Gluten-Free Bread Machine Tips

Warm, gluten-free bread with sorghum flour, just baked.

Need to troubleshoot a gluten-free bread machine disaster? Here's a few key tips on baking gluten-free bread in a bread machine.

Match your g-free bread recipe or gluten-free bread mix to your bread machine (pan sizes vary). Are you baking a 1.5 pound loaf? Or a 2-pound loaf? Check manufacturer's instructions for loaf sizing. Often, "short" loaves are the result of not enough dough for the size of the pan.

Use a good recipe. Or a tasty gluten-free bread mix with superior ingredients (sorghum flour, brown rice flour, almond flour, millet, to name a few). Not all recipes and mixes are created equal. A bread based on white rice flour and potato starch is never going to be amazing. Honestly. Remember that starches are dirt cheap for manufacturers (hence their popularity). But they're also devoid of nutrition, texture and flavor. So choose wisely. Because the cheap stuff still sports a hefty price tag (the gluten-free market is booming, after all). So why not go for the higher protein, more flavorful gluten-free flours?

More tips:

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Gluten-Free Vanilla Cupcakes Recipe with Mocha Icing

Gluten-free vanilla cupcakes. Let's celebrate.

The world is my oyster. No. Wait. I'm allergic to oysters. At least that is what a blood test declared, four years ago. Puzzling. I never had any symptoms. That I recall. Though who knows. I haven't actually eaten an oyster in (...let me count), maybe 17 years. They were fried oysters. At a jumping local hang-out on the Cape. The Land Ho in Orleans. Famous for grilled burgers, golden dipped fish and chips, fried clams. And yeah. Oysters. And beer. Truth is, I would much prefer a cupcake. No slimy, muscular middle. No fishy liquor. Just tender, soft sweetness in exactly the right portion. Not too big. Not too heavy. Not too much.

Just right.

As you may have guessed, I have issues (who among us doesn't?). Texture is a big honking issue for me. Size is an issue (portions bigger than my head? A  serious turn off). And taste, well, that goes without saying (you know how I loathe bean flour). If I was a storybook character I would inhabit The Princess and the Pea.

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Gluten-Free Peach Coffee Cake with Streusel Topping

It was so hard to let this cake cool before cutting into it.

Why is it when I bake a coffee cake I get all dreamy and gooey inside, like a knee-socked school girl in Latin class, riveted to the patch of peachy, fuzzy cloud against the swaying swatch of blue between the maple tree branches outside the classroom window, imagining love itself is out there, waiting, breathing, just beyond reach, ready to pounce. Like grace. When you least expect it, a gift arrives. Often in a form you don't recognize at first.

Like a plaid shirt.

And hands that juggle.

The truth is, I didn't even know juggling was on my list.

My top criteria (scrawled in gel black ink one rainy night post divorce) listed kindness, a sense of humor, artistic.

It conjured images of tempered masculinity. Intelligence. Adept at conversation. Curiosity.

Likes women (a big one).

It mentioned nothing about juggling. Or fierce devotion to coffee. Or a willingness to wash dishes. It neglected to include the seductive power of coffee cake. The sexy allure of a cinnamon dusted chin.

So imagine my surprise when on our second date (post French roast coffee and dirt bomb muffins) he grabs three apples. And juggles. While whistling. I can't remember the tune.

Because my knees turned to pudding.

And now, almost twenty years later, I hear a key in the door. And my heart is grateful. It's him. The guy in a plaid shirt.

Bearing peaches.

More gifts.

And once more, I accept.


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Raw Zucchini Pasta in a Vegan Curry Cream Sauce

Fresh, raw zucchini pasta- angel hair style.

I'm not usually one to focus a recipe around a cooking gadget. Though heaven knows, I love me my kitchen power tools as much as any scratch cook out there. A gluten-free goddess has gotta have some fun, after all. And sometimes, to change things up, you need to break out of your routine and try something completely new. 

Which, not surprisingly, brings me to pasta.

I love pasta. Especially gluten-free pasta. But I don't love cranking up the gas stove to boil bulky pots of salted water when the kitchen is already steamy with late summer heat and I'm faint and famished (and did I mention, hot flashing like some cussing heaving alligator from the swamps of wherever it is they film True Blood. I may idly dream of gleaming white porcelain bowls heaped with creamy mounds of angel hair spaghetti kissed by a delicate white sauce, but I'm not inclined to heat up my kitchen just to satisfy this culinary craving.

I get prickly and sticky just thinking about it.

So I started investigating raw pasta. Which led me to discover a modest little kitchen tool that makes magic happen. A spiral slicer that turns August's ubiquitous zukes into tender strands of pasta. And not like, puny three inch strands. 

I'm talking long, lovely, curvy strands of angel hair spaghetti.

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Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Zucchini Brownies Recipe

Zucchini adds moisture to these fudgy gluten-free brownies.

In the thick of joy and the slow drain of heartache both, I bake. I've mentioned this before. Baking is my way. I tie on my apron and rustle up my inner domestic goddess and cope with the world. Because joy tastes sweeter shared with those you love, gathered around a clatter of plates and clinking glasses and spoons licked clean. And heartache. Well, heartache may not be soothed or tamed by a cookie.

But it doesn't hurt to try.

There are many private joys to celebrate here lately. The love fest surrounding my son's wedding in New Hampshire intoxicated us for days. My husband Steve and I felt no less than transformed by the pure and brilliant love of these two distinct and complicated souls unafraid to risk and hope and dream as one. The bride's family embraced us with such kindness and generosity of spirit, that I left feeling as if I had not only gained a wildly lovely family, but friends for life. Which is exactly what family should be.

A camaraderie of spirit.

With lots of dancing.

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Gluten-Free Breakfast Bars

Gluten-free breakfast bars with quinoa flakes.

Tired of gnawing on gluten-free toast or slurping down a bowl of gluten-free cereal for breakfast? Me too. I'm in a rut. An almond butter on toast rut. And though I hate to complain (the simple truth is, I adore almond butter with the white hot passion of a thousand suns, so chowing down on it daily does not qualify as drudgery or sacrifice), I used to start my day a little sexier. I used to indulge in these rich and dense Quinoa Breakfast Bars or this orange infused Quinoa Breakfast Cake. Both are beyond delish.

But alas they contain sugar.


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