Cookbook Review: Gluten-Free & Vegan Bread

As promised, a post about gluten-free bread!

I tend to avoid the store-bought bread options, as they have eggs and/or dairy, which I don't tolerate well. Thus, I am left with the option of either forgoing bread forever or making my own loafs.

A life without toast? Sandwiches? FRENCH TOAST?!?!

Not a fun life whatsoever!

I used the cookbook Gluten Free & Vegan Bread: Artisanal Recipes to Make at Home by Jennifer Katzinger.

Jennifer is the founder and former owner of Flying Apron Bakery in Seattle, which is certified gluten-free and vegan! This is her third cookbook.

In reviewing this cookbook, I considered Visual Appeal (aka photos), Recipe Ease, Replication (aka did it turn out?), Flavor, Taste Test.

Visual Appeal

One of my favorite parts of a good cookbook is lots of attractive, delicious photos. I find it helpful in guiding me in the right direction of how my food SHOULD look, and an appealing photo makes me want to make the recipe even more! This book has very, very attractive photos, but not very many.

However, due to the fact that gluten-free and vegan cookbooks are a rare find - I let this slide.  And drooled over the photos that ARE in the cookbook.

Recipe Ease

I chose to make the Quinoa Sandwich Bread.

I followed this recipe to point, and I found it fairly simple. This is one of the yeasted breads in the cookbook. There are some recipes that seem more complicated, such as the ones which require a wild starter and breads that need to be carefully watched as they rise, but I figured those can await another day. I did trial the Holiday Irish Soda Bread, which is considered a 'quick bread', but it mostly resembled a hockey puck. 

Being a Canadian girl, I can appreciate anything hockey ...  but I don't want to eat a puck.

Replication

While there is no photo in the cookbook for comparison to the recipe, but I'd say the outcome was a success:

My home was filled with the scent of warm bread, and I waited impatiently for it to cool so that I could try it.

Flavor

This bread was nice and dense, as to be expected with gluten-free bread, but tasted light a lighter bread. I had it regular and toasted - it was great both ways... and I was pleasantly surprised it toasted fairly well (I like my bread very lightly toasted).

I trialled freezing the bread, as I don't eat bread very often so I usually freeze loafs. I sliced the bread, wrapped each slice in plastic wrap, then put into a large freezer bag.

And waited three days.

It was solid as a rock, but once it was popped into the toaster ... good as fresh!

My favorite way to eat this bread is toasted, with organic PB and honey. Delicious!

Taste Test

My favorite people to taste-test my recipes on are my friends, and in this case it was a gluten-eating, non-vegan friend. 

He approved, said it tasted as good as regular bread. Success!!

I will be making further recipes from this book and will post to review, my next plan is to create this:

Yum.

I'd better hurry off, as I have a plane to catch to Canada's capital city: Ottawa, Ontario!

Have a fantastic weekend!!