Transforming My Mom's Glutenacious Apricot Grape-nut Bread - Part 1

Some recent posts on facebook brought back summer memories of my home town: Swimming in canals, barbeques, and amazing tree fruit. 

Which got me to thinking about an apricot and Grape-nut bread my mom used to make. I still have the recipe. Handwritten 3 x 5 card, 35 years old.

I didn't have apricots, but I did have some Grebar Farms peaches.  Peaches are wetter than apricots. So, may have to adjust that with the flours....

Grape-nuts are gluteney. But, I did have some gluten-free granola. But the granola smelled stale. But, I did have some sliced almonds. (Ah, even better. My home town was pretty close to the almond capital of the world.)  But, almonds won't soak up liquid the way Grape-nuts do. So... may have to add more flours...

Sub goat milk for moo.

Mom's recipe used too much sugar, so I cut it by 25%.

And, of course, sub my gluten-free flour blend and some xanthan for the all-purpose flour. Except... I'm running low on my blend. So, a random assortment of brown rice flour, sweet rice, tapioca, and almond (yup, definitely got the hometown vibe going).

By the end of it all, what I made bore little resemblance to Mom's bread. But, it did earn Spouse 1.0's standard praise of "It's good. I like it."  Next time I want to tweak it to make it peachier.

Mom's
1 3/4 C flour
3/4 C Grap-Nuts cereal
1 C sugar
1 tsp salt
2/3 C chopped apricots
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 C milk
2 Tbsp oil
1 egg

1. Mix dry ingredients.
2. Stir in cereal and apricots.
3. Blend wet ingredients
4. Add flour mixture, stir until just moist.
5. Pour into greased loaf pan.
6. Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until done.

Mine
1 C brown rice flour (122 g
1/4 C tapioca starch (26 g)
1/4 C sweet rice flour (34 g)
3/8 C blanched almond meal (30 g)
3/8 tsp xanthan gum
scant 3/4 C sliced almonds (76 g)
3/4 C organic evaporated cane sugar (150 g)
1 tsp sea salt
2/3 C chopped peaches
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 C goat milk
2 Tbsp grapeseed oil
1 large organic egg

1. Mix dry ingredients.
2. Stir in almonds.
3. Blend wet ingredients
4. Add flour mixture, stir well.
5. Stir in peaches.
6. Pour into parchment lined 9" square pan.
7. Sprinkle a few extra almond slices on top, if desired.
8. Bake at 350 for 15 min., then turn heat down to 325. Bake about 15 minutes more, until toothpick comes out clean.

The batter was a lot more wet than most gluten free quick breads I've made, but surprisingly it didn't come out gummy or strange. And it was nicely moist.  My only complaint is, it wasn't peachy enough.

Sorry, no pictures.  I wasn't expecting it to turn out blog-worthy.