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101 of 103 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic book, but read this before getting started with gluten-free breadmaking, July 25, 2010
This review is from: 125 Best Gluten-Free Bread Machine Recipes (Paperback)
When we got started with gluten-free bread making, we bought three books and a Zojirushi BBCCX20 Home Bakery Supreme Bread Machine. The first recipe we tried was from the bread maker manual, which turned out heavy and relatively tasteless. Our second recipe was the breadsticks from this book (page 146). We made them exactly as the recipe described, and scored a delicious success.
The best part of this book is its completeness. Each recipe includes full ingredients and instructions, like most books. But it also includes specific instructions on measuring the temperature, customizing machine cycles, etc. We learned a lot by making recipes from this book before trying recipes from our other two books.
To be successful with gluten-free bread making, you need the right machine. Pages 15-19 of this book give specific recommendations on how to choose the right one. If you want my one sentence answer, buy the Zojirushi, which meets all of the requirements described there. You need a machine that can handle gluten-free dough, which is often thicker and heavier than wheat dough. The Zojirushi has two paddles in a horizontal baking tray, instead of one paddle in a vertical tray like many smaller machines. It is also programmable, which helps a lot. More tips:
* Make each recipe EXACTLY as recommended the first time. That will allow you to compare any changes you make with the results obtained by the authors.
* Measure ingredients exactly, particularly flours. Don't pack the flour into the measuring cup, just scoop into the measuring cup and scrape off the excess. If you tap or otherwise pack the flour into the cup, you'll end up with too much of that flour, by perhaps 20% or more.
* Measure temperature after baking cycles, as often recommended in this book.
* If you have hard water (ours is very hard) use bottled spring water for baking. This can make a surprising difference.
Gluten free baking requires practice, but the result is worth the effort. Enjoy!
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54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you buy only ONE book, buy this one!!!, January 7, 2011
This review is from: 125 Best Gluten-Free Bread Machine Recipes (Paperback)
I just got this cookbook 2 days ago and I have made 2 recipes. If I never found another recipe in it, it would STILL be worth what I paid. BOTH my loaves of bread turned out FANTASTIC!!! I have been gluten free for 14 months now, and I have baked MANY a loaf of bread. NONE, not ONE, has turned out as perfect as the 2 I just made. Yesterday I made the Cinnamon Raisin Bread. Today I made the Grandmother's Brown Bread. I have not ONE negative thing to say about either loaf of bread. They are PERFECT!! I want to tell you what I used and what I did. For one thing, I do not own, nor do I intend to own, a zojirushi-whatever it's called bread machine!! The machine I have is a Sunbeam model 5891. This machine is PERFECTLY adequate to handle these loaves of bread. I do NOT agree that you need to fork out hundreds of dollars on some expensive bread machine. Both recipes that I made required a dough cycle, and a bake cycle. My machine has both. I put in the wet ingredients, turned on the dough cycle, added the dry, helped it get all the crumbs from the corners with a rubber spatula within 2 minutes as directed, closed the lid, let the machine finish mixing, removed the paddle, smoothed the top as directed, let the dough cycle finish, turned it on to bake, took it's temp when done, assured it was at 200 degrees and removed from pan immediately. NO SINKING!!! NO FUNKY AIR POCKETS!! NO DENSE HEAVY SHRIVELED LOAF!! It's GORGEOUS!!! Now, the one other change I made is, most if not all the recipes call for instant bread machine yeast. I buy my yeast in bulk at Costco. It's regular yeast. I'm not about to go out and purchase MORE yeast, so, what I did was whatever water was called for in the recipe, I used WARM water, I added my yeast to the water (increasing to 2 tsp when recipes called for 1 1/2), and put in 1 tsp sugar. I let this bubble while I added the remaining wet ingredients. Then, I poured in my yeast mixture. The recipes in the book call for adding instant yeast to the DRY ingredients. So, basically all I did was activate my yeast first, by adding it to the water (which I warmed) with a teaspoon of sugar, and increasing slightly to make up for the fact that mine wasn't instant. VOILA! The bread is tall, the bread is light, the bread is beautiful. I am SO happy about these 2 loaves of bread, I cannot contain my excitement. I can't wait to try more recipes!! I will try to update after I do! Thank you SOOOOOO much for this book!!! Bread baking has never been easier for me and I was a HUGE bread baker before getting Celiac disease.
UPDATE!! After having a baby and moving twice, I hadn't been doing a lot of baking and was buying Rudi's bread at Costco for a while. Now I am BACK AT IT! And I have my book out again too. I make the Grandma's Brown Bread on p. 30 all the time, subbing flax meal for the rice bran. It turns out great every time in my Sunbeam. I also recently made the cornbread on page 102, adding bacon and corn as suggested. It was delicious, and rose up to be like a regular slice of bread. My boys and I made the breadsticks on page 146, and ate the entire batch immediately! We will be doubling that recipe next time, and it was fun to make! I also just made the Date Nut Loaf on page 204. It is delicous if you want a mildy sweet and nutty bread! Overall, I still LOVE this cookbook and it is the only one I use to bake bread. My Sunbeam bread machine is still working perfectly for these recipes as well!
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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gluten-Free Bread Baking, June 20, 2010
This review is from: 125 Best Gluten-Free Bread Machine Recipes (Paperback)
This book is excellent! I bought the Zojirushi bread machine recommended in this book and results have been fantastic! We are having gluten issues at home and I have tried store bought frozen bread. Not many of them are very good. This recipes in this book allow me to make fresh bread that not only tastes like wheat bread, it looks like wheat bread, toasts like wheat bread and slices just like wheat bread. Anyone looking to make their own gluten free breads should definitely try this book. However, pay attention to the fact she has written this book for the Zojirushi - I replaced my old bread machine and it was worth the purchase. The results are superb and everyone is very happy!
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