Making Gluten Free Breadmaker Irish Soda Bread

Besides making corned beef and potatoes, another one of our family traditions is to make Irish Soda Bread.  We’ve made it  for years…for ourselves and for our neighbor who’s Irish.  But for the first time, last year, we didn’t make Irish Soda Bread because I was diagnosed 7 months previously with Celiac’s Disease.  Celiac is an auto-immune disorder where cells attack each other when gluten (flour, wheat, rye, or barley) is consumed.

A Gluten Free Breadmaker?

Even eating food that has touched flour is dangerous for me.  So I don’t like to bring flour into our house.  I recently discovered that some of today’s breadmakers include a gluten free cycle.  A normal breadmaker allows gluten dough to rise and then it punches it down.  It goes through this process 2-3 times.  This is detrimental to gluten free breads.  Gluten free bread only needs one rise and punch down cycle.  Breadmakers with gluten free cycles ensure your bread is not over-processed.

I did a simple search on Walmart.com and was surprised…and delighted to find that not only does Walmart carry a couple of breadmakers with a gluten free cycle, but they also a West Bend breadmaker at a very reasonable price at $79.88.  For a West Bend brand, that’s a great deal!

In fact, this West Bend gluten free breadmaker has a whole slew of features, it’s very impressive…

Features:

• Makes 1.5 lb., 2 lb., or 2 1/2 lb. loaf sizes
• Features 12 pre-programmed settings
• You can select 3 different crust colors
• Includes a Warm setting to keep your bread warm until you’re ready for it
• Has a gluten free cycle (yay!)
• Comes with a delayed start cycle
• Uses a nonstick bread pan for quick release
• Comes with a measuring cup and spoon for precise measuring
• The kneading blades are easily removable with included tool

Pros:

• Now you can make additive and preservative free bread
• The bread just slips out of the mixing/baking nonstick container!
• Works great for kneading pizza dough too
• Allows you to create a custom profile for your own homemade bread recipe
• The delayed starts works great for having fresh bread with your coffee in the morning!
• Has a large window to watch the dough during processing
• Even gluten free bread comes out moist and delicious

Cons:

• The two mini paddles bake into the bread, you need to remove before cutting up slices
• There is a long wait to add in fruit or nuts, you have to wait for a beep in order to include your add-in’s
• There is no light on the display, can’t read in a dimly lit room
• The instruction manual isn’t very thorough

I have never made gluten free bread at home before, so I was very excited…and anxious…to try it out.  Would this West Bend gluten free breadmaker bread turn out great like normal flour breads or would it be rough and stout?  Would the taste and texture be similar to normal bread or would it be off?  It was my hope to “win” my family with this really cool WestBend breadmaker.

 Here’s the first recipe I used.

 I found all of my ingredients at Walmart. You can find the Bob’s Red Mill flours and xanthum in the baking section.

Irish Soda Bread dough – don’t forget the caraway seeds!

I made my first loaf of Irish Soda Bread and the loaf came out smaller than expected.  I think it would have been bigger had I doubled the ingredients.

Nonetheless, the taste was fantastic!  My husband tends to shy away from gluten free things, yet he had three slices of this bread!

The texture was a little different due to the inclusion of buttermilk, but I’m telling you, the bread was delicious.  I will definitely make a gluten free Irish Soda Bread for our neighbor for St. Patrick’s day and continue on with our tradition.

I tried making another gluten free bread recipe for just regular bread.  I deviated slightly from this recipe and added baking soda, baking powder (because I didn’t have any yeast), and a 1/2 cup of buttermilk.  But this recipe had a lot more flour.  You can see the loaf is much bigger.  Interestingly enough, neither this recipe or the Irish Soda Bread used yeast.  This bread was good, but was a but dense, due to the the buttermilk I think.  Next time, I will not add buttermilk.

Gluten-Free Bread Recipes

I found a number of gluten free breadmaker recipes online.  With gluten free bread costing as much as $5-$6 for a small loaf, making my own gluten free bread gives me more freedom and savings.  I can now have fresh piping-hot bread rather than frozen bread that I need to defrost.  I also get so many more bread choices now.  I’ve never seen gluten-free Irish Soda Bread anywhere before!  And in the long-run, I save money.

Here are some gluten-free recipes:

Irish Soda Bread:

Betty Crocker

Bobs Red Mill 

All Recipes 

Gluten Free Bread

Brown & White Rice Flour Gluten Free Bread

Lemon Poppy Seed Gluten Free Bread

According to West Bend, most packaged bread mixes work well in their breadmakers.  Most store-bought mixes make a 1 1/2 lb. loaf.   I didn’t try a boxed mix, but certainly will in the future if I can find a gluten free one.

A Mom’s Perspective

I am very happy with this West Bend gluten free breadmaker.  There are tons of recipes online that use gluten free flours.  The tricky part is that often recipes call for several different gluten free flours.  This can be a bit overwhelming.

For the Irish Soda Bread recipe I used, it called for two different types of flour plus xanthum gum.  I added up the total cost of ingredients and figured I could make 4 loaves of bread.  Dividing the total cost by 4, I found that the Irish Soda Bread costs me about $3.20 a loaf.

To pay $3.20 for a fresh piping-hot loaf of Irish Soda Bread, customized for me is a gluten free person’s dream.  And as I found with the regular gluten free loaf I made, the slices can actually turn out to a normal size, rather than the mini size gluten free bread for $6 a loaf (and it’s always frozen) at the store.

Bread is certainly one of the things someone who is gluten free misses the most.  Now with the West Bend breadmaker and its gluten free cycle, you can enjoy fresh hot bread, mopped with butter…just like everyone else!