First Attempt At gluten-free Baking...

[penguin]

Let me preface this by saying that I am an excellent baker, fabulous. I was looking into pastry programs at culinary schools, I even applied to one. Everyone raves about my cooking, and especially about my baking.

I can say this in all honesty, and without modesty, because I did all of this fabulous gourmet cooking with wheat flour.

I made my first attempt at true gluten free baking this evening, with a simple banana bread. I figured my mourning period over wheat was about over and I had some bananas sorely in need of bread making, and I hate wasting food.

So I found a gluten-free BB recipe on the celiac site and decided to try it, I used Bob's Red Mill flour blend or whatever it is.

Was it a failure? No. It rose beautifully, is nice and springy, and is a perfect golden brown.

It just doesn't really taste like anything, and my husband spit it out because the texture and aftertaste were wierd. I just don't know if I can emotionally handle gluten free baking, but I can't make wheat stuff, just deglutening my kitchen and walking down the bread aisle at HEB made me sick!

It's just that baking is my talent, my calling, my true love. Even if I suck at everything else, baking is what I knew I could do better than pretty much everyone I knew.

The bread isn't bad, really, but it's not my bread.

[Diosa]

Let me preface this by saying that I am an excellent baker, fabulous. I was looking into pastry programs at culinary schools, I even applied to one. Everyone raves about my cooking, and especially about my baking.

I can say this in all honesty, and without modesty, because I did all of this fabulous gourmet cooking with wheat flour.

I made my first attempt at true gluten free baking this evening, with a simple banana bread. I figured my mourning period over wheat was about over and I had some bananas sorely in need of bread making, and I hate wasting food.

So I found a gluten-free BB recipe on the celiac site and decided to try it, I used Bob's Red Mill flour blend or whatever it is.

Was it a failure? No. It rose beautifully, is nice and springy, and is a perfect golden brown.

It just doesn't really taste like anything, and my husband spit it out because the texture and aftertaste were wierd. I just don't know if I can emotionally handle gluten free baking, but I can't make wheat stuff, just deglutening my kitchen and walking down the bread aisle at HEB made me sick!

It's just that baking is my talent, my calling, my true love. Even if I suck at everything else, baking is what I knew I could do better than pretty much everyone I knew.

The bread isn't bad, really, but it's not my bread.

Bob's red mill is fairly heavy on the garbanzo flour. May try this version from the glutenfreeforums.com:

2 cups Garfava Flour (2/3 part)

1 cup Sorghum Flour (1/3 part)

3 cups Tapioca Flour (1 part)

3 cups Cornstarch (1 part)

I know the first time you try bean flour it can be a bit overwhelming. There are several different ones you can try to see what combination works best for you. Don't give up on it yet.

[elonwy]

My mom is also a baker, and having some trouble adjusting, but after a few false starts, shes doing well again.

She swears that adding 1/2cup to a cup of pre-dissolved plain gelatin as part of the water will make the bread springy and make it rise more like regular bread.

I see if I can't get more explicite details out of her in the next couple days. She is one of those cooks that never really measures stuff.

It takes getting used to, and everything reacts a bit differently, but once you get the hang of how stuff reacts, it starts getting easier. My first few attempts went straight into the trash, but people think my stuff is yummy now, same with my mom.

Elonwy

[angel-jd1]

I somewhat know how you feel. I used to LOVE to bake yeast breads. I could make some beautiful things!! Everybody loved them and begged for them often. Gluten free baking is a WHOLE different world.

Hang in there, as time goes, your taste buds will change and you won't think that it tastes like crud! Breads like banana bread with fruit in them actually turn out the best. I think that the fruits give them moisture and make them yummy.

I remember on a couple seperate occasions I REALLY made some nasty things. One I tried to make bagels. That was SUCH a disaster. It was SO much work for these nasty little circles that I just threw out! The second one was trying to make cinnamon rolls. The dough stuck to EVERYTHING but the pan haha Both of those experiments went into the trash. OH well, I still laugh about them.

