Jane Bonacci - The gluten-free bread machine cookbook: 175 recipes for splendid breads and delicious dishes to make with them

Recipes for Splendid Breads and Delicious Dishes to Make with Them

Jane Bonacci & Shannon Kinsella

MORE PRAISE FOR THE GLUTEN-FREE BREAD MACHINE COOKBOOK:

Jane and Shannon have written a wonderful book, packed with helpful information and a huge range of hunger-inducing recipes, which will educate and inspire all bakers.

Rick Rodgers, co-author of Sarabeths Bakery and The Model Bakery Cookbook

Starting with a simple everyday sandwich bread and moving on to specialty breads that will delight the palate, Jane and Shannons book has a wealth of wonderful recipes for those who thought the delight of fresh home-baked bread was a thing of the past.

Kate McDermott, author of Art of the Pie

BY SHANNON KINSELLA

While I am not diagnosed with celiac disease, I have experienced autoimmune issues from a very young age. Before it was fashionable to be gluten free and long before I trained to become a chef, I was following a gluten-free diet. Twenty-five years ago, store-bought options were very few and far between, as were offerings at bakeries. Restaurants didnt understand the complexity of what it meant to be gluten free or how to make proper substitutions. Often it seemed as if my only option was to stop eating bread.

I have baked and cooked all of my life, long before I pursued my dream of going to culinary school. I started baking as a teenager, making the standard chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, and my grandmothers molasses cookies. Next up, quick breads. In these pages, you will see quite a few of my family favorites adapted to be gluten free.

One of my daughters follows a nut-free diet, while the other follows a yeast-free dietand both must avoid gluten and dairy. Trying to create great-tasting recipes with so many dietary restrictions has been a welcome challenge, but a challenge nonetheless. My daughter recently asked me, How come these recipes are all coming out so well now? In the beginning, they were terrible. She was right. It has been a steep learning curve, but I hope the results will have even those without dietary challenges cooking from this book. These safe-to-eat old favorites, as well as a host of new flavors, will be enjoyed in my house for years to comeand I hope in yours, too.

BY JANE BONACCI

When I was little, I would wake up every morning to the aroma of buttered toast and coffee, my mothers favorite way to start the day. As I grew up, my own mornings usually began with buttered toast or a bagel with cream cheese. Then I was diagnosed with gluten intolerance, and with one directive from my doctor, my morning routine was gone and I gave up gluten for good.

I had to learn how to bake all over again. It was like going from graduate school back to kindergarten. The learning curve was very challenging. I had to find out what ingredients I would need to make up for the gluten that I could no longer consume. Flours, starches, emulsifiers, hydrocolloids... the list seemed endless and impossible to decipher. But within a month I was having moderate success. Over the past few years, I have become a confident baker again, making beautiful desserts that everyone loves, whether they need to avoid gluten or not.

Making gluten-free bread remained a challenge. After a string of failures, it was easy to see why so many people end up throwing in the towel and settle for store-bought gluten-free breads, spending a fortune for a tiny loaf that often is not much better than cardboard. Without gluten to provide structure, you are left with a pile of batterlike dough and no idea what went wrong. So, when Shannon and I began work on this book, we started from scratch, reading everything we could find about gluten-free baking. Why were breads so difficult? What could we do to have them turn out consistently delicious, with the right texture and structure?

We tried a slew of different ingredient combinations before finding the right formula for our flour blends. We played with all kinds of flours to discover how their flavors blended together to provide variety and interest. Then we got to work on creating recipes that would be easy for you to replicate in your own home using a bread machine.

From classic sandwich breads and family favorites to new and exciting combinations, this book is a collection of recipes we hope you love as much as we do. We are delighted to have the heavenly aroma of baking breads wafting through the house againand know you will, too. Thank you for joining us on this journey.

Introduction

MAKING GREAT GLUTEN-FREE BREADS