So…Jeff and I have gone gluten-free. It is not a necessity. But we are trying to improve some health issues that have been reported to respond well to a gluten-free diet. It has opened a whole new world to us. A crazy, weird, and expensive world.

I looked at prices and almost said diet schmiet, we can’t afford that. But then I found a book for my Kindle Fire that has changed my mind, Gluten-Free on a Shoestring by Nicole Hunn. She has a section on what to buy and what to make, where to get the best deals on groceries, and basically how to make it work.
Once I had the basics down, I started playing with recipes. The first bread recipe I tried was okay, but not great. It had a metally taste and was very dense. It worked okay for toast with peanut butter. The second loaf I made was almost inedible. We are using it for a doorstop. But the third one, with a little tinkering, is AMAZING. It tastes great. It is soft and flexible like real bread. We are very, very happy with it.
This recipe came from the blog onegoodthingbyjillee.com. It is Jillee’s Gluten-Free Bread that Doesn’t Suck. And it doesn’t! It is yummy and flexible and light and moist.

I adjusted it to fit the ingredients I like and how I bake.  So I’m leaving Jillee’s name off. I hope she is not offended. I will be making my version over and over again. Enjoy!

Gluten-Free Bread that Doesn’t Suck

Ingredients
4 cups Pamela’s Artisan Flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
½ cup powdered milk
3 large eggs at room temperature
¼ cup butter at room temperature
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
⅓ cup honey
 or sugar
3 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 cups warm water

Directions
Spray gluten-free cooking spray into two 8-inch bread pans. I like to use ceramic pans.
Add the yeast and honey to the 2 cups of warm water and stir until dissolved. Set aside.
Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and powdered milk together in a medium-size bowl and set aside. Put eggs, butter, and vinegar in the bowl of your mixer and mix for about 30 seconds with the paddle attachment. If the butter is chunky, that’s OK.
Add half the dry ingredients to the wet mixture in the mixer. Mix just until blended, and then add half of the yeast water, then remaining dry ingredients and mix for another 30 seconds, until blended. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the rest of the yeast mixture, then turn the mixer to medium-high speed and beat for 4 minutes. Your bread dough should resemble thick cake batter.
Spoon the dough into greased bread pans. Smooth the top of the dough with wet fingers, if desired. Wet a dish towel and put in your microwave. Heat on high 30-60 seconds until there is a little steam. Set bread in the microwave on top of the towel and let rise for approximately about 50 to 60 minutes. In last 15 minutes, pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
When the dough has risen to about an inch above the top of the pans, place the pans in preheated oven on the middle rack and bake for 35 to 55 minutes or until the bread’s internal temperature reaches 200 degrees with an instant-read thermometer. (This is very helpful! It’s hard to tell when gluten-free bread is done.) Mine was done in 30 minutes, so keep an eye on it.
Remove the bread from the oven and let cool in pans for 10 minutes. Then carefully remove loaves from pans and place on racks to cool. Brush with butter if desired.
Allow bread to cool COMPLETELY. (Don’t cut into it while it’s still warm or you will flatten it.) Let the knife blade do the work. Don’t press down, just keep “sawing” across the top until you get all the way to the bottom of the loaf and hit the cutting board. The bread slices will keep their shape much better this way!