Blog Series: My Favorite Gluten Free {Bread}

The next thing, after flour, that we thought about trying to "replace" on our gluten free diet, was bread.  I could actually give or take bread most of the time.  I've never LOVED it.  I mean, don't get me wrong, fresh baked bread straight from the oven is good stuff.  But it's not been hard for me to turn it down.  There are days though, where I just want a grilled cheese sandwich.  Or french toast.  So after trying all different brands, we have our favorites.

There is a local bakery here in San Antonio that is completely gluten free. They stock some of their products in some of the HEBs around town too.  We like their white sandwich bread for making grilled cheese.  It has a different texture than regular wheat bread, that we don't tend to care for unless it is toasted.  So we just keep a loaf (or 2 or 3) in the freezer, and toast up a couple slices when we need them.  It works great with some butter for a grilled cheese.  They also have a cranberry loaf that my kids love to make toast with for breakfast.

For regular sandwiches with either lunchmeat and cheese or sunbutter and jelly, we like a special loaf from Udi's.  I've only found it at Target (of all places) in the bakery section.  It's called Udi's Florence Street Bakery Farmhouse White Bread.  It's not even on the Udi's website, because I think it's that new.  But it's softer and more like traditional wheat bread.  We can keep a loaf of it on the counter for about a week, but if it doesn't get eaten by then, we just move it to the freezer and toast slices as we need them.

As for hamburger and hot dog buns, we will sometimes use Udi's.  The Udi's buns taste fine, but they are just so very dense.  It makes it hard to eat a whole burger.  So most of the time, we find that just putting some toppings on our burger or dog and leaving the bun off works great.  I will admit that at first, my kids thought the idea of eating a burger without a bun was the worst thing ever, but now they will even forego a gluten free bun in favor of no bun at a restaurant.

My mom was awesome enough to get us a bread machine for Christmas that has a gluten free setting.  We've been whipping up all sorts of breads with it and we love it!  We have the Cuisinart CBK-200.  We've tried various mixes from King Arthur, Bob's Red Mill, and Pamela's and they've all been great.  I plan on trying out some other homemade recipes soon!