What’s the absolute worst thing you can do to a girl who bakes recreationally several times a week?

 Diagnose her with celiac disease.

Yup, that’s right. I was diagnosed with celiac a couple of months ago—shortly before my birthday, in fact, and no, the lab reports were not gift-wrapped—I was initially totally relieved (it could’ve been worse, right?) Then I went grocery shopping and had a nervous breakdown in the baking aisle. I baked a lot. Cookies and cakes to bring to family gatherings and cousins’ bridal showers, birthday cakes for family members, cupcakes for my niece and nephew . . . I even made my brother-in-law’s wedding cake a few years ago! What on earth was I going to do now?! How was I going to relearn, literally, everything I knew about baking?

I love to bake.

And then there was the bread factor.

When you’re diagnosed with celiac, your first thought is, “Oh no! I can’t have _____ or ______ !” (You can fill in the blanks with the junk food of your choice. Go on—most of them have gluten, so you are SOL, as they say.)  But no one tells you just how much you are going to miss bread.

Just a bit about bread for a moment–it’s everywhere. You really can’t escape it. Go to a restaurant, it is the first thing that hits your table. (I will say, kudos to Union Square Café in NYC—at my recent birthday meal, the waiter gave my husband their to-die-for bread basket and then informed me that my GF bread would be out any moment. And at a business dinner at Zocca at the Westin in San Antonio, Texas, the waiter spontaneously placed a basket of warmed gluten-free bread beside me shortly after our group had ordered our meals. Talk about attention to detail, folks!)

Even in the Bible, bread is broken to welcome newcomers to a home or family, or to mark a special occasion. A truly traditional housewarming gift, based on an old Eastern European Jewish tradition, is salt (to preserve and purify, if I got this correct), a candle (to “let there be light”), and bread—for sustenance. Those with wheat allergies just can’t win!

If you’ve visited the gluten-free section of your local supermarket, you have surely noticed the plethora of breads, muffins, cookies and so on available. Certainly many more than there were a decade ago, which is definitely progress, and there are also plenty in the freezer section. But I can say after having tried quite a few of the gluten-free offerings that they are at worst, just plain godawful, and at best, lackluster. The best of them simply lack the depth of flavor of the yummy whole-grain breads I’d come to love over the years, and let’s not even discuss how much I miss a good buttery, eggy brioche, ‘mmkay?

So it was with a bit of nervousness that I entered the kitchen at The Institute of Culinary Education (aka ICE) on July 30^th for my Gluten-Free Bread Baking Class (part of a birthday gift certificate from my husband and mom—thanks, guys!) The instructor, Chef Michelle Tampakis has celiac disease and also runs a wholesale baking business —all gluten-free products, and some dairy-free as well (Whipped Pastry Boutique)—and we’d be using her bread recipes, scaled down of course. I started to get a little more intrigued.

Chef Michelle Tampakis, Instructor and ICE’s expert on chocolate and gluten-free baking. Image: ICE.edu

Recreational ICE classes usually work this way: each student receives all the recipes, but the class is divided into groups, and each group makes one batch of recipes. So, my group made the Brioche, the Brown Sandwich Bread (which may have been baked by two groups) and the Flatbread, or Cecina, a truly delicious crispy snack made with chickpea flour, chopped onions, water, olive oil, salt & pepper. You probably can’t get any simpler than that!

My group attempted a dairy-free version of the brioche, since one of our members was not only gluten-free, but dairy-free, too. One of the things the chef taught us up front was that gluten-free bread doughs typically have to be kneaded for longer times, and at slower speeds, than regular doughs, for better absorption of liquids since the flours can be denser. This was definitely true with the brioche, which we mixed very very slowly for nearly thirty minutes, adding the proportions of dry and wet ingredients in small increments so as not to create mushroom clouds of flour or splatters all over the place (!) The end result was quite delicious, and I’m admittedly eager to see how a regular dairy/butter version bakes up.

Other groups baked whole grain baguettes, which, when sliced, had the satisfying crack of the crust, and a wonderfully wheaty scent—despite no wheat!—and a rich, grainy flavor. The cornbread had the most fantastic crumb, and we were also given advice for making it dairy-free, should that be necessary (can you say cornbread stuffing for Thanksgiving? YUM!)

The only bread I really didn’t love was the chocolate brioche, which just tasted a bit weird to me. It had a beautiful, eggy crumb—as brioche ought to—but I am not a fan of this kind of thing. Save it for dessert, folks, please!

If you are in or around NYC and have access to ICE’s calendar, I would definitely recommend taking this particular class. I’m really looking forward to baking up some of these breads at home.  Having recipes that give me a foundation for a simple slice of toast with good butter—or even better, a much-missed PB&J!—makes me happier than you can imagine. And what’s more, with some trial and error (from experience I can say that no bread comes out perfect on the first try, but you WILL succeed!) these breads can be baked for probably a third of the cost of any of the GF breads on sale at your local market. And what’s more, they taste a hundred times better. So buy your favorite butter/peanut butter/giant jar of Nutella and start on your dough!

Happy baking—and enjoy the dog days of summer!  I’d love to connect with more people who enjoy baking and are adjusting to or living well (or even not so well) with Celiac Disease.  Connect with me on Twitter or Instagram

Disclaimer: I received this class at the Institute of Culinary Education as a gift from my family and was under no obligation to write about my experience.  All opinions are my own.

What’s your favorite gluten free product?  Do you have Celiac or Gluten Sensitivity?