Twinkle's Kitchen | Gluten-free bread 101

Changing to a recipe box filled with gluten-free recipes is really flipping my script in the kitchen from baking the way I have for over 20 years.

My first adventure with gluten-free bread was an eye-opening experience. The texture is gooey, the color is strange, and well, it did not taste like the homemade bread I’m used to by any means.

It was, however, a success, super tasty and got rave reviews.

For the first go around, I didn’t try anything fancy, just straight-up white sandwich bread. For school lunches, it is perfect. With a bowl of vegetable soup, it is perfect. Toasted with some sweet butter and jam, it is perfect.

So far, gluten-free cooking and baking hasn’t been worlds apart from baking WITH gluten. Yes, there are some differences – textures, ingredients, taste – but none that have led to any disappointment.

If you’re forging new territory baking gluten-free bread, here are a few of the things I’ve learned that really make your loaves better, bigger and tastier.

Gluten-free bread baking tips:

• Although creating a good all-purpose baking mix is ideal, for first-timers purchasing an already-mixed all purpose baking flour is your best road to successful bread baking. Boost your confidence, and work yourself up to creating your own personal mix.

• Don't look for the dough to come together in a ball like baking wheat bread. Good GF bread has the consistency of cake batter. Gooey, oozy batter is a good sign you are on the right track.

• You don’t have to knead your GF bread like dough containing gluten. The point of kneading is to develop the gluten. When there’s no gluten to develop, then there’s no “knead” to knead.

• Folding in stiff egg whites into the batter at the last moment can help improve the lightness of your loaf and help it rise a little more.

Make sure you have greased the pan you are letting the bread rise in; otherwise, it will stick.

Gluten-free Sandwich Bread

• 3 cups of gluten-free all purpose baking flour
• 1/3 cup dy milk powder or dairy-free substitute
• 1 tbs. salt
• 1 tbs. pure cane sugar
• 1 ½ cup of warm water (110 – 115 degrees)
• ¼ cup yeast
• 2 eggs
• 3 tbs. canola or olive oil

Whisk your flour, milk powder, sugar and salt together in your stand mixer or large bowl.

Heat your water to 110-115 degrees and add yeast. Let the yeast sit and get foamy for about 10 minutes.

Separate your egg yolks and egg whites.

Mix the yolks and oil into your activated yeast and gently add to your dry ingredients.

Whisk the egg whites until foamy while your dough is mixing, then fold in at the very end.

Transfer your dough – it will look like thick cake batter – into a well-greased loaf pan and let rise for one hour.

Once your dough has doubled in size, bake for 30-45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Let dough cool completely before removing from pan.

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Twinkle VanWinkle was born in a small town in Mississippi. A life-long lover of music, media and food, she grew up following those three things along her path. She has almost 20 years of professional cooking under her apron strings, feeding thousands of friends, family and other folks while working in restaurants and bakeries in Oxford, Miss. She baked apple pies for the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and appeared on “The Best Of...” in the same year. Along with producing dynamic lifestyle content for LIN Media, she is a mother, musician and social media fanatic.

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