Making My First Gluten-Free Bread

I would say my first attempt to make gluten-free bread went okay. I had never made one but there was a guest with gluten intolerance coming to stay with us for a few days so the chef wanted us to be ready in case she requested for a gluten-free bread. I was informed the last minute. I was lacking the right ingredients. I had to improvise with what I had. For the trial run, I used gluten-free all purpose flour.  Following the recipe from sheletthemeatcake.com, I substituted all the flours with Bob's Red Mill all-purpose flour. The flour is a blend of garbanzo bean flour, potato starch, whole grain white sorghum flour, tapioca flour and fava bean flour so I thought it would work.

As for the other ingredients, I made a modification here and there. I stirred in palm oil instead of sunflower oil. I substituted xanthan gum with agar agar powder. I used ground black sesame seed in place of flax seed. I didn't add the amount called for because sesame has got a strong flavor. The bread still came out with a subtle sesame flavor though. It was overpowering but tolerable.  I should have just omitted it. I reduced a quarter of flour but  put double amount of almond meal. Wrong move.  The recipe yielded a good but heavy and  dense bread. I am hundred percent sure it's the culprit. Oh well, I tried my best.

It was quite challenging to make something with only few ingredients. I was like a little kid getting excited as I watched the bread baking in the oven. I would do better next time now that I learned something from this experience. By the way, I made a gluten-free soft sandwich bread which I forgot to take a picture of. That's what the guest requested so I was relieved.