Yeastless, Wheatless Bread Update

As many of you know, my mom-in-law suffers from chronic pain, mostly arthritic. One holistic physician she sees ran some tests and found she had several food allergies including yeast, wheat, chicken and eggs among a host of other foods (She has found she can eat eggs sparingly)

In order to lessen her pain, she was supposed to avoid those foods totally, then she could begin to reintroduce them into her diet gradually to see which ones affected her the most.That meant she had to stop eating bread and anything made with wheat flour and yeast.

Bread really is a staple of our daily lives and she has been craving bread of any kind since then. It has fallen to me to find recipes for bread that she can eat and I have to tell you, it has required some fancy surfing (and a lot of help from you - my friends and readers!) I've been all over the Internet and have found some variations which I plan to try for her. As promised, I will be sharing the results over the next few months.

At our local Amish bulk food store, I found some pre-made bread mixes using alternative flours. They are put out by Bob's Red Mill out of Oregon. The mix includes a packet of yeast, but I substituted a mix of baking powder, baking soda and vinegar to the batter instead to make it rise. That turned out well and she liked the results. The flavor is a little different from white or wheat bread, but tasty.

LynnRae Ries and Bruce Gross co-authored a book called Delicious Breads that are gluten and wheat free. Many of them can be made without yeast with good results. II purchased the book and was able to find most of the ingredients at our little Amish store, but haven't tried those recipes yet. Most of these can even be made in a bread machine. Woohoo!

I had some over ripe bananas and decided to make some banana bread for Mom. So I found a normal recipe and changed several ingredients so she could eat it. The results were actually quite edible so I'll share the new recipe here with you:

Mae's Banana Bread

1 cup oat flour
1 cup white rice flour
1Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp tapioca starch
2 Tbsp nonfat dry milk
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt (optional)
1/2 Cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 whole egg and 2 egg whites or egg substitute to equal 2 eggs
3-4 very ripe bananas

Sift together dry ingredients and set aside. Cream wet ingredients Stir in dry ingredients just enough to moisten. (If you want a lighter bread, beat the egg whites until fluffy and fold in last - if using real eggs.) Pour into greased pan and bake at 350 degrees for 60-65 minutes.

The taste is good - a little nutty and reminds me of banana flavored oatmeal. My family all tried it and gave it a thumbs up!

I plan to keep on experimenting and will keep you posted. A wonderful Internet friend gave me a yummy recipe for Brazilian cheese bread with no yeast or wheat flour in it that is a must try! That's next on the list if I can find the manioc flour it calls for...