So I recently won the book “Gluten-Free Artisan Bread In 5 Minutes”, by Jeff Hertzman and Zoë François, in a contest from Andrew Zimmern’s blog. It arrived in the mail last week, and the recipes looked wonderful; so I made up a half-batch of the All-Purpose Flour Recipe (outlined in the book) and made their Master Bread Recipe. The recipe is also (huzzah!) posted on their website, here:
http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/2014/11/03/master-recipe-from-gluten-free-abin5
I won’t reproduce the entire recipe here, but I will say that it’s the best GF bread I’ve had in, oh, FOREVER. I’ve made two small loaves since getting the book, and they’re just lovely: dense but not ridiculously so, with a mouthfeel and flavor reminiscent of “real” bread. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed the way my teeth used to sink into bread… many GF breads are dry or have very little flavor, but this bread was soft and had a wonderful yeasty robustness to it that I’ve been missing. I could actually spread things on this bread — cold butter, for one — whereas with many GF breads, if you try to spread anything on the slice, all you’ll get is a handful of sticky crumbs. The bread just shreds. Well!! This even stood up to peanut butter!
This week, I decided I’d like to try something softer and sweeter, so I made the Brioche dough recipe in the book (substituting maple syrup for honey, as I’ve had bad luck with honey containing barley sweetener, which also makes me sick). Made the dough last night, and let it rise for 3 hours instead of 2, as I was at a knitting party (I’m a wild girl). It almost tripled in size and, after storing it in the fridge overnight and then letting it rest for 90 minutes today, I broke off several small balls of dough, smoothed them with wet hands, and placed them in a greased baking pan. The rolls had to be touching each other, as I wanted to make tear-away rolls, something I gloried in before I went GF, and have missed SO MUCH since.
I baked them for 30 minutes at 350F, although my oven was closer to 360 by the time I took them out, then let them cool on a wire rack. Broke one off and – oh, my gracious stars, these rolls are delicious, sweet, soft, and thoroughly satisfying. 😀 I’ll be making this recipe, and these rolls, again. ❤
Gluten-Free Cooking For One 