A few weeks ago, my 13-year-old daughter started having pretty serious stomach pain. The first time it happened, we thought it was a virus, kept her home a day, and carried on.

The next time it happened, she was home for three days with severe pain. Something was off.

We went to the doctor, and knowing my history, they ordered an ELISA allergy test. Sure enough, wheat was #1 on the no-no list, along with a few other things: egg whites, peanuts, scallops (huh?), and a handful of others.

After a couple weeks of elimination, she’s feeling infinitely better. But…it’s just hard for a teen to cut out bread. She misses it.

And if you haven’t heard, gluten free bread is well known for being just plain awful.

For several years now, I’ve been churning out some pretty decent GF goodies. And most of the time, with the right ingredients and techniques, you’d never know the difference.

Bread…is just different.

I’ve tried several famous GF bloggers’ methods, with absolutely disastrous results. One in particular, which will go unnamed here, requires purchase of a special food modifier starch. It was really expensive and hard to find. And it never, ever worked. Bricks. Every time.

Newly inspired, I racked my brain for ways to provide my girl with some bread that didn’t resemble concrete. I remembered a book I had gotten a long time before and had forgotten about: Gluten Free Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

This book is a spinoff of the wildly popular Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, in which the authors lead you through making a large batch of dough that sits in your fridge, and you pull out bits to bake through the week. The process still works surprisingly well with gluten-free flours, although you don’t get the same rise as you might with traditional flours.

Verdict: It’s amazing. I’ve only gotten to the first recipe in the book, the basic boule you see above, and I’m smitten. We’re baking a loaf just about every other day. Not all of them have come out quite as golden and beautiful as the one pictured above, but every one has been delicious. And the longer the dough sits in the fridge, the more of a sourdough quality it takes on.

I’ve missed this.

So, if you’re like me and you’re missing real bread, this book might be just the trick. My daughter—who is feeling a lot better these days—sure thinks so.

UPDATE: I realized after-the-fact that the Artisan Bread in 5 folks had the basic gluten-free dough recipe available for all online, so I don’t have to cheat to share it. Just click here!