More Bread!

I've made another loaf of bread! And I've discovered: after three loaves of gluten-free bread, I have forgotten what normal bread tastes like. (Dan answer: "not much".) But I think that's why gluten-free people say things like "oh, this new gluten-free bread is awesome! It's just like regular bread." I think they've forgotten regular bread. Because GF bread is never like regular bread.

Not that my previous loaves have been bad, but they haven't been very comforting-squishy-bready. Hopefully this lately bread has put me on the road to change that.

Look at those lovely air bubbles! It's like a legitimate glutened yeast bread! It looks light and squishy! And it is... kinda.

I used a recipe from America's Test Kitchen that included their gluten-free all-purpose flour blend. Honestly, this blend makes the most sense to me since they replace non-nutritious white (wheat) flour with the less nutritious white rice flour. Everywhere else using brown rice which, to me, seems more appropriate if you want to replace whole wheat bread.

Of course, instead of using white rice flour, I accidentally used sweet white rice flour, which I didn't realize was a different until after baking when I was trying to figure out why my bread was a bit gummy. Oops. So yeah, it looks great and normal bread-y, but it's a bit sticky. However! Even a tad too wet, the bread is soft and springy, just like a good white bread. I think that's because their recipe uses psyllium instead of xanthan (or guar) gum to bind. I've read that psyllium husks give GF bread a much more "normal" feel and based on this (improperly made) loaf, I'd have to agree.

I have ordered some of the correct flour so I'll be able to give this a go again soon and hopefully that will take care of the slight gumminess. Stupid baking! It doesn't do well with substitutions (even accidental ones).