Luce’s Artisan Bread

Bread.  The staff of life, right?  Maybe you’ve learned to live without it, like we mostly have (except my husband – he still craves bread and sandwiches).  Over the last few years, however, we have seen a huge increase of gluten-free breads and bread mixes on the market and many are so good!

Well, so is this, the gluten-free Artisan Bread Mixes from Luce’s.  I received some samples awhile back and, well, like most people who are tearing up their houses, I haven’t been baking much lately.  But I took the time to make the Classic Sourdough bread and am glad I did (it’s not really about the time so much as fitting it in the constraints of picking children up from school).

This is a just-add-water type of mix.  You don’t even need a power mixer, AND you get to buff up your arms a bit with 50 strokes of the spoon.  🙂  It cooks in a cool parchment bag, not a baking dish.  It permeated my house with the most wonderful aroma.

It does not make a big loaf.  It is about the size of a big personal sandwich baguette (way too much for me to eat in one sitting, but my husband could easily polish it off – of course, he can polish off a 9×13 pan of brownies).  As you can see, though, it does make a beautiful artisan loaf.  It has a good flavor and texture, and a thick crust.  I bet you could turn this into one of those bread soup bowls if you shaped it correctly.  The crust might be hardy enough.

While I did share it with the whole family, I may or may not have come back later with a bunch of butter and garlic powder to finish it off.  The reports are unsubstantiated.

Good news for those keeping up with us, we have FINALLY cleared away all of that nasty concrete mortar from under the tiles (the very bad tile job someone had left us).  Now we just need to keep constantly cleaning for the next couple of months to get up all the dust from everywhere (I mean everywhere).  But maybe in a few days there will be more bread.  I’ve still got a mix of New Italian bread waiting…