Test Kitchen - Gluten Free Banana Bread (Take 1)

First of all, I'm only three days in to being gluten free fructan free and I feel amazing! My mood is ten thousand times better and my stomach discomfort is almost completely gone. I'm. sold. SOOO, I decided to visit the local Whole Foods and pick up some gluten free flour and some of this magical xantham gum I keep reading about and give it a try. It just so happened I had a bunch of almost-spoiled bananas and I figured gluten free banana bread was as good a place as any to start. The label on the GF flour made it sound like it could be used as a perfect substitute for regular flour as long as you added the right amount of xantham gum so I didn't bother to find a GF recipe, I just used a regular banana bread recipe and then subbed in the GF flour and xantham gum. The results were....interesting. For my first try I didn't expect much and honestly, I could have tried harder but I was feeling so lazy and just wanted to stuff it in my face already! The taste was pretty ok, not too sweet not too banana-y, but the texture was waaay off. Like....way off. I somehow created a banana flavored bread pudding cake...thing. My sister didn't seem to care, and devoured half the loaf for a late night snack but I don't think I would ever make it again without first fiddling with the GF substitution a bit more. I was personally hoping for a much more bread-like texture and I think the problem might have been too much xantham gum. I'm going to post the recipe as I made it in case my sister ever asks for it again (the flavor really was quite good!), but I wouldn't really recommend it to any of you reading this as is. I'll update it as I fiddle with it, hopefully I can come up with the perfect substitution ratio.

Gluten Free Banana Bread
(original non GF recipe here)

Ingredients 

• 2 Cups Gluten Free Flour
• 1 Tbsp Xantham Gum (I would try 2 tsp next time)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 Cup butter (room temp) 
• 3/4 Cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract
• 2 1/3 cup mashed over-ripe bananas (I used 4)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
• In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs, vanilla and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.

Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.
Note: For the recipe as is, it came out of the oven looking much fluffier and bread like and then deflated rather rapidly into the bread pudding you see here.