The gluten free bread recipe

It does become apparent your life maybe a little boring when you get excited about perfecting a recipe for bread. In my defence though, I think it is an accomplishment to create a loaf of gluten free bread that tastes as good as any 'normal' bread. I'll even go as far to say that it's better than some other bread.

The main purpose of this challenge was to create a tasty loaf of gluten free bread without breaking the budget. If you have been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that six months ago I lost my job two weeks after I was diagnosed with coeliac disease. As you can imagine, I was quite pleased to see the end of February. I decided to pursue self-employment, which wasn't so compatible with the added cost of gluten free food.

I started ordering food through the coeliac prescription service, which has saved money on things like flour and pasta. So I have based this recipe primarily on the products that are available to me to keep the costs down. These products are also available at most supermarkets, so don't panic if you can't get them via prescription! I have adapted it from a recipe in Gluten Free bread and cakes from your breadmaker which is a fantastic book if you're gluten intolerant and have a breadmaker.

The Recipe:

1 egg

450mL water

4T oil (I used olive oil, but just use whatever is in the cupboard)

4T milk powder

1T clear honey

200g Healtheries Simple Baking mix

100g Bakels gluten free bread mix

75g Buckwheat flour

1 tsp xantham gum (I imagine guar gum would work too)

2 tsp caster sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp yeast

Method:

1. Beat together the eggs and water, then pour into the breadmaker pan.

2. Add the oil, vinegar, milk powder and honey.

3. Add the flours, gum, sugar and salt, then sprinkle the yeast on top.

4. Set the machine to Basic, 700g/medium (my breadmaker doesn't have this setting, but it doesn't seem to matter), medium crust.

5. When cooked, switch off the machine, sprinkle the bread immediately with a little buckwhat flour (optional) and leave in the breadmaker for 10 minutes.

6. Turn the bread out of the pan onto a wire rack. When cool enough to handle, remove the paddle, if necessary.

7. When cold, store in the bread bin for up to four days, or slice and freeze.

Some notes: The buckwheat flour can be found at Binn Inn stores, and probably your local wholefood store. I get mine from Piko's. I have used a Breville breadmaker which doesn't have a gluten free setting. Use an active yeast, such as this Edmond's one. I have used Mauripan yeast, but I know some breadmakers don't like it, and I'm not sure where to get it from, I buy it from Nelson!

Feel free to leave any comments if you try this recipe yourself, I'd love to know if anyone else likes it as much as I do. I'm sure it could be made without a breadmaker, I'm just not sure on things like rising time, oven temperature or baking time. If you do figure this out, please share below in the comments. Enjoy!

Op-shop finds

I went on an Op-shop mission yesterday to find some more teacups for a wholesale order. Here is a pic of some of my new goodies. I found some great shops on my travels. I went to Woolston first – a great desitination for any avid op-shopper or retro fan! I found a vintage candlebra in a secondhand shop a couple of doors down from the Salvation Army Family store. It will be great to use on my stall to display candles – the other one I've used was hired. On my way back to the car, I noticed a bike shop that specialises in buying, selling and restoring classic/retro bikes and parts. I mentioned a rather large stash of bicycles in this post that needed a new home, and I just might have found it! The shop is at 618 Ferry Road, worth checking out if you're in the market for a retro bike, or some parts.

I bought a couple of old ring binders from the Super Shed to re-cover with some handmade paper I bought from the Drawing Room earlier in the week. I've noticed they are never in short supply at op-shops, and decided earlier in the year to buy them second-hand from now on. The paper wasn't quite as large as I'd hoped, it was the exact width of the folder. I had to tape along the edges instead of folding them over, but I'm still quite pleased with how they turned out. I might even file away my receipts more often now!

I have been slowly working away on my business plan, and have finished the marketing section. I worked through the Business Growth Planner from Crafting an MBA which I can recommend. It's designed for crafters, and helps you to turn your goals into a plan you can follow to help them become a reality. To get some numbers to work with, I figured out the minimum income I require to pay for living expenses etc, and added on an approximate weekly amount to cover overheads. This got me my starting figure. Then I took the amount I'd like to be earning in a years time, added on the same overhead amount to get my target for the next year. A simple way to get incremental targets that bridge the gap between the two is to subtract the first number from the second, divide it by twelve, and increase you monthly target by this amount each month. I hope that makes sense! So now I have some numbers, I just need to try and hit them. I'll keep you posted every now and then with how that goes, and what I did to get there.

