Baking: Gluten-Free Daily Bread

As promised in my last post of 2018 (lo, these many months ago), I've been working on developing a gluten-free bread recipe. I think I finally have it at a point where it's good enough to share.

I know there's an awful lot of perfectly good GF bread recipes out there in the world already, but I wanted one that fit the following criteria:

• Has a flavor
• Isn't gummy
• Doesn't fall apart if you look at it the wrong way
• Is made predominantly of whole grains rather than starches
• Doesn't require a proprietary store-bought blend of flours
• Doesn't require a homemade flour blend that needs to be mixed in bulk in advance
• Quick and easy enough to prepare on a weeknight, and/or multiple weeknights in a row, viz.
• Doesn't require an electric mixer
• Gets very few dishes and measuring cups dirty

In addition, it's egg-free, gum-free, and can be made vegan. I don't have a problem eating eggs, gum, or dairy, but raw eggs in dough can potentially get a bit dodgy if you're letting sourdough rise for 8-12 hours, and gums require lots of electrified mixing in order to be effective.

The result is denser than store-bought bread, but not Dwarf-bread dense, and full of whole-grain flavor that goes equally well with sweet or savory accompaniments. For the first 48 hours or so, it's sturdy and flexible enough to slice for sandwiches. After that, it starts to crack more easily, but is still nice when toasted and slathered with butter, or eaten with soup.

I wrote the recipe for a small boule, just enough to last two people 24 hours. Not only does this mean that we're always eating it at its best, it also reduces the quantity of flour that I need to grind in order to make it. (I grind my own softer grains like oats, millet, and buckwheat in a hand-cranked Wondermill Junior, but buy in pre-milled corn (maize), rice, cassava, etc.) When doubled, the recipe will fill a standard loaf tin.

And so, without further ado, the recipe: 

• 1/2 cup wholemeal oat flour
• 1/2 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/2 cup cassava flour 
• 1/2 cup brown rice flour
• 1/2 cup gluten-free sourdough starter
• 1 Tbsp ground chia seed (I toss them in the grinder with the oats and buckwheat)
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp sunflower or other neutral-flavored oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup water

Instructions:

The dough should start fairly soft;
it will stiffen as it sits.

1. If necessary, grind the flours and chia seed.
2. Combine all dry ingredients.
3. Add the oil, and then add the water a little at a time, mixing continuously. Because this is a gluten-free dough, kneading is not necessary. You just need to make sure that the ingredients are thoroughly and evenly mixed. If you're cooking in a loaf tin or other baking pan, the exact level of hydration is less important because the pan will hold the shape of the loaf. If you want a free-standing loaf, you'll want to add just enough water to make a soft, sticky dough that doesn't quite hold its shape. Too little water will result in a dough that's too stiff for air bubbles to form and will bake into a solid hockey puck, so it's generally better to overdo it and either have a flatter loaf or have a baking dish on hand, just in case. 
4. Optionally, let the dough sour for a few hours or overnight.
5. If you are content to bake your bread in something that will hold its shape for it, you can transfer the dough into your greased or parchment-lined baking vessel right away. If you want a free-standing loaf, let the dough sit for at least 15-20 minutes before shaping. As the dough sits, the flours and chia seed will absorb more of the water and the dough will stiffen *just* enough that you'll be able to shape it into a loaf. 



Baking the bread in a dish of some
sort will make your life easier.

6. Cover with a damp cloth or tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place. Gluten-free dough only needs to rise once, and once shaped, should be handled as little as possible to avoid bursting the air bubbles.
7. When your bread is about 1.5 times its original size, pre-heat your oven to 200C/400F. the The usual rule of thumb of letting bread rise until doubled in bulk is a bit unrealistic for gluten-free dough. Unlike with gluten-based breads, gluten-free dough doesn't have enough elasticity to trap lots of air bubbles during fermentation. Instead, much of the rising comes from oven spring, so it's very important that your oven has come fully up to temperature before putting the dough in. If you have a pizza stone or a dutch oven, go ahead and use it, as it will help with the oven spring.
8. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the top is evenly browned and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. If you find that the top of your loaf is browning too quickly, place a sheet of foil over the top. 
9. LET THE BREAD COOL COMPLETELY. If you don't allow the bread to cool completely before slicing, it becomes unpleasantly gummy in the middle. (Admittedly, I sometimes just make two loaves and accept that we will devour one the moment it leaves the oven.)

