Bread Mix

As a lifelong baker of all sorts of breads and other family recipes using regular flour, when I unexpectedly developed an intolerance for gluten I thought it would be easy to find good recipes using substitute ingredients for the flour. I spent a lot of time and money trying GF bread recipes. I boug... More

As a lifelong baker of all sorts of breads and other family recipes using regular flour, when I unexpectedly developed an intolerance for gluten I thought it would be easy to find good recipes using substitute ingredients for the flour. I spent a lot of time and money trying GF bread recipes. I bought recipe books, used all kinds of flours, and was ultimately not satisfied with any of them. The breads were crumbly or not a pleasing texture in the mouth or, in the case of garbanzo bean flour, bubbly in the tummy. And forget the store bought GF breads -- what do they do to some of them that they last for months on the shelf (?!), and others that are kept in the store refrigerator seem dry and tasteless. Then I stumbled upon the Namaste bread mix. I love it. Bread that tastes, smells and feels like a real bread! I do make a few alterations to the package instructions. I add a teaspoon of sugar to the yeast/water mixture to boost the proofing. Sometimes I add caraway seeds and Italian herbs to the dough, or cinnamon+a teaspoon vanilla+1/8 C. sugar. And as soon as I take the bread hot out of the baking pan, I butter or olive oil the top and wrap the whole loaf in aluminum foil to keep in the moisture while it cools. Then I slice the cooled bread, put pieces of wax paper between the slices and freeze the loaf in a freezer bag. That makes it easy to pop one slice at a time in the microwave for 30 seconds (served warm, it's even more moist and tasty). One of these days I'm going to try making hamburger buns by baking the dough in small bowls. This bread mix is easy and, compared to buying GF bread in the stores or the price of amassing the various ingredients to try to make your own from scratch, it's not all that expensive. Less

- Kathlyn, Amazon.com review