Appar­ently a rumor has been swirling around about me. And my bread. The word on the street is that peo­ple like it.

I know my fam­ily does. They actu­ally pre­fer it to reg­u­lar bread. I make it and they eat all the loaves up within min­utes. Well, maybe not that fast for all of it. I bake in bulk. The first loaf is gone before it has had a chance to cool. The oth­ers might last a cou­ple of days beyond that.

And I’m just as bad as the rest of them.

Which is why I don’t bake bread  nearly often enough, and my gluten free girls are left to cope with the store bought card­board that passes as gluten free bread. I’m not the least bit tempted by that stuff.

But, today I decided we needed some real bread. It isn’t too warm out­side, so every­thing seemed per­fect. {We have no air con­di­tion­ing, so this is an impor­tant fac­tor in August.} What excuse did I have?

Other than the fact that I was pack­ing for a camp­ing trip. And needed to make a meal for Sun­day. And we have com­pany com­ing to our house the day after we get home.

But that tends to be my nor­mal life. It’s how I roll.

And, I thought that while I was at it, I’d share the recipe with you. It’s not my own. I took a gluten free bak­ing class, and the woman who teaches it tweaked and tweaked until she came up with this star of a recipe. She should take a bow. She gives the recipe out freely to all who ask. I love her.

So here it is for you:

Gluten Free Bread

*Note: I mill my own rice flour, which makes it extra fresh and soft. I haven’t tried it with store bought rice flour, but if that’s all you have, it’s worth a shot!

Pre­heat oven to 375 degrees

Grind 3 cups brown rice
In large mixer, use your cookie pad­dles and add:

2 cups warm almond milk (or water)
1/2 cup maple syrup, honey, or agave (I use the maple syrup)
1 stick of soft but­ter (or 3/4 c light olive oil)
**Note: Here, I just put all the above ingre­di­ents in a saucepan, melt the but­ter, and warm the rest. Not to hot though, as that would kill the yeast.
3 eggs, room tem­per­a­ture
ground flaxseeds (I just fill up my seed/coffee grinder, mill what­ever it holds, and add that amount. This is an extra, optional ingre­di­ent, so you can add as much/little as you like.)
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 1/4 c freshly ground rice flour
1/4 c tapi­oca flour
1/2 c raw mil­let (optional, only if you like crunch, which we love)
5 tsp SAF instant yeast
1 Tbsp Xan­than Gum
a squirt or so of lemon juice (to keep the bread fresh longer)

Mix all ingre­di­ents in mixer for about 4 min­utes. Spoon into (2) 8″ well oiled loaf pans and smooth the top of the dough. Let rise for about an hour. When plac­ing bread in oven, reduce tem­per­a­ture to 350* for 45 min­utes. Use a read ther­mome­ter to test the inter­nal tem­per­a­ture, which should read at least 190*F. {I don’t actu­ally do this step, but that’s how you can tell if it is done if you are unsure.}

Optional: Add 1/4 cup Potato Starch in the place of the tapi­oca starch.
Throw in a well ripened banana if one is sit­ting on your counter.
If you add 1 cup of pureed pump­kin, add 1/2 c addi­tional rice flour.

That’s it! It’s pretty easy.

I store my bread on the counter in a plas­tic bag. No need to refrig­er­ate it. And it stays moist and fresh. This is great slic­ing bread for sandwiches.

If you try it, let me know what you think. Also, feel free to ask me any ques­tions you have about it, although it’s pretty forgiving.

My girls gig­gled this morn­ing when they saw the fresh loaves of bread I baked after they went to bed last night. The first loaf is already gone.