selections. Some notable favourites are: Pate Chinoise, Fisherman’s Pie, and Spicy vegetarian. From the freezer to the table…no mess. My kind of cooking!

Go forth and plan a Saturday shopping trip. You wont be disappointed.

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While at Whole Pay Check Foods in Vancouver, I stumbled upon Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Raisin Bread mix. Could not walk away. This was genius. Raisin bread is a luxury in my world. I love it but can’t eat it fast enough so I rarely buy it.

How brilliant is the ready made mix?! It’s cheaper than buying fresh, it can sit in the cupboard until you’re really in the mood for it, and it requires little to no work – which makes the anti-domestic goddess in all of us happy.

The verdict:

• Easy to make.
• Can be turned into great french toast.
• Drys out a little fast.
• Does not need any special GF settings on the bread maker to come out perfect.
• The tiny wholes in the bread are perfect for holding melted butter.

All in all. I was impressed. As with all Bob’s products, you may or may not be able to find this product where Bob’s Red Mill is sold. If you see it, stock up.

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