The Best in Free-From Bread
Nothing beats a slice of fresh, warm bread - smothered in melting butter!
But if you are on a free-from diet is this delightful food combination a thing of the past?
We take a look at some free-from bread to see if it is up to the challenge of being worthy of the name.
At over £2.50 a loaf, most of these products are double the price of a regular, full size family loaf - but are they worth it?
Following a quick trip to the local Morrison supermarket, we found a small selection of the "store's own" free-from bread.
We were assured by staff that usually the store stocked other brands but after several visits it became obvious that providing a good range of choices for their free-from customers may be low priority.
With the store's own brand being the only choice available, we set out to see if it could live up to the claims that it would be a worthy replacement for regular bread.
Alas, it failed.
Being rather small in size, each slice - although well put together - resembled cardboard as opposed to fresh soft bread. It was passable once toasted but unfortunately would not have made a very fresh sandwich.
After a longer trip to another Morrison store we were able to buy "the last loaf" of free-from bread in the shop and it was a Warburton's brown loaf.
At nearly £3 for the loaf it was quite alarming to find that over half of the scaled down slices were in fact in pieces and therefore unlikely to be used.
The bread itself was again quite heavy and only suitable for using as toast - and not the best toast either.
Our local Sainsbury store faired slightly better, with a selection of their own brand bread, as well as Genius (white and brown only) in store.
Again, unfortunately their own brand loaf left little to rave about and faired no better than the previous store's own brand.
The Genius free-from range claims to "offers a delicious selection of gluten-free products for any time of the day to rival wheat alternatives".
Unfortunately the white loaf suffers from the same fate as Warburton's bread and fails to stay in slices throughout the loaf. At best half are able to be used in whole slices and these are hard and thin.
When toasted they fair better than most but the taste and texture resembles crisp-bread.
The brown loaf manages to hold its own in terms of shape and slice but still is not something we would use to make sandwiches with and would only just pass for using to toast.
On the whole when you visit the websites for these manufacturers they appear to produce a good range of free-from breads and rolls but we would like to know where they sell them as our local stores seem to have a very limited selection on offer. 
We travelled a little further afield to Tesco and - although not a large store - they did in fact also stock Genius Seeded in the aisles.
With low expectation we bought one loaf and gave it to our testers.
The results were quite amazing.
Not only does this seeded loaf stay in whole slices more often, on average, compared to other loaves (we did experience some wastage) but it can be used to make a sandwich with.
With a fairly fresh, soft texture, it wasn't too bad on taste either.
As toast it excelled and, so long as you like seeds in your bread, this loaf came out the winner - especially as Genius seem to be the only company making their loaves half way to regular size.
Manufacturers can hold people who need these special diets to ransom and charge extortionate prices for half the quality and produce.
In our search for the best free-from loaf we found many stores do not stock a wide selection of products that are obviously available in the different ranges, as advertised on the producers websites; and producers are yet to perfect a loaf of free-from bread that is worthy of being called "bread".
We will be continuing our search for the perfect free-from loaf by making our own - sourcing and testing the 'make your own' section of free-from bread mixes.
And then we will just need to find a free-from spread to rival butter!
Your Free-From Bread Choice
Do you agree with our findings?
Are you still looking for a free-from loaf that is worthy of being called bread?
Or have you found the perfect loaf and you want to tell share your find with other readers.
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