Who knew that baking a gluten free Boule` (as the trendy bakeries like to call them) was no more difficult than baking a cake.
Not me. I thought that was a special occasion thing.
No more.
I baked this beauty all by myself, amazing my family and friends who thought as I did, that trendy bread was a celebratory thing too.
Well, celebrations here, because I'm baking this baby every second day and saving my family $28-$50 a week on buying gluten free bread and rolls.
What is it with that?
I do get it. Machinery has to be free of wheat product, you need more ingredients, blah-blah-blah.
But seriously. How can a SMALL loaf of gluten free bread cost the equivalent of 4-8 loaves of the regular kind. Sheesh.
If you feel like celebrating saving the equivalent of a family holiday once a year, just by baking your own bread, read on...
This is so easy, it's ridiculous.
It's a bit like baking a quickbread or muffins.
Mix the dry ingredients, mix the wet ingredients separately, add dry to wet, plop into a lined dish, allow to rise, bake. That's it. Truth. No kneading as such except for shaping. No punching down like for normal bread.
Simples.
Here's the recipe....
Gluten Free Artisanal Bread
Adapted from a recipe by gfjules
Ingredients:
Dry:
3 cups plain (all purpose) gluten free flour blend
1/4 cup of one of the following: GF Buckwheat, Millet, Sorgum, or Brown Rice Flour
1/4 cup milk powder or Almond Meal for dairy free
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda (baking soda)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Wet:
1 teaspoon vinegar
2 tablespoons of one of the following: Honey, Agave Nectar, Maple Syrup, or Golden Syrup
1 1/4 cups of one of the following liquids: Plain yoghurt, full cream milk, sparkling water, ginger ale or gluten free beer
1/4 cup olive oil
2 large eggs at room temperature or 2 tablespoons flaxseed meal or chia seeds mixed with 6 tablespoons hot water, and allowed to sit for 15-20 minutes
Extras:
2 1/4 teaspoons of rapid rise yeast
Sesame seeds, poppy seeds, seed mix or flour to dust
You also need:
2 large mixing bowls
A wooden spoon
A whisk
Measuring cups
Super sharp knife
Something to bake your bread in eg. springform cake tin, dutch oven, pyrex dish. This is more like batter than dough, so you really need something with structure to shape your loaf. A tray won't do for this one.
Baking paper to line your tin or dish, and to cover your bread while it rises
Preheat the oven to 180C or 325-350F. Set the shelf in the middle of the oven.
Mix together the flour and all dry additives EXCEPT the yeast and seeds, in one bowl.
Combine the wet ingredients in the other bowl.
Line your tin or bowl with baking paper. I use a Dutch Oven.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet in three equal batches. Mix well with the whisk.
Add the yeast, and beat with the wooden spoon for a minute or two. It will be quite dough-like now.
Form the batter into a ball shape, and plop it into your lined bowl, tin or casserole dish you're using to bake it in.
Use your sharp knife, wet, to form a criss-cross shape into the top of your loaf, to encourage it to rise and look pretty. Dust with flour or sprinkle with seeds.
Cover loosely with a sheet of baking paper, and set aside in a warm place to rise. Gluten free dough can be quite slow to rise, so be prepared. GF Jules recommends 30-60 minutes. I put mine in front of the fireplace for 30 minutes, and got a neat, but quite dense loaf. In my experience, if you let GF bread batter rise for too long, you get bubbles, and hence holes, in your loaf. I probably would allow a little longer than 30 minutes, but not more than an hour.
Here's mine, below, after 30 minutes rising time. Note that the criss-cross has opened up a little, and it's looking quite as you might expect from a Boule` loaf.
And after just 30 minutes in my very efficient Falcon (Tropical climate version of an AGA), I had a very satisfactory looking Boule' loaf...
Let me tell you, that by this stage, Daughter and I were absolutely hanging out to try this. The first cut into the loaf sent up a cloud of yeasty, bread-like steam, and slathered with butter and a smidge of Vegemite (Aussie kids love their Vegemite...adults too), it was quickly wolfed down...
Of course, I then couldn't resist conjuring up a traditional European lunch of Boule' slices, home made ricotta drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, and bowl ripened tomato wedges.
Blissful...
As I mentioned, this is quite a dense loaf. More like a stone ground whole wheat, than a light and fluffy white. But I love that. It's more substantial and rewarding to eat somehow.
The other thing I like, is that once cooled, you can cut this into quite thin slices, unlike commercial gluten free breads which are always reasonably thick to compensate for the fragile structure. This one, by contrast, is wonderfully robust.
If you're toasting this, give it a fair bit longer in the toaster, to allow it to warm through and brown. I like my toast quite light in colour, but even then, I had to turn the dial up, and press the pop up lever twice to get this bread to brown up and be warmed all the way through.
Go on. Try it. You know you want to. You won't regret it.
