When it became clear to me I had to go GF, one of the foods I missed the most was bread. I am not a huge consumer of bread, but a good sandwich is an occasional treat to me.

I started trying to convert wheat flour recipes into GF and this was an abysmal failure. I quickly discovered that 1 to 1 or cup for cup flours are not really equal substitutes in a recipe. I discovered you can’t take grandma’s cake recipe and just substitute a 1 to 1 flour and have a workable product.

So, I started looking online for answers and happened to stumble on a cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen (https://americastestkitchen.com) which was mostly baked goods and GF. Hereafter, ATK. I know the show, and have another cookbook from them. I quickly decided this GF cookbook was worth the purchase price.

I was pleasantly surprised by this cookbook in that it not only had many old favorites, it also explained the reasons they chose the ingredients they did. This has helped me with other recipes where GF translations were needed. This cookbook uses their flour blend which I like quite well. It works well in many recipes other than ATK and I can get three loaves per batch mixed up.

After making their white bread recipe several times, I decided it would be much more pleasant to have a recipe for my bread machine. While I loved the bread (and modified it some by adding 1/2 cup ground flax seeds) it was time consuming and took about three hours to make a loaf. Back to online sleuthing.

I found a web site called Mama Knows Gluten Free (https://mamaknowsglutenfree.com) where I found a recipe for a bread machine. The downside of this recipe for me is that it called for Pillsbury Gluten Free flour which I can’t find locally, but I ordered some and made the recipe just as written once to see how it worked. Turned out pretty good – I had to change the settings on the machine for the second loaf but it was good.

Once I had the settings figured out, I started doing some math. The flour used is $6 to $7 per bag and you’ll only get one loaf per bag. This didn’t seem budget friendly to me. Plus, I had to order the flour which takes time.

Eventually I decided to try the recipe with the flour from ATK. I was pleased to find it worked beautifully!! I modified the recipe in two ways, first I again added the ground flax seeds and second, I omitted the xanthan gum and instead used 3 TBSP of ground psyllium husks. I prefer the texture the psyllium husks give the bread and it adds a bit of fiber to it. Win-win in my book.

I use a bread slicer and an electric knife to slice the loaves and pop them in the freezer immediately after slicing.