Gluten Conquest

I'm on a mission.  More specifically, I'm on a mission to rid the house of all flours and other similar products that allow little gluten particles to float through the air and attack my mom's gluten-intolerant immune system.

See, she's been traveling for about a week, and she returns this weekend.  Before she left, she gave me instructions to banish all gluten from the house.  I did a swimmingly excellent job at first, and then...I kinda stopped. Until yesterday, when I was hit with a wave of baking inspiration.

First, I made a pound cake.  It's not just any pound cake; it's my mom's pound cake.  With a pound of butter, hints of vanilla and lemon, and plenty of sugar, this thing is delectable!  Seriously, it's something I eat for dessert and for breakfast.  Mmmm.

Pound Cake

Then, for dinner, I made my famous pizza bread.  If you don't know about it, it's because you haven't eaten it and you don't know anyone that has.  It's really quite simple (though time consuming), and maybe that's what makes it so delicious.  I made two loaves - one for me and one for Matt.  Keep in mind that these loaves are huge.  Giant.  Each takes up an entire baking tray, diagonally. (Did anyone else just say that like Harry Potter?)

For pizza bread, I use my Aunt Brenda's bread recipe, but the rest is simply determined by mood, inspiration, and what I have on hand (or how much I feel like spending).  I added fresh chopped thyme and rosemary from our garden to the dough.  I do everything by hand - whisking, mixing, kneading, and shaping.  It's really important for you to feel the dough so you know the exact moment it's ready.  Though I use pepperoni, I also really like using fresh ingredients.  I layered cheeses, then pepperoni, followed by chopped onion, red bell pepper, slices of garlic, basil leaves from our garden, and sprinkled feta cheese on top before rolling it up into a loaf.  Really the only difference between my loaf and Matt's was moustaches mushrooms - he loves them, I gag at the thought of them.  So his had little cremini mushrooms, and mine was quite happy without them.

Matt's loaf of pizza bread. I placed mushrooms along the top so we could tell the difference.

While the bread was in the oven, I heated up some butter and minced some garlic.  I briefly cooked the garlic in the butter, then pulled it from the heat and allowed the garlic flavor to permeate the butter.  Just before I was ready to use this garlic butter mixture, I tore basil leaves into little pieces and added them.  I then used a basting brush to spread the mixture over the tops of the loaves, effectively adding color, texture, and flavor.  As the loaves finished baking, the buttery minced garlic was toasted, which made eating it all the more enjoyable.

And here's my loaf of pizza bread.  Don't those toasted garlic pieces look so delicious?

Surprisingly, I think this only used about half the flour we had in the house.  Which is saying something, since I used no less than nine cups.