Gluten Free Banana Bread

It seems everything is Gluten Free now, and I never understood the switch as I, myself, have no food allergies or intolerances. But having a son last year that seemed to have stomach upset every time he tried oatmeal and cream of wheat cereal, I had him tested for allergies and celiac disease. Luckily we did not have a positive (negative?) out come to the celiac testing, but our allergy tests came up just on the borderline for both wheat and oats.

Wow. That was quite a shock. And now that there is a whole GF section of almost any grocery store, my options were not limited. But when it comes to baking, I was intimidated. I mean just google "gluten free......" and you get millions of results using everything from Teff Flour (what is that?) to almond flour, to brown, white, crazy rice flour...I was a little afraid. I did manage to find (through a facebook friend) a great recipe for pumpkin bread that my son couldn't eat fast enough. But we are HUGE banana eaters here, and often they go bad (read: perfect for banana bread). Maybe I do that on purpose..?

Anyway, I wanted to see if I could convert my favorite recipe for banana bread into a gluten free version without having to shop in the most upscale (read:expensive) section of my grocery store. Could I make a gluten free version with just a few substitutes? I dove in, combining the pumpkin bread recipe's dry ingredients with my wet banana bread ingredients and below is the result.

I may end up tweaking the recipe a little. The bread came out beautifully, deep brown and cracked along the top and cuts in nice smooth wedges. I chose not to add nuts at this time (mainly because I had less than a 1/8 of a cup of them) but I think they could add some moisture. The bread isn't dry - but its not as moist as it could be. Maybe some applesauce could balance that moisture. But here's my first try!

2.5 C Rice flour
1/2 C cornstarch
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 C vegetable shortening
2 C sugar
4 eggs
2 C mashed ripe bananas (about 6 bananas)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and rice flour two 8x4x3 inch loaf pans. In large bowl, mix together all dry ingredients and set aside. In large mixer bowl with whisk attachment, cream shortening and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time, scraping down bowl until well incorporated. Pour in mashed bananas and mix well. Add dry ingredients on top of wet and gently fold in until well mixed. Divide into loaf pans and bake 60-70 mins until toothpick in center comes out clean. Cool for 10 mins in pan on cooling rack, remove from pans and cool until you can't handle the smell anymore and you must cut a slice, or two.