Some Gluten Free Cookbooks that I have found helpful

Eating Gluten Free by Shreve Stockton
The Gluten-Free Kitchen by Roben Ryberg
Gluten-Free by Michael Cox
Gluten-Free Cooking by Anne Sheasby
Going against the Grain: Wheat Free Cookery by Phyllis L. Potts
Gluten Free food for Kids by Sheri L. Sanderson
Gluten-Free Baking by Rebecca Reilly

and several books by the master of Gluten Free Cooking: Bette Hagman
The Gluten-free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods
More from the Gluten-Free Gourmet
The Gluten-free Gourmet Bakes Bread
The Gluten-free Gourmet Cooks Fast and Healthy

I have a lot of cookbooks. It's amazing how many of these books you can find in the "Diet Cookbook" section of your local bookstore. However, you can order a lot of these books through your local library and try them out before buying them at your bookstore or online.

The best Carrot Muffins you'll ever eat - gluten free

These are my sister's favorite. They are so moist and good. It's from a carrot cake recipe I modified from Incredible Edible Gluten-Free Food for Kids.

60 minutes at 350F. (I usually switch the pans halfway through)
2 oiled cupcake tins.

Combine dry ingredients

• 1 cup rice flour
• 1/c cup tapioca flour
• 1/2 cup potato starch flour
• 1.75 cups sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
• 1 tsp cinnamon
  

Beat

• 4 eggs

Add & mix until well combined

• 3 cups grated carrots
• 1 cup oil

Then add flour mixture and combine thoroughly. Pour into cupcake tins and bake

Gluten Free Almond Cornstarch bread made in bread machine

This bread turned out very nice. Very nice white bread. Should have entered this one into the fair. Rose high, didn't fall, nice texture and flavor.

Current summer temperature is about 80F with fairly high humidity. Used my Regal Breadmaker's rapid cycle with medium crust. Top didn't brown much at all. Sides were browned just right.

Preblend the dry ingredients in a regular mixer:

• 2 1/4 c cornstarch
• 1/3 c potato starch flour
• 2 T sweet rice flour
• 2 T dried egg white
• 1/4 c sugar
• 1 T xanthan gum (doubled from original recipe)
• 3 T almond flour (or ground walnuts or ground pecans)
• 1 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 gelatin (not in original recipe)
  
• 1/2 dough enhancer (not in original recipe)
  

Put the wet ingredients in the bread mixer loaf pan

• 2 c cold water
• 2 1/2 T oil (I used corn oil since it's lighter in flavor)

Add dry ingredients on top

Make a little well and put in

• 3 t yeast (decreased from 4 1/2 t)

Start machine. Scrape sides if needed.

Gluten Free Buttermilk Sorghum Bread made in a bread maker

Pre-blend dry ingredients, then set aside

• 1 cup sorghum flour
• 1/2 cup tapioca flour
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1 T xanthan gum
• 1/3 cup buttermilk powder
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 t unflavored gelatin
• 1 t egg replacer
• 2 T sugar

Blend in small bowl until Just whites are mostly dissolved and start to foam

• 2 T Just Whites (powdered egg white)
  
• 1/2 c water

Then put in bread maker pan along with

• 1 c water
  
• 1/2 t dough enhancer
• 2 1/2 T margarine (cut in 4 pieces - 1 piece in each corner of bread pan)

Put dry ingredient mixture on top of liquid mixture

Then make a little well in the center and add

• 2 t yeast

Bake on "Rapid cycle" at "medium crust" I have a Regal breadmaker with the pan shaped like a traditional loaf pan.

When machine first starts mixing scrape sides of pan and look at consistency of dough. If you looks to dry you can add a little water up to 2T or so. I made this in summer when it was 80F with high humidity so I cut back on the water, decreased the yeast and increased the xanthan gum to keep the bread from falling flat.

p.s. This bread was submitted to Waukesha county fair and won 3rd place - (the other 3 loaves where the top sunk in were given to my sister. I think this hot and humid weather is causing the yeast to go too fast and I think the bread is on the verge of being too doughy. Next time I make this I might make try the following: Use cold tap water, cut yeast to 1 3/4 t, decrease water by 1 T, decrease gelatin to 1/2 t and add 1 T almond meal. I also might use oil instead or margarine.

Thoughts about making gluten free bread in a bread machine

My sister asked to develop a recipe for the bread machine. Most times the appearance of gluten free breads are lousy and take more time in the bread machine than just doing it by hand with a regular mixer. This is because bread machines are designed to develop the gluten in wheat breads which imparts elasticity and traps the carbon dioxide to allow the bread to rise and not fall.

In order to make gluten free breads you need to blend flours and add a lot of other ingredients to compensate. Plus they taste best fresh out of the oven. Then because they're homemade you need to slice and freeze them to keep them decent tasting otherwise they go stale fast.

I couldn't find any bean flour, not even soy flour, at my regular grocery store last night so I picked a sorghum bread recipe to give my sister. I like the flavor of sorghum anyway. I also like the flavor buckwheat which is gluten free despite it's name.

Some techniques and ingredients I use are:

• Pre-blend dry ingredients using a mixer.
• Use Just Whites (commercial dried egg white powder) and mix with mixer to soften before putting in recipe.
• Add some unflavored gelatin to try improve moisture holding capabilities and keepability.
• Add some dough enhancer which contains lecithin and ascorbic acid to improve its keepability.
• Improve protein content of bread by using bean flour(s) if available along with or using dried milk products, ground nuts, Just Whites and other protein additives.

Here's a old blog I used to post my gluten free experiments on: http://glutenfreekgw.blogspot.com