Celiac Disease Program

Individuals with celiac disease often say that gluten-containing bread is the item they miss most often on their gluten-free diet and a bread machine is a good investment to help you bake gluten-free bread easily.

Use only one rising and one kneading cycle when baking gluten-free bread in a bread machine.

Monitor the ratio of dry and wet ingredients carefully, as this ratio is the key to good gluten-free bread. The dough should be the consistency of thick mashed potatoes when ready to bake.

Open the bread maker while it is mixing and push down unmixed ingredients on the inner surfaces if necessary.

Don't be afraid to adapt recipes to suit your family's taste by adding your own ingredients to mixes.

Proper handling of the yeast is critical in gluten-free bread making. Use room temperature or luke warm water only, since water that is too hot will kill the yeast.

Break up egg yolks before adding the dry ingredients in order to prevent the yolks from coddling in the bread machine.

Do not touch the dough with your hands since it will be too sticky. Instead, use a scoop, sprayed with non-stick spray. Plastic wrap sprayed with non- stick spray to keep pizza dough from sticking when spreading it on a pan for baking.

Let pizza dough sit for a few minutes before baking so the crust will be thicker.

Add fiber to recipes by removing 1/4-cup of gluten-free flour and replacing it with the same amount of a high-fiber, gluten-free flour, such as sorghum or teff.

Store gluten-free breads in the freezer, not the refrigerator, where they are more apt to dry out. For the best results, take a piece of frozen bread out of freezer, wrap it in a paper towel, and then defrost in microwave.