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I have been on a quest to find the best bread recipe possible that was as healthy as possible. As anyone knows who has tried to go gluten free, bread is a big problem especially when you're a McDougaller! We are limited now because of our son's food issues and can't use corn or rice.

This bread would be fine for the 12 Day program, I think, although it contains refined starches and some sugar so shouldn't be consumed every day. But - NO OIL! Anyone doing MWL or who is diabetic or has high triglycerides should be avoiding this bread because of the high refined starches.

I found that eliminating oil from the recipe actually enhanced the raising. This recipe is adapted from the Bette Hagman bread book for her Four Flour Bread Mix. I love it because I can make bread so fast with this mix on hand.

I buy my sweet potato flour from Barry Farms. It is white in color and works well for baking, I have subbed it for corn starch in all the recipes I've tried with good results. I have also used potato starch, not potato flour, and that works well in this recipe too.

Bette's Four Flour Bread Mix (my modifications in brackets)

12 cups mix
3 cups garfava bean flour
2 cups yellow pea flour (optional)
1 cup sorghum flour
4 cups tapioca flour
4 cups corn starch (sweet potato or white potato starch flour)
3 Tablespoons xanthan gum
1 Tablespoon salt
1 Tablespoon EnerG egg replacer
3 - 7 gram envelopes gelatin (OPTIONAL - of course, this is not vegan and I find that the bread doesn't rise quite as much without it but it's definitely not necessary for good bread! I no longer use it.)
1/4 cup sugar

Mix all with a wire whisk and store in an airtight container.

To make bread:

4 1/2 cups mix
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast - or instant for a faster rise time
4 eggs worth of EnerG egg replacer and water, mixed up and left to set up for a few minutes
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
2 cups warm water

Put mix and yeast in mixer bowl and turn on low to mix in the yeast. Dump in the egg replacers, cider vinegar, and slowly pour in almost all of the water. At first the mix will be very watery but will soon get thicker. When it does, beat on high for a minute, then stop and scrape down the bowl really well. Mix again on high, stopping to scrape down well twice, and beat for 3 minutes. Mixture should be a bit thinner than wall spackle, add more water if needed but it's better to be a bit dry than too wet. Spoon into prepared pan(s) - I use a long sandwich loaf pan, or spoon onto parchment sheets on a jelly roll pan. Smooth the top with wet fingers or spatula shaping into Italian style loaves if on a flat sheet, or making it fairly flat if in a pan. Let rise 20 minutes in oven with light on, then remove and preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake 35 minutes or until well browned. Cool before slicing.

Buns

Use either of the above recipes but put one large muffin scoop of batter in an English muffin ring that has been lightly oiled and placed on a parchment sheet on a jelly roll pan. When cool, slice and put in bags or containers and freeze. When reheated they taste almost as good as when right from the oven! Makes 12.

I baked hamburger buns all summer outdoors in the grill. It worked well but had to use foil with the English muffin rings set on top and oiled well. I put them on the top rack of the grill and let them rise right there in the grill, then turned on the heat and baked. They almost always turned out good, and if the bottoms got a bit too black we just cut that part off.

I was stoked to see your post! Do you have any tips on using the recipe in a breadmaker? I have one, and I had started to research this issue of gluten free bread. So I thank you for your research, and posting the results. Oh, and I have a gluten free cycle on my breadmaker. Have a few gluten free recipes in the book that came with the machine, but they all have other stuff in them, like nuts, etc.

Wendy

Hi Mrs. Doodlepunk, thanks for posting your tried and true recipe! I try to make bread for my child occasionally, and its always a challenge. Six years ago I was making 100% whole wheat bread - now I consider a gf bread recipe to be pretty good if its at least greater than 50% whole grain (or bean!) flour!

You menioned the pea flour was optional - what do you recommend if you don't have that? Do you think millet flour would work well? Also, have you ever subbed garbanzo flour for the garfava?

Thanks!

bumping for Mrs. D!

This is the recipe I've used in the past but now it never turns out right for me! My yeast is good, too. I don't know what to do. I posted on another thread today asking if anyone had found a good bread recipe.

One bad thing about this recipe is the bean flour. My son doesn't like the taste any more. Or he eats it slathered with BUTTER.

Someone just suggested to me that I put in some baking powder also. I'll try that and see what happens.

Jamie, have you used this recipe? If so, how did it work for you?

I think my problem might be the gelatin. I have left it out in the past and it doesn't raise as well. Maybe I will put it in, and also use baking powder.

I cannot get sorghum where I live, how do you replace it?

I'll keep tweaking my recipe as well. Thanks for sharing.

No, I was waiting on you! Maybe its just the way of animal-product-free, oil-free, gluten-free breads? We had a millet bread recipe that my family liked for a while, but we haven't made it in months.

loveskale, I buy almost all of my flours from http://www.barryfarm.com/ including the sorghum. I don't know what would sub good for sorghum. I believe it has an odd taste but is a bit sweet, so it goes with the bean flours well. Problem is my son is tired of the beany tasting flour.

You can also order from Amazon, they have most of the gluten free flours. I got some things from them in the beginning. I guess this would only work in the continental US, other places would be real expensive for shipping.

jamietwo, did you realize I was the OP of this thread? This was the bread I made all last summer, after lots of experimentation. Right now my son likes Udi's bagels and white bread. That is a rice based bread, but he says it tastes better than my home made. It costs 7 bucks a loaf.

I thought this bread tasted OK as long as it was toasted. Mr. D thought it was fine just as is. I used the recipe mostly to make burger buns, which I could slice and freeze, this was handy for my son to get one bun out and make a sandwich.

Yes! I must have missed it when you originally posted it, then someone made a comment on the thread in January & I added a question...and didn't see you around until recently. Welcome back!