Gluten-free Christmas Wish Fulfilled: Hello New Breadmaker!
When I posted my list of gluten-free gifts a week or so ago, I jokingly posted on Facebook that “If anything good comes out of this blog, I hope it’s a bread machine for yours truly.” Well, I have Facebook, this blog, and seven of the greatest friends to thank for this little guy:
He’s a Panasonic SD-YD250 Bread maker, complete with automatic yeast dispenser so I don’t have to wait around to dump the yeast in. It also has a 13-hour timer so, if I so desire, I and the rest of the house can wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread.
I’ll let you know when I find out what I did to deserve such a heartfelt gift.
Being quite a novice at the art of baking non-dessert breads, I decided to buy a pre-measured mix the first time out rather than attempt to do potato flour/millet flour/rice flour/xanthan gum measuring myself.
Following the directions on that bag were fairly easy. Figuring out how to set the right baking time, type of bread, size, and crust darkness took a little perusing of the user manual. I chronicled my first attempt here:
About 10 minutes in, the roommates and I started hearing the weird noises of the dough kneading, and it took a minute to realize what it was. Then we were pretty stoked. Forty-five minutes in, it sounded like the dough was being spanked. We determined that was the yeast dispenser working its magic.
Finally, around 3 hours in to the 4-hour process, we started to smell the finished product. I’m the only GF eater in this house, but it was clear everyone was waiting for bread.
When it finally finished, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it actually looked and tasted like a loaf of bread. It turned out so well I just feel like baking all the time now. I’ve got one more bag of bread mix, and then I think it’ll be time to test my kitchen chemistry skills. I’ll keep you posted.
-Taylor
