When I first learned that I had celiac disease, it was right around St. Patrick’s day.  This had me a bit unhappy because I thought that I would not be able to enjoy Irish soda bread any more.  It was still early in my gluten free journey, and I had not yet mastered the finer points of gluten free baking.

There’s no doubt about it…baking with gluten free flours is really different from baking with all purpose wheat flour.  There are properties in wheat that makes a batter or dough produce just the right texture in baked products.  Gluten free flours on the other hand lack these properties and extra care must be taken in order have success in gluten free baking.

For one thing, you just can’t replace all purpose flour with equal amounts of a gluten free flour and expect things to turn out OK.  Most items have a combination of two or more gluten free flours plus a starch to improve texture and lift.  Use of a gum such as xanthan gum is often suggested to improve the texture and keep the baked item from crumbling apart.

So, like most gluten free bakers, I’ve made my share of mistakes and had some baking failures.  Meanwhile, I’ve learned a few things about baking the gluten free way and make quite a few items that are surprisingly similar (and good) to the things I used to have.  Irish soda bread is one of those things, and here’s a recipe I’ve adapted from gluten-free goddess®.  Happy St. Patrick’s Day, gluten-free style!

1 cup gluten free millet flour

1/2 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup potato starch (don’t use potato flour)

2 Tb. sugar

1 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. kosher salt

2 tsp. xanthan gum

4 Tb. sweet butter, softened

3/4 cup lowfat buttermilk (or 3/4 lowfat milk with 1 tsp. lemon juice added to curdle milk)

2 eggs

1 Tb. honey

2 tsp. caraway seed

3/4 cup dried currants

1. Preheat oven to 375° and grease a 2 quart round glass baking dish.
2. Combine all of the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.  Cut in the softened but with a fork.
3. Whisk the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and add the milk, egg, honey mixture.  Mix just until ingredients are combined, then gently fold in currants and caraway seed.
4. Spoon dough into prepared baking dish, and using wet hands smooth the dough into round loaf.
5. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes until loaf is golden brown, and inserted toothpick comes out clean.
6. Cool on wire rack, then remove loaf from baking dish.  Enjoy!