Simple gluten free bread

This is my absolute favourite gluten free bread recipe. I am posting it here for the lovely ladies who attended my gluten free Easter workshop last week, and also for my new uni friend Lukas. I had intended to produce it as a downloadable pdf, but life, as it does, has gotten in the way, so this will do for now.

Well, there she is, and isn't she a beauty. I have done quite a lot of gluten free breads over the years, there are even a couple on this blog, but none of them measured up to this one, most having a base that is much like a cake batter (very common in gluten free bread recipes), I missed the kneading, that feeling of putting oneself into the dough, so here it is, a quite traditionally made, not at all traditional loaf.

Ingredients

460g warm water

25g psyllium husk (the husk, not the powder)

5g salt

30g olive oil

20g cider vinegar

315g gluten free plain flour (I always use the Aldi brand, this may need tweaking if you use another brand as all gluten free flours are different)

80g buckwheat flour OR green banana flour

20g caster sugar

13g instant yeast

5g powdered gelatin (optional)

If you have a stand mixer with a dough hook you can make this very quickly and easily in that, I use my Kenwood Chef to make two double batches at a time and make four loaves, the bread can also be made by hand, but the stand mixer gives a lighter loaf at the end and also requires only one knead, it is up to you. One of the lovely ladies who follows my instagram has also made this in her bread maker and reported that it made a lovely loaf, really, experiment with it, it is a pretty forgiving recipe as long as you follow the steps in order.

So here is the important first step, do this and everything else should fall into line. Place the warm water, psyllium husk, salt, olive oil and cider vinegar into a large bowl (or into your mixer bowl), give it a stir, set it aside for five minutes, this will allow the psyllium husk to absorb the liquid ingredients, which in turn will add moisture and elasticity to our dough. While that is pondering life combine your remaining ingredients, including the gelatin if you are using it, this is a completely optional ingredient, it does help stabilise your bread and increases the protein component, but if you are vegetarian or vegan, or you just don't have any, leave it out (I very frequently forget to put it in, the bread is still perfect).

Tip the dry ingredients into your psyllium slurry and begin to mix it with your hand or with a baker's helper, I prefer my hand as I can feel what the dough is doing, it will tell you that it can't possibly absorb all of that dry ingredient, ignore it, keep it moving around, pummeling it against the side of the bowl, pushing and smearing it against the bowl wall (no dainty kneading here) and then, all of a sudden it will become what one of the lovely ladies in my class last week called a sticky mess, this is exactly what we want, a sticky mess. At this point, scrape it off the sides of the bowl and let it form a mass in the base of the bowl, set it aside for ten minutes.

+++ If you are using a stand mixer the recipe becomes very simple at this point, while you are mixing, stop the mixer a couple of times and scrape any dry ingredients off the side of the bowl or the bottom, and then keep beating on a medium speed until the mass looks quite moist and sticky and very glossy, at this point add a tiny drip of oil to the bowl, beat a couple more rounds to spread the oil over the dough and around the bowl, remove the dough hook and let the dough rest until it has grown by about half and it feels soft and pliant when you give it a poke.

For those of us who do not have a stand mixer, it will take a few kneads to achieve this level of dough happiness. So we have rested it for ten minutes, when we go back to it you will notice that it has changed texture, the dough should be a little looser, a little softer, start kneading it again, moving the dough around, being very firm with it, pushing it up against the wall of the bowl, stretching and smearing it, do this for about five minutes, then gather it up again into the bottom of the bowl and set aside for another 10-15 minutes. By the end of this second rest your dough should have become quite active, if you give it a poke it should spring back at you and it should be less sticky. This time rub a little olive oil onto your hand and give it another knead, then scrape it into a ball, rub a little (perhaps a teaspoon) of olive oil around the base and walls of the bowl and roll your dough into it so that dough and bowl are oiled. Set aside until it has grown by half and feels soft and pliant when you give it a poke.

Preheat your oven to 220 degrees C, yes, that is very hot, don't be afraid.

Turn your dough out onto a lightly oiled spot about the size of a dinner plate on your bench, give it a gentle knead and then form into a baton, to do this you press it out into a circle slightly smaller than you want your loaf to be and then you roll it like a scroll away from you to form a loaf, pop this into a oiled and lined bread tin (I use a 20 x 10cm loaf tin for this) and press it down firmly so that it is flattened into the tin. Let that sit in a warm spot until it has risen by at least half, the size this is when you put it into the oven is pretty much what you are going to get, minus shrinkage, so don't expect that big spring you get from a wheaten loaf, you will get some, but not as much as with a wheaten flour, so be patient, I wait until mine is about a centimetre over the top of the loaf tin, when it is ready, pop it into the oven. Bake for 20 minutes at 220 degrees C, then turn the oven down to 205 degrees C and bake until golden and the loaf sounds hollow when you turn it out and tap on the base, this takes about another 25 minutes in my oven, so usually about 45 minutes baking in total.

Allow to sit in the loaf tin for ten minutes after it comes out of the oven to stabilise and then lift it out gently and set on a rack to cool fully before cutting. This is really important in a gluten free loaf, that it be fully cooled before cutting, it is very easy to collapse a gluten free loaf while it is hot, so if you MUST sneak a slice, be very gentle with it, use a bread knife and soft hands to stabilise the loaf while you cut. Once cold it will be very stable, slice and enjoy; for me, I slice the loaves and pop them in the freezer so I have bread for the week. As this loaf has no preservatives it will not keep long sitting on the bench, two days at most, to keep it nice, slice it and put it in the freezer so you can pull out a slice or two when you want.

So there you have it, simply the best gluten free bread I have ever made. Enjoy.