I will often grind the flour and mix the dough one evening, let it sour overnight, tip it into a baking dish in the morning before work, let it rise during the day, and pop it into the oven when I get home that night. While the oven is pre-heating, I'll grind and mix the next batch of dough. I generally grind the flour directly into my Pyrex 4-cup/1L measuring jug, add the rest of the ingredients, and mix it right in the jug, resulting in a minimum of dish-washing.

A double batch will fill a standard loaf tin,
and makes good sandwich-sized slices.

A few thoughts about substitutions: 

The oats and buckwheat are there for flavor. I love baking with home-milled oats because they remind me of whole wheat, but with extra sweetness. Sometimes, if I'm in the mood for something reminiscent of honey whole wheat bread, I'll use honey in place of sugar and a full cup of oats with no buckwheat. Half and half oats and buckwheat makes a more neutral flavor that goes better with savory things. I don't particularly care for the flavor of buckwheat on its own, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. If you like the taste of millet, it would work too.

Texture-wise, both oats and buckwheat on their own and make a very dense, crumbly bread. Cultures for Health's guide to substituting gluten-free flours classes buckwheat as a "heavy" flour and oats as an "all-purpose" flour, but I find that home-milled oat groats, which retain all of the bran, behave more like a heavy flour.

That's where the cassava flour comes in. It does a great job of holding things together and has a very wheat-like flavor to me, but can make bread gummy when used as too large a percentage of the total volume. Cassava flour is made from the manioc tuber, the same thing that gives us tapioca, except that tapioca is made from just the starch, while cassava flour is the entire tuber that's been dried and ground. If you can't get hold of cassava flour easily, you could try substituting tapioca starch, but you may need to adjust the quantity to prevent it from getting too gummy. If you find the bread too gummy for your taste, try substituting another starch such as arrowroot or glutinous/sticky/sweet rice flour.

The brown rice flour is basically a neutral filler. It adds volume without affecting the flavor too much and has a lighter texture than the oats and buckwheat, but won't make the bread gummy the way that a starchier flour would. I like the brown rice flour from Shipton Mill, which seems to be more finely milled and less gritty than some others I've tried. Sorghum flour would work here too, but has a slightly sweeter flavor.

I like to use a sourdough starter because I can just mix one up a starter from milk kefir and flour a day or two before I'm ready to bake, but for more spontaneous bread, just omit the starter and toss in 1/2 tsp of active dry yeast instead. Store-bought yeast will make the dough rise significantly faster though, so don't plan on leaving it to sour and rise for several hours.

The chia seed acts as a binder, absorbing liquid and forming a gel that gives the loaf a bit of structural integrity. Flaxseed meal or psyllium husk would also work. 

The sugar is there primarily to invigorate the yeast. After a long sourdough fermentation, the sweetness isn't particularly noticeable, but you can probably get away with reducing it or even eliminating it entirely. The recipe calls for a Tablespoon of sugar because that's the measuring spoon that I already used for the chia seed and oil. You can use honey of course, but this will result in a noticeably sweet bread. 

I generally prefer the taste of butter, but I use oil in the recipe because my kitchen is often cold and incorporating cold butter into flour without an electric mixer is hard work. On weekends when I have a bit more energy to spare, I like making this recipe with butter instead.

For a bit of variety, I sometimes add dried herbs, a bit of grated cheese, or chopped nuts and seeds to the dough. This bread is no substitute for a chewy ciabatta or a fluffy French loaf, but if you're craving something hearty and flavorful, it should do the trick.

And that's it! If you try this recipe, drop me a line in the comments and let me know what you think.