I am from New Jersey, home of many excellent Italian bakeries. I always loved a hot crusty airy Baguette. Not enough to die for, but enough. I missed good bread. I missed good bread even more than I missed pizza.

Which is why I was so excited when I tried the Rice Bran Dinner Rolls and the Rice Bran Mini-Baguette at Deerfield’s Bakery. Deerfield’s is a local suburban Chicago bakery with three locations (Deerfield, Schaumburg, and Buffalo Grove. None of the bakeries sells only gluten free items, however the Schaumburg facility does only gluten-free baking and has no gluten flour on the premises. They have gluten cookies and cakes which were baked at other facilities, but they are pretty clean.

I never tried Deerfield’s before because I had only ever seen their cookies, which contain dairy and corn. So nothing for me to eat. Then I saw these rolls at Whole Foods and read the back and they were safe for me. They have sesame, potato and coconut flour so they are not for everyone, but they are egg free which is a small miracle.

So I decided to try them. I have spent plenty of good money on bad bread before.

But not this time.

This stuff was airy, crusty crunchy on the outside, stretchy and soft on the inside. I just kept eating it. I ate it plain, I ate the baguette, I ate the rolls. I made portobella burgers on the rolls. I made my son crazy because he really wanted to eat the crusty bread but loose front teeth made it somewhat challenging.

It was awesome. It tasted and had the texture of the Italian bread of my childhood. It is crusty, crunchy, stretchy, real bread.

So if you live in Chicago, I highly recommend you stop by and try some. Then come back and fill your freezer. If you live elsewhere, have people bring it as a gift when they visit, or see if they will ship it. It is SO good.

You can read more about it at their website which follows here. Page down to get to the bread and rolls.
http://www.deerfieldsbakery.com/docs/GlutenFreeMenuNew.pdf