Bryanna Clark Grogan’s Vegan Feast Kitchen/ 23rd Century Table

  My Gluten-Free "White" Yeast Bread
I have several friends and a relative or two who are gluten-sensitive, so I've been doing some research on gluten-free vegan baking.  We're having one Thanksgiving dinner at my son's tomorrow and his wife is not eating gluten but wanted to make her special stuffing recipe.  So, I volunteered to make her a couple of loaves of gluten-free bread.  I also decided I'd make a gluten-free pie.

THE SUCCESS:

I had already developed a vegan, high-fiber, gluten-free bread loaf for a friend a few years ago, and I decided to follow that recipe, but make it more"white" (even though it's still high-fiber-- brown  rice flour is quite pale-colored).  I changed my original recipe by using golden flax instead of brown flax seeds in both my flour mix and the bread recipe itself; by using maple syrup instead of molasses; and omitting the soy or rice milk powder.  Otherwise it was the same.

  The dough (actually a thick batter) is beaten for only about 3 minutes.

  Then it's divided into two prepared 8 x 41/2" pans and set to rise for an hour to 90 minutes.


  When it rises to the top of the pan it's ready to bake.


The result-- not a high loaf, but it slices well, is moist and tasty (maybe a bit sweet-- I'll have to work on that) and toasts nicely, too.  My DIL was pleased with it. (See the recipe below.)





THE FAIL:

Sorry, no pictures!  I didn't even think about photographing the debacle that was my first gluten-free pie crust until afterwards!  So, a description will have to suffice.  I should have known better and started with a conventional crust, but, instead, I decided to try my low-fat olive oil pastry for a freeform pie using the same flour mix I used for the bread.  Bad idea!  It was difficult to roll out and kept cracking, unlike the pliable and easily-handled wheat flour olive oil pastry.  I soldiered on, however, and cobbled together a very sad-looking apple tart.  When baked, the filling was lovely (I added some homemade crab-apple butter to the apples), but the crust dry and hard.  Not one to waste food, I served it anyway, with almond milk poured over it in bowls, like a sort of pudding.  This softened the crust and it was edible, especially with the delicious apples.

Tomorrow I'm making a pecan pie for the dinner at my son's house, with a conventional high-fat pie crust  made according to the recipe in Silvana Nardone's book "Cooking with Isaiah" and my own vegan filling.

What is Vegan MoFo? Click here to find out!

BTW, I'm not posting on weekends during vegan MoFo!


My high-Fiber Gluten-Free Yeast Bread, baked and photographed by Brenda Wiley.

I am not, as you probably noticed, gluten-intolerant. But several years ago, a friend who is asked me for a good gluten-free bread recipe, because the commercial brands were very expensive (up to $9 a loaf in our area), and not very good. I searched many books and website, and most of the bread recipes I found were not very high in fiber, and contained alot of eggs for structure. So, I did some research and came up with a High-Fiber Gluten-Free Flour Mix (I was doing my book "The Fiber for Life Cookbook" at the time), which can be used for breads, but also muffins, cakes, cookies, etc.. I had intended to include it in that book, but there wasn't room. So, it hasn't been published anywhere-- just sent to friends or readers who requested it.

I used the flour mix in the yeast bread and produced a loaf that my husband and I (both NOT gluten-intolerant) liked-- the taste and texture were good. I posted the recipe for my newsletter subscribers on their forum, and Brenda Wiley, an adventurous cook and author of the tofu-making page on my website (which is soon migrating to her own in-progress website), was curious about it.

She has recently been bitten by the webpage-building bug, and is creating her own breadmaking site. Her husband is gluten-intolerant, so she had tried my bread recipe, among several others. Here is what she says about it:

"My husband is gluten intolerant, so over the past few years I have discovered how totally different eating gluten free can be. Many items I have tried are "ok for gluten free", but not items I would make just to enjoy for myself (who is able to eat gluten without problems).

Then I found this bread recipe. This is honestly THE BEST gluten free bread I've tried (and I've gone through a lot of different recipes). This bread is tasty and enjoyable in its own right ... gluten free or not!"

AND:

"Her development of a gluten free yeast bread is quite an accomplishment. As noted in other parts of this web site, it is the gluten that gives yeast bread its most wonderful taste and texture. Bryanna has a winner of a recipe here: a tasty bread with wonderful texture."

I consider this high praise from a fine cook! You can find the recipes for the Gluten-Free High-Fiber Flour Mix, and my Gluten-Free High-Fiber Bread on Brenda's website. And there are more things to peruse, with lots more to come! So, if you like to make healthful breads, bookmark Brenda's website and check back often!


Meeting Brenda Wiley at the 2006 Vegetarian Awakening Conference.

Thank you, Brenda!
Enjoy!