I was so excited that the authors created a gluten free book for this series (there are several books in this 5 minutes a day series). Good quality gluten free dinner bread is really hard to come by. Store bought bread is fine for sandwiches, but sometimes I really miss French bread, challah, and Italian bread.

First, let me say that the bread from this book is very good. It’s not exactly the same as gluten bread, but it’s incredibly close. I’ve made several recipes from the book. I recommend it but suggest you understand what’s involved before jumping in.

Secondly, this is most definitely NOT 5 minutes a day. Here’s how it works. First you need to make the flour blend and you probably don’t have all the flours you need at home so you have to go buy them.

Boule, basic artisan bread

You need to mix the flour and have a place to store it because the mix is not used up by making one batch. Then you make the dough. It has to sit out for 2 hours, then you refrigerate it. The day you want to bake some, you have to measure a pound of it and let it sit out for an hour. You need to preheat the oven with a pizza stone and a pan of water. Then you bake the bread on the pizza stone. If you use parchment paper under it, you have to pull it out halfway through (I did this because I do not have a pizza peel and did not want to buy one). It bakes for 45 minutes. Then you are supposed to let the bread cool completely before eating (2 hours). To accomplish all of that for dinner, I would need to start right after lunch. Not really doable on most days.

That being said, the bread is really, really good. The basic artisan bread recipe makes a bread that has a wonderful crunch on the outside and a good texture on the inside. The flavor is good. It’s not gummy or sandy as some gluten free breads are. It’s also not too heavy and not too light.

I also made another recipe from the book for the challah bread and from that I made challah, cinnamon rolls, and monkey bread. All three were very good. That dough is very wet and sticky and hard to manipulate but I managed. It’s basically the same many step scenario with this bread as well, however it was really wonderful to finally have challah again after years without it.

Boule, sliced

The only book I have that rivals this is How Can It Be Gluten Free, which has hands down the most amazing dinner roll recipe you will ever taste in your life. Both books require their own flour mix, so now I’ve got two containers in my pantry, plus my containers of Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 Flour Blend and Cup4Cup.