Just keep experimenting, that is 1/2 the fun of cooking sometimes.

-Jessica

Let me preface this by saying that I am an excellent baker, fabulous. I was looking into pastry programs at culinary schools, I even applied to one. Everyone raves about my cooking, and especially about my baking.

I can say this in all honesty, and without modesty, because I did all of this fabulous gourmet cooking with wheat flour.

I made my first attempt at true gluten free baking this evening, with a simple banana bread. I figured my mourning period over wheat was about over and I had some bananas sorely in need of bread making, and I hate wasting food.

So I found a gluten-free BB recipe on the celiac site and decided to try it, I used Bob's Red Mill flour blend or whatever it is.

Was it a failure? No. It rose beautifully, is nice and springy, and is a perfect golden brown.

It just doesn't really taste like anything, and my husband spit it out because the texture and aftertaste were wierd. I just don't know if I can emotionally handle gluten free baking, but I can't make wheat stuff, just deglutening my kitchen and walking down the bread aisle at HEB made me sick!

It's just that baking is my talent, my calling, my true love. Even if I suck at everything else, baking is what I knew I could do better than pretty much everyone I knew.

The bread isn't bad, really, but it's not my bread.

[tarnalberry]

You've taken out and replaced an ingredient - a very highly represented ingredient - that has a lot of flavor. It's just not going to taste the same afterwards. Instead of thinking of something to identically replace the banana bread you used to make, think of it as finding something different to put in the spot in your diet that banana bread used to fill. My banana bread didn't turn out *that* different gluten-free, but I had a pretty heavy/dense/moist banana bread to start with (not the lighter, more risen, crumblier type) anyway, so it wasn't as big of a change.

You may also want to experiement with different types of flours. We all have different preferences for flours, and even different types of flour from the same grain (brown rice flour, white rice flour, sweet rice flour) can taste and act differently.

[penguin]

Actually, the bread is pretty similar to my original recipe, and I can only somewhat tell the difference. There is not a thing wrong with it. It's not as banana-ey as I would like, but duh, add more bananas I also didn't add as much vanilla as I normally would.

It's not a brick, it's really springy and moist, I surprised myself.

I too am not much of a measurer unless it's very delicate and measurement intensive, like hollandaise sauce from scratch

What depressed me is that I had to go out of my way to make it gluten-free, and I think it just depressed me about everything else I'll have to go out of my way to make gluten-free. I have had about two baking failures in my life, and I know that the road ahead will have many, many more going gluten free

[lonewolf]

What depressed me is that I had to go out of my way to make it gluten-free, and I think it just depressed me about everything else I'll have to go out of my way to make gluten-free. I have had about two baking failures in my life, and I know that the road ahead will have many, many more going gluten free

I really can relate. I love baking and was famous in the family for all my fancy yeast breads. When I had to give up wheat/gluten, eggs, soy and dairy 10 years ago I thought I'd never figure out baking again. (I didn't have internet and couldn't find any books with usable recipes.) I had 7 years of failures. In the past 3 years I have learned to make almost everything again, except the yeast breads.

I have the best success with mixing up my own flour (br. rice, potato, tapioca, xanthan gum) and putting it in the refrigerator. I usually make a gallon-sized container at a time. That way, when I want to bake, which I do several times a week between pancakes, waffles, cookies, etc., all I have to do is get out the flour and use it like regular flour. The only real modification I make is to sift the flour before measuring and measure scantly so I don't have to add more liquid. And I've found that liquid sweeteners (honey, maple syrup) work well with rice flour, since it's somewhat dry. (And I usually use an egg substitute, but that's not something everyone has to do.)

Get adventurous and experiment! You might have some failures, but who knows what you'll come up with! I'm back to serving baked goods to company and teenagers (that's a tough crowd) and don't even tell anyone it's gluten-free and no one notices. You'll get the hang of it and soon you'll be baking everything again without a second thought.

