MI Gluten Free Gal: Manini's Gluten Free

And they were gracious enough to send a us a box with three of their flour blends. The box contained their Multiuso all purpose flour blend, their Miracolo Pane bread flour, and their and their Avane Pane Country Oat Bread mix.

The thing that sets these products apart is that they "contain no rice, soy, beans, or casein, use organic ingredients when possible, and are high in fiber. There is no bio-engineering used to produce these products." Their flour blends contain organic millet, tapioca, teff, organic sorghum, and organic amaranth. Their Miracolo Pane flour blend also contains Hi-maize® resistant starch. Why resistant starch? Research has shown that resistant starches (starches resistant to digestion) can benefit weight management, control blood sugar, and may benefit brain and eye health. So in other words, something really healthy and good for you.

And how resistant starch do this? "Well, like any other organism, gut bacteria require sustenance. They need to eat, and certain food sources are better than others. In essence, Resistant Starch is top-shelf food for your gut bugs. That’s the basic – and most important – function of RS." Read more here.

Because some of us celiacs are still oat intolerant, I chose to use both the Multiuso flours and the Miracolo Pane flour to make baked goods for our group. We raffle off the other package to a member at our support group meeting.

Manini's Gluten Free has plethora of recipes on their website. While trying to search what to do with the Multiuso flour, I found their recipe for Soft Pretzels. In all honesty, I can't remember the last time I had a hot pretzel. This was definitely something worth trying.

While their recipes called for placing the dough in a bread machine, my machine doesn't have a gluten free setting, so I chose to prime my yeast the old fashioned way. The dough was still a little sticky still, so it took a little more flour to roll the dough out. It didn't stick together very well to make twists, so I turned them into soft pretzel bites. Still very yummy! Everyone at the meeting loved them, & even took some of the extras home!

With the Miracolo Pane flour mix, I chose to follow the bread recipe directly on the package. Again, it called for using a bread machine to prep the dough, but I chose to prep my yeast the old fashioned way that my friend Linda taught me. It rose really well, baked really well, and tasted AWESOME! Seriously, it was so soft when I sliced it, I made my husband touch it with his finger!

When my support group members tasted it, they were so amazed. They immediately asked where they coudl buy this product. Manini's Gluten Free products are made on the west coast, and are most readily available there. But, you CAN find all of their products on Amazon!

So, the loaf of bread only used a third of the bag of flour. What else to do with it? It says on the bag that you can use this ancient grain bread flour as flour n any other recipe. So, I took their word and looked to make scones. Now, this recipe is not on their website. I found a recipe on Bob's Red Mill website that looked promising. To be honest, I am not usually a fan of scones. So, Manini's had it's work cut out for them.

So the recipe I found called for sour cream, but I chose to use yogurt instead. It also mentioned alternates for the raisins in the recipe- cranberries and white chocolate chips. So I used some Craisins cherries and one small 1.5 oz. bar of chopped dark chocolate from Aldi's.

And it was amazing. It was seriously SO good! I could have eaten the whole thing by myself. I swear, my support group members are lucky that it actually got to the meeting. They all enjoyed it as well, with no idea that it was made from whole ancient grains. There were a few pieces left that I took home. Luckily I was able to pass them off to someone else before I ate all of them myself.

Really, I am so grateful to Manini's. Not just for sending stuff to our support group, but for making a healthy, whole grain, non-gmo flour that can allow celiacs to eat well again. Not just "eat well" as in "tastes great," but good for your body and all over health. Kudos to you, and I hope that this is just the beginning for this company.