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Move over photography, we need to make room for the arrival of my newest obsession.
Our Zojirushi Home Bakery Virtuoso Breadmaker
Meet our bread maker. It arrived just last week.
Now, why would a self respecting Chinese woman need a bread maker?! Rice is not filling enough these days?
Well, this bread maker’s key beneficiary is my baby’s American stomach.
Our baby loves bread!
This bundle of cuteness loves bread!!
My 11 year-old was diagnosed with Celiac Disease about a year ago, just 3 months after she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
Celiac and Type 1 diabetes are both auto immune diseases. So Celiac disease is more prevalent among Type 1 diabetics than the general population, and this double whammy fell into our lot.
There is no cure for Celiac disease, and the only treatment is to follow a very strict gluten free diet. This is not easy. Gluten is EVERYWHERE!!
Gluten is a protein from wheat, barley, and rye. If my baby ingests even a trace amount of gluten, her over active immune system will attack the heck out of it, wreaking havoc on her small intestine, damage the villi on her small intestine, and render her unable to absorb nutrients into her body. This helped to explain why she didn’t grow even an inch in about a year.
So, we have been that “trendy” gluten free band wagon family the media has complained about so much recently. Except this band wagon is no joy ride in a shiny BMW, this band wagon is one endless bumpy ride, driven by an old donkey!
Foods we have taken for granted such as bread was a major challenge. We were able to quickly identify Udi’s Gluten Free bread as our favorite. However, it is almost always kept in the freezer section of the grocery stores, and the baby only liked two types of their GF bread. The only way to eat fresh baked bread was to drive over an hour away to a dedicated GF bakery, called Mariposa’s.
I have decided to liberate the baby from her frozen and boring breads misery. I am going to make her fresh GF bread myself!
“But you don’t know how to bake!!” my husband.
This is true. So I bought a bread maker with a gluten free setting on it.
Gluten Free baking setting
I also decided to start with the simplest GF bread recipe.
The recipe
I went out and bought a list of unfamiliar ingredients, and I met a couple of them for the first time.
GF ingredients for bread making
I was determined to follow the recipe to the letter. Rather than simply measure each of the ingredients with the various cup sizes, I weighed each of the key ingredients down to the exact grams on my kitchen scale.
Carefully weighing the GF flours
My 11 year-old got all excited and joined me in the kitchen. She happily poured 3 tablespoons of honey into the batter mixture, and felt certain that this bread was destined to be delicious.
Adding honey to the mixture
I put the batter mixture into the bread maker, pushed a few buttons.
Loading the batter mixture into the bread maker
A little over two hours later….
Our bread is done!
Oh! Beautiful, further enhanced by the heavenly smell of the freshly baked bread filling the entire house.
A big 2 lb loaf
Our first loaf of gluten free bread did not play victim to any of the typical gluten free pitfalls, such as too dense or too crumbly or too off tasting.
Slice and serve
The four of us enjoyed our first loaf of gluten free bread for dinner. My baby was so grateful to finally be eating fresh, warm, fluffy, and delicious bread.
It was a huge success. I am in love with our bread maker.
I plan to bake a loaf of bread every week. My unhinged ambition and impatience will have me attemping a much more complicated bread recipe this coming Sunday. I can’t wait!
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