Gluten-Free Herb Bread

Happy gluten-free awareness month!

Ok, not really. I told my sister it was, she responded with "No, it's gay people awareness month!" Did a little googling, she wins. Sort of. June, April, and October, depending on who you ask, are all LGBT awareness months. Celiac Awareness Month (an autoimmune disease that makes you react to gluten, just in case you weren't aware of it!) was May. Whoops.
Turns out June is also National Safety Month, Clean Air Month, Computer Backup Awareness Month, all sorts of disease awareness months that I can't pronounce and am obviously not very aware of, and my favorite, Goat Trauma Awareness Month. It's not about people abusing goats, it's about being aware of small children traumatized by goats. Check out the Childhood Goat Trauma Foundation, it makes me laugh.

Oh hey, baking. So I had some leftover rice flour from the Dragon's Beard, so I figured I'd celebrate gluten-free awareness month, or gay people awareness month, or whatever it is. Wait, since when do I need an excuse to bake?

Anyway, I did some research on gluten-free bread recipes, and I determined they all sounded gross. They all had weird things like xanthan gum and tapoica flour, and junk I didn't feel like buying for one, probably gross, loaf of bread. The whole point was to use up the flour, not buy more!

I finally found a few vaguely normal recipes, but they all still sounded icky. The one that seemed the most promising sounded like it was written by a redneck microwave chef. She added 1/4 cup water because it "seemed kinda dry." She didn't say what size dish to use. The last line of the instructions was "and the kids seemed to like it all right." I didn't trust her. All the rest of the recipes either had comments saying it was gross, or the recipe itself said it was flat and weird. Great.

I finally came up with my epiphany: you can't make rice bread taste good, or have a normal texture, but maybe I could hide it with flavor. I mean, the flour itself tastes like sand, so I knew I couldn't make something that tasted like it was made with wheat flour, why try to? Maybe if I added enough yumminess, you just wouldn't notice that it was actually a sandy brick!

You know what? It actually worked! The bread was buttery, dense, and very crumbly, like, I can't look at it without it falling apart kind of crumbly, but the flavor's amazing! It didn't really rise much, and it still has a weird texture, but you know, if I couldn't eat gluten, I would maybe make it again. Just don't ask my sister what she thought, she accidentally inhaled a chunk and stuck with the "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" approach. I still stand firm to my belief that it doesn't suck that much.

So happy belated Gluten-Free Awareness Month, happy Gay People Awareness Month (is it really fair that they get 1/4 of the year to be aware of them?) and don't get traumatized by a goat today!


Gluten-Free Herb Bread

1 cup rice flour
3 tbs baking powder
1 tbs garlic powder
1 tbs Italian seasoning
1 stick butter, softened
2 eggs, separated
Handful grated cheese (I used Swiss, asiago or a mild cheddar might be nice too)

Mix dry ingredients in amixing bowl. Beat in butter and egg yolks. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites to stiff peaks. Fold into flour mixture gently. Pour mixture into a greased loaf pan and sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.