Best Christmas Present Ever : A Breadmachine

I have been asking for a bread machine for Christmas since I was in elementary school.  Seriously.  That long!  You'd think by now I would have just bought one for myself.  But I have always felt like a bread machine and stand mixer should be gifts.  So I refused to buy one.  Thinking surely one Christmas or for my (nonexistent) wedding they would find their way to me. 

Two years ago I thought I finally convinced my father that a bread machine would save my life.  Cure all ills.  Bring world peace.  Fix the hole in the ozone layer. 

But instead I was surprised with my pink KitchenAid stand mixer.

I LOVE my stand mixer, Petunia.  She is my kitchen bestie.  And, among other things, has made a lot of bread.  But once I went gluten free, that all changed.  I have yet to figure out how to get gluten free bread to rise without, you know, magical elastic glutens.  Oh the expensive flours I've wasted only to make stumpy, dense, icky tasting, crumbly loaves of what I will call bread for a lack of a better word. 

My favorite gluten free blogs have long claimed that you can't get a good rise without use of a bread machine.  So this year, tired of hearing me grumble about what a misery my life is without a fancy new (I  have long been willing to have a used one too but would you believe I have never once seen one for sale in a thrift shop or on Craigslist?  I'm sure I will find six of them next week though.) bread machine, dad gave in and ordered the exact one I asked for. 

Merry Christmas to me!

So the other night, I tested my new baby out.  I was nervous this was going to be a little disastrous.  It made rumbles and noises.  But I followed (mostly) the directions and guess what?

I made bread!  Really really good bread!  Bread so tasty and normal that I forgot to take a picture the first night.  And did remember the second night, but only after I started eating. 

Sorry these are terrible- taken with a blackberry while actually eating.  Klassy of me, huh?!

New soup recipe coming soon.

I'm in love!

Or as in love as one can be with a kitchen appliance.  Kitchen love, I guess.  Still...it's love.  Or really really like.

Want the recipe, my fellow GF-ers?  Of course you do!  I based it off this recipe, but below is exactly what I did.  There are a number of changes in my recipe vs the original.

Gluten Free White Bread

Whisk together dry ingredients in separate mixing bowl and set aside:
* 1 1/2 c. millet flour
* 1 c. potato (or tapioca) starch (not flour)
* 1/2 c. GF flour mix (I use Better Batter)
* 1 1/4 tsp. Kosher salt
* 2 1/4 tsp. rapid rise yeast

Pour liquid ingredients in bread pan:
* 1 1/4 c. warm water
* 3 tbls. EVOO
* 1 tbls. brown sugar (or honey but I was out)
* 1/2 tsp. lemon juice
* 1 egg (or egg replacer)

Pour dry ingredient mixture gently on top of wet ingredients in bread pan.

At this point, it will depend on your machine.  But for mine, I set it to the specific Gluten Free setting and it was good to go.  When it finished, it wasn't very golden.  I'd read that GF breads sometimes require more baking time and you could pop a loaf, directly out of the bread machine bread pan, in a 350 oven for @ 10 mins.  I did just that and it got a little more color.  By then I was hungry and really didn't care.  But as luck would have it, my first loaf was perfection! 

A GF skeptic ate two pieces and kept commenting on how awesome it tasted.

If you don't have a variety of flours in your pantry, I think you could probably experiment.  I might give it a go with all GF flour mix this weekend to see how that turns out.  If you eat CF or vegan, just use the alternatives I listed for eggs and honey.  Easy peasy.

So tell me....do you have a bread machine?  Do you ever actually use it?