My first step is to start improving the copy in my listings on Felt. I have taken some advice from this post from the Craft Venture Series on the Paper n Stich blog. I have started with the listings for my soy tin candles, and will work through them all over the next few weeks. I'm hoping this will increase my conversion rate from views to sales.

I have also been working on refining my budget friendly breadmaker recipe for tasty gluten free bread. It might sound like an impossible feat, but today's version is tasting very good. I think I might be almost there with perfecting it. I'll post up the recipe when I've got it just right.

Monday catch up

I just noticed when I went to start this post that it's my 50th post! That's quite a milestone, half a century. It also suggests I've been neglecting it from time to time – it's over a year old, so that's less that one per week.

A few months back I asked Mum for her crochet dishcloth pattern. I was getting tired of throwing synthetic dishcloths into landfill once they were worn out, and wanted to make one out of cotton so I could put in into the compost once it had reached the end of it's useful life. Mum has always made her own, so I knew they were good from my years of doing the dishes at home! I made a start when I first got the pattern, but due to the fact I was using a thicker thread than what Mum had used, it looked way too big, and seemed to be taking forever. I finally finished it yesterday – after pulling it apart and starting again from scratch! I made it about two-thirds of the original size, and it was much quicker to make this time! It may be a little on the small side now, but I'll find that out once I've started using it. You can see me working on it the first time round in the picture in this blog.

I think the new month has inspired me – I started working on my business plan today! I have been collecting information about starting a business for years, these books are just a snapshot of what I have. While I was studying Graphic Design, I had an idea for a product which some people suggested I try my hand at making and selling. I looked into it, but going from an idea, to figuring out how to manufacture and market it while worrying about patents and finance was too complex for my 19 year old self. Which is where the first lot of planning books came from. I still have that idea, and might adapt it to something that can be sewn, hence removing the need for mass production! So watch this space for that one...

The marketing book was from an evening class I did that my first employer was kind enough to pay for. My last employer paid for me to do an advertising class last year too, I was obviously good at finding nice people to work for! So this whole self-employment thing definitely wasn't a spur of the moment decision, it's something I've been thinking about for years. Now I just need to turn it into a source of reliable income. I'll keep you posted on how the planning goes.

Also today, I have successfully made a Gluten Free loaf of bread that actually has most, if not all the desirable characteristics of bread. This is no mean feat! Since I have been diagnosed as a Coeliac, I am able to get some gluten free items on prescription at a subsidised price. This come in very handy after I lost my job and had to start watching my pennies. I can buy pasta, flour mixes and bread mixes through this scheme, and make bread a lot cheaper than I can buy it. One of the bread mixes is rather terrible on it's own, so I've started experimenting with mixing it with other mixes and flours to try and improve it. This was my first attempt, adapting a recipe from Gluten Free Bread and Cakes from your Breadmaker. It came out really well, but I'm hoping to hone it a bit and include less eggs, as three really doesn't quite fit with keeping it budget friendly. Once I have got the recipe right I will share it here on the blog.

The Last Supper

As you may recall, I mentioned in this post that I was getting close to finding out for sure why I didn't feel so flash during the second half of last year. At the beginning of December I got a blood test result that said I most likely had Coeliac Disease. This is a disorder where eating any food that contains gluten damages the small intestine and can prevent nutrients being absorbed. The doctor said that although the blood test results were pretty conclusive, the way to officially diagnose it is through a biopsy. Since the appointment would be a few months away, she said I should stop eating gluten in the meantime, and start again a few weeks before the biopsy.

For seven weeks I incorporated gluten-free foods into my diet, and was starting to feel better for it. A few weeks ago I got a letter informing me of the appointment, so had to start including gluten back into my diet. Straight away I noticed the effects, my vision went slightly odd, I felt tired and my brain went a bit foggy. So it became quite obvious it wasn't doing me any favours. The one good thing about being allowed to eat gluten again was that I could eat some of the yummy things I'd been missing out on, one last time. I didn't go as crazy as I had thought I would, but did eat cookies and cream ice cream, tim tams, pringles, black forest chocolate and raspberry licorice. Those few weeks felt like the last supper!

Now that I do have an official diagnosis it's back to gluten-free for me, and I'm starting to feel better for it. Fortunately now there are are lot more products available than there used to be, and I have acquired a small collection of cookbooks with lots of yummy recipes. So I won't be missing out too much. Here's to a much better 2010 than 2009 was!