Gluten-Free Cardamom Fruit Bread

@Allison Tyler 2011

Shauna over at Gluten-Free Girl and Chef has created some of my favorite recipes.  This is my most recent favorite, a Cardamom Fruit Bread.  I was lazy and didn't top it the way she did, with butter and five-spice powder and powdered sugar, but I did eat innumerable slices of it still warm from baking and spread with butter.  Dee-freaking-licious.

Cardamom is a flavor I cannot get enough of.  It tastes like magic and mystery to me, warming and soothing, and exotic.  I love it.  This bread reminds me of panettone, something I've missed since I was diagnosed with Celiac in 2009.  It is wonderful to be reacquainted with old food friends.  Thank you, Shauna.

I used golden raisins, chopped Medjool dates and dried cranberries for my fruit.  The only other adjustment I made to Shauna's recipe is to use xanthan gum (familiar to all you gluten-free bakers out there) in the same proportion instead of the psyllium husk called for. (Shauna's body can't tolerate the gums commonly used in gluten-free baking, but mine can, so I stick with them.) The first time I made this recipe, I used guar gum, so either would work; and, of course, if you, too, are intolerant of the gums, the psyllium husk works perfectly, because all of Shauna's recipes do.

This bread is, as you can see, beautiful, and it looks (and tastes) like it was a lot of work when, instead, it's very easy. It's just slightly-sweet, and it doesn't taste 'gluten-free', if gluten-free means weird-textured and off-flavored.  It is divine, the gluten-free panettone-ish bread I've longed for, that no one would recognize as anything other than really, really yummy.

Try it.

OXO

Allison