Gluten free flour and bread machines

[moroccangirl]

Can you bake bread in a machine with GF flour?
We have a sell and swap page on fb. I sold my bread maker to a girl here. It works fine but I use it once in a blue moon and I am trying to declutter. She messaged me yesterday that it's not working and sent me a pic of a not finished baking, crusty, grayish loaf of bread. I told her i'd go pick up the machine and try a loaf or two because I had never had that problem. It's midnight so all I had time to do was one of the express loaves, but it came out perfect. She showed me the flour she was using, and she had a bag go GF, and she said she used all purpose also (I have used that too and it worked as well). I'm thinking it's the GF, or she just didn't follow the instructions carefully. I'll try one more tomorrow and then she better take these tow loaves of bread and eat them because I will eat the whole thing!!!

[radial]

I think it's much more difficult to produce edible bread with the GF flours. 

[moroccangirl]

I think it's much more difficult to produce edible bread with the GF flours. 

I figured that was the problem.

[merigayle]

I have with good results! Have her find a GF bread recipe for a bread machine.

[nadra24]

The gluten is what gives bread its structure so you can't just sub in GF flour into a regular bread recipe and expect your bread to rise, you have to use special recipes.  I also just did a quick google search, and apparently most bread machines have two rise cycles and most GF breads don't do as well with those so she'd want to use the express setting with only one rise.  Have you found that to be the case, merigayle?

[radial]

I gave up on making gluten-free breads and pastries when I realized how difficult it is to get it right.  There's a bakery not too far from me that does a fabulous job of it, so there's no need for me to get too crazy about it. 

[merigayle]

I have not had by issues with the bread machine though it makes a funny shaped loaf so I just set it on dough mode and bake in the oven.

This recipe I like but used 1/2 tbs xantham gum instead of guar gum. The xantham gum helps replace gluten.

http://munchinmochi.blogspot.com/2011/07/vegan-gluten-free-and-healthy-bread-for.html

[moroccangirl]

Thanks yall. She was using the recipe that came with the machine, but with gf flour. I'm going to try the banana loaf today because I needed to make banana bread anyways to show her it's not the machine.

[merigayle]

I have never made a sweet bread in the bread machine, only yeasty kind of breads. Yeah you just cannot substitute GF flour in a regular bread recipe. You can in other recipes like pumpkin or banana bread or brownies, etc. Xantham gum really seems to be the difference in a successful outcome, and you only need a teeny bit.

[Magic Microbe]

If delicious gf bread was easy to make there would be more good ones on the market.

[merigayle]

If delicious gf bread was easy to make there would be more good ones on the market.

The issue is it is not long lasting, the shelf life of a loaf of GF bread, or actually most GF baked goods, is 1-3 days on average. This is why at our local stores, all the GF baked stuff is in the freezer section.