[skoki-mom]

I haven't actually tried any gluten-free baking yet, to be honest, besides cake mix. I just want to say I understand the loss of the hobby, as well as the diet. I used to love to bake, and I was pretty good at it. I still bake regular stuff once in a while for my kids or for company (I'm not sensitive, so my house is not gluten-free even though my diet is). I have really had to mourn the loss of one of my favourite hobbies. It's like if my sight went and I had to give up scrapbooking, or if I got arthritic and to stop needlework. Kudos to you for taking the next step and taking on the gluten-free stuff. It looks so complicated (esp the breads), I really can't be bothered yet, to be honest. One day I will probably try it, but I'm just not there yet. Hope your next efforts turn out better!

[marciab]

What a coincidence !! I used the same recipe you did from Bob's red mill gluten-free all purpose flour today. Only I used papaya instead of banana. I'm not a big banana person. Anyway, I used half brown rice flour instead of all Bob's gluten-free flour and flax meal instead of eggs. And you probably already know that your bananas need to be brownish, so they are at their sweetest point. Also, I've learned that gluten-free muffins keep their shape better than gluten-free breads do and it's easier to clean up afterwards.

Hang in there. I bake these breads all the time. Give it time and I'm sure you'll come up with recipes of your own. enjoy marcia

[jnifred]

It'll jsut take time.....I baked constantlybefore gluten-free from scratch also and am leaning on a lot of mixes right now until I am more comfortable with the gluten-free flours, I did bake some banana muffins that came out great, I will check in the AM for the recipe I used, I need to find it anyway as I have some banana's that are going to need to be baked soon.

My biggest baking loss so far has been roll out cookies, I used to make and decorate for all the holidays. Had so much fun with that, ahven't done it as much since #4 son was born 2 yrs ago, but stilll.......I will figure it out eventually.

Hang in there and keep a positive attitude, you will throw out more baked goods than you ahve ever before, but stick with it and before you know it you'll be baking like a pro again

[lonewolf]

My biggest baking loss so far has been roll out cookies, I used to make and decorate for all the holidays. Had so much fun with that, ahven't done it as much since #4 son was born 2 yrs ago, but stilll.......I will figure it out eventually.

Have you tried following your old recipe and just substituting gluten-free flour? I made delicious heart-shaped cookies at Valentine's Day by following a regular recipe. They did dry out more quickly, but my kids loved them and so did the friends at school they shared with. (I did use an egg, since I thought flax seed would look kind of yucky in white sugar cookies. But the brown rice flour still looked white.)

[luvs2eat]

I can so empathize. I was a bread baker too. It's still the one food I'd sell my soul to be able to eat again!

I tried probably 4 different yeast bread recipes before I finally gave up. I use Manna from Anna mixes now and love them. She's got a banana bread mix too that's awesome.

[jnifred]

lonewolf....

I did, but they spread a lot and lost most of their shape. My recipe doesn't require refridgeration, so I am thinking maybe if I jsut refrigerate it before then it may hold it's shape...the first batch didn't spread as much as the second/third batch, so I am really thinking that was it, jsut been too busy to try again...

[mamaw]

I too used to love to bake and actually sold to the public....... I have found no challenge quite as difficult as gluten-free foods. It does take alot of getting used to but I have found through time I don't eat as much bakery stuff as I used to and when I do it's much more smaller amounts. Of course that's a good thing..

I use betty hagman four bean flour for my old (wheat) banana bread and it has turned out terrific in fact I now make it all the time for everyone in my family and they do not know the difference. My recipe calls for sour cream so it is alway moist and tender-- I do add banana flavoring to my mix along with pure vanilla. Freezes well to.

If anyone wants the recipe please let me know......

mamaw

[Lollie]

I love to bake too! I decided I was not going to give up baking because I had to give up gluten. I have been using mixes as well, but I love my bread. Its way better then that frozen bread that's all you can get commercially. It is Bob's red Mill bread mix. I put it in the bread machine and follow the directions. I think it's just like regular bread! I know I always use extra bananas in my banana bread. And I use my grandma's trick for the bananas.......you squish themup the night before, loosely cover and leave on the counter over night. It brings out all the banana flavor!

Lollie