Gluten Free Lemon Bread with Chia Seeds

Feeling a little disheartened after my last gluten free experiment, I took a little time to mellow out a bit and investigate some alternative solutions for gluten free baking.  Yes, I’m researching alternatives to gluten free alternatives.

Even I don’t have a smart ass comment for that one.

My thought about using quinoa flour was right on the money in theory.  Quinoa is a complete protein source and would easily do well in a mixture of flours according to Cooking Free by Carol Fenster, PhD.  I was very eager to try it out–I bought a lovely bag of quinoa from the bulk section of our local co-op and came home and threw it in the food processor to grind it into flour.  After about six minutes of rolling around in there, I gave up on that idea and put it in the blender a couple of cups at a time.  Success.  In the blender the grains ground down to a fine power that would be a suitable substitute for flour.

Except that it smells very earthy and grainy and would NOT be very good in lemon bread.  Crackers or sandwich bread, yes–lemon bread, no.  Time to throw together a Plan B.  After scoping out the kitchen for a minute I spied some gluten free oats so I went through the blender process again to create oat flour.  There we go.

Here is the latest mixture:

• 2 parts gluten free oat flour
• 2 parts brown rice flour
• 1 part white rice flour
• 1 part arrowroot starch

My hopes for using arrowroot starch and chia seed goo were horribly dashed when the bread turned out very, very, very crumbly.

But it tastes good.

Really good.

So good that I couldn’t keep my paws off it for the picture.  And even though I planned on just eating one piece and putting the other back, I totally ate them both with great aplomb.  Ok, the baby helped.  He loves it too, and I guess in all fairness I made it for him so he should get some.

I based this version of lemon bread off of a recipe that I found at this wonderful site and my  favorite recipe for lemon bread from Moosewood’s Book of Desserts. Don’t forgo the lemon glaze.  You will never be the same.

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Gluten Free Lemon Bread with Chia Seeds

• 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 Tbsp. of freshly grated lemon peel (about 1 large lemon or 2 medium)
• 1 1/2 cups gluten free flour substitute (or regular old white flour)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 Tbsp. chia seeds (poppy seeds are good too)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1)  Combine the milk and the chia seeds in a small bowl and let sit to form a goop.

2)  In a large bowl, cream together the butter and the brown sugar until light and blended–either by hand or with an electric mixer.  Beat in the eggs one at a time.  Add the lemon peel.  In a separate bowl, sift together the flour mixture, baking powder, and salt.  Alternately add the the flour mixture and the milk goop to the creamed mixture, beating just enough to combine after each addition.

3)  Pour the batter into a prepared loaf pan (4 1/2″x8 1/2″) and bake for about 45-55 minutes, until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool in the pan on a rack for 10-15 minutes.

While the bread is cooling, prepare the lemon glaze:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about two lemons)

Combine sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan and heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves.  At this point you can decide if you want to serve the bread from the pan or if you want to take it out.  Poke holes in the top of the lemon bread with a toothpick and drizzle the glaze all over the loaf.

Now here is where the crumbly texture of the bread got tricky.  I like to serve the lemon bread from a plate so that means I had to take it out of the pan.  It kind of broke into pieces when I popped it out so I had to just glaze the chunks, which was still very, very, very tasty.  Next time I will try letting it cool completely and then adding the glaze.  And I will try to find a binding agent that will perform a bit better…

Nico is now eleven months old, so I figure by the time I get it down he’ll be just about ready to eat all of the forbidden foods.  Good thing I have gluten intolerant friends!  Well, I guess not good for them.  Whatever.  Eat your bread.

Related posts:

1. The Great Gluten-Free Challenge, 2008
2. Grrr, Grrr, Gluten Free
3. From the Studio: Plans for the Next Two Weeks
4. Tutorial: How to Wear an Onbuhimo (Part 1, Front Carry, Hip Carry)