Speaking of bugs: I was just terrified of baking with yeast (see? smooth, that's me. Yeast is a teeny little microrganism, but is actually a type of fungi and not a bug.) ANYHOW. I was terrified of baking with yeast for years after my teenage baking experiments resulted in a lot of mockable hockey puck loaves. Baking with yeast, I decided, was hard, and so while I was cheerfully doing all sorts of other baking, I carefully left yeast alone. The year I turned 30 - ack, almost 6 years ago - I decided that I wasn't going to be thwarted by a freaking fungal microrganism, and so I rolled up my sleeves, signed a children's book on breadmaking out of the library and figured it out. It wasn't hard at all, either.

And so I cheerfully have spent the last six years making LOTS of bread and yeast-raised coffee cakes and cinnamon buns and then my youngest child was diagnosed with celiac disease and I've been frustrated by my inability to make her decent bread every since. It was a return to the nasty hockey puck loaves, and I became very discouraged - so the Baby has lived on quick breads and muffins and toasted slices of tiny little store-bought wooden gluten-free breads. I wanted to put a warm slice of bread into her little hands, fragrant with yeast and melting butter, and it hurt my heart more than a little bit.

On Friday, Cuisinart sent me their gorgeous breadmaker:

I noticed as soon as I unpacked it that it had a gluten-free setting and so I cautiously and without much optimism set to making the recipe for gluten-free molasses walnut bread that came with the breadmaker, skipping the walnuts because we're not a nut-lovin' family.  And what happened? Slightly less than three hours later, we had a gorgeous loaf of bread, smelling of molasses and yeast and with a gorgeous texture and taste. My husband and I ate slices, wide-eyed with shock and pleasure, but the Baby wasn't quite as taken - the bread had a sophisticated, less sweet taste and she's only three. The bread got gobbled up by everyone else in the family, and the final bit was turned into breadcrumbs and frozen for future use.

So my job was to figure out a bread for a three-year-old's palate - something sweet, I figured, something with no "bite", no complexity. I pictured a white loaf, with a slight texture from quinoa flakes (The Baby can't tolerate oatmeal), sweet with honey and brown sugar.

Here's the batter, ready to go:

And then it set off to work - chug chug chug.

Three hours later, I was able to place a slice of warm bread in my Baby's hands, sweet and lightly textured and rather crumbling since it was still so hot when I cut it:

And my Baby was happy about it. So happy, in fact, that she took a big bite out of it right before I took the picture. HEY, KID.

The recipe STILL needs work - I need to work on the proportions of the wet ingredients - but so far, so good. The Baby is sitting on the couch cheerfully eating bread, this most basic of foods that we make suddenly hers, too.