Food Allergies, Food Intolerances and Food Sensitivities
More and more people are becoming aware of the impact that the food they have has on their health and well being. With the huge amount of information available these days, we can make informed choices on what we eat.
Allergies, food intolerances, food sensitivity - are these more common in the modern world we live in or were these issues misunderstood and ignored in the past? The answer is probably a bit of both. Most of us eat a mostly processed diet based heavily on wheat. In the coming months we will bring you detailed, easy to understand information on sensible allergy free diets. Recipes, nutritional information, healthy food sources and more.
To start the ball rolling here is my gluten free bread recipe. One of the things I missed the most when I switched to a gluten free diet was decent, tasty bread. I don't like the crumbly, nasty, airy things they sell in supermarkets. I want to be able to make sandwiches!
So whether you are on a coeliac diet or you are on a wheat free or gluten free diet
Gluten Free Bread
This recipe uses a LOT of ingredients! Don't worry, the dry ingredients will keep for ages and can be used in many other delicious gluten free recipes.
This bread is a heavy'ish, medium dark bread. It slices well and amazingly for gluten free bread, toasts well. Gluten free bread is very easy to make as it needs no kneading. When you make 'normal' bread you knead the dough to stretch the gluten, well we haven't got any of that nasty stuff to worry about so yippee!
Ingredients & Method
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| Rice Flour | 1 cup |
| Buckwheat Flour | 0.5 cup |
| Gram Flour | 0.5 cup |
| Rice Bran | 0.25 cup |
| Soy Bran | 0.25 cup |
| Potato Flour | 0.5 cup |
| Tapioca Flour | 0.5 cup |
Other Dry Ingredients |
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| Xanthan Gum | 2 tablespoons |
| Lecithin | 2 tablespoons |
| Sugar | 3 tablespoons |
| Salt | 1 teaspoon |
| Quick Yeast | 1 sachet /1 tablespoon |
| Seeds (Optional *) | 0.25 cup |
Wet Ingredients |
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| Eggs | 3 |
| Milk or Soy Milk | 2.25 cups |
| Oil (*) | 3 tablespoons |
| Vinegar (*) | 1 teaspoon |
See the Notes section below for more info |
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You can experiment with the 'Flour' ingredients, as long as you end up with 3.5 cups of flour then everything should be fine. Sometimes Soya Bran is hard to find in the health food shops so double up on the Rice Bran. Tapioca Flour can be bought in Asian Supermarkets, if you can't find it then adjust some of the other measures.
Mix It Up!
Mix your Dry Ingredients well.
Then mix in the wet ingredients
Put the mixture into a bread tin - I like the silicone ones because they're easy and us men like easy! Squidge the mixture well into the tin and smooth it nicely - otherwise the crust might get too crumbly.
Leave to rise for a couple of hours.
Cook at 180 c for 50 minutes to an hour ( tap it - if it sounds hollow it's done ).
Experiment!
If you don't want to use eggs - leave them out, maybe one of the vegan egg substitutes. You can use milk powder and water instead of the milk or soy milk. Try different 'blends' of flour. Try leaving out the Lecithin ( I don't think it makes a great difference, but after several months of experimenting I'm happy with this recipe so I leave it in).
If you make a fantastic ( or disastrous ) bread - let me know!
Notes
Gluten Free Diets and Vinegar - Most vinegars are OK, EXCEPT malt vinegar. Malt vinegar is not distilled and as we all know malt does contain gluten. There is a discussion on the Coeliac.com forum you might like to read.
Oil - I use Olive Oil, but use whichever one you like.
Seed - Throw in some Linseeds, Pumpkin Seeds, sesame seeds if you want. If you like a 'continental' flavour then a teaspoon of carroway seeds works well.