Thursday 4 October 2012

Bread Success!

Some of you who follow my facebook page may have seen me cheering and sharing a dodgy phone photo of some bread I made the other day. In the real world making a successful loaf of bread is no big deal unless you are seriously challenged in the kitchen, but making an edible loaf of failsafe, gluten, dairy, soy, nut, egg *and* gum free bread is a different story. When I cut open that little roll and had a bite I honestly did a dance of joy.





After a few early attempts at my own gluten free bread I had given up in favour of packet mixes and more recently had been using Kersten's recipe with reasonable success. Our latest restrictions (no gums) meant that I had to ditch that recipe too, and start getting creative.

As a gluten eater I am highly critical of gluten free bread, but I devoured the whole roll with nothing on it and then waited very impatiently for the loaf to cool so that I could slice it and see how it turned out. The crust was soft, the bread bent, and it didn't have that gelatinous texture that I've come to expect from gluten free bread.

How do you think it looks?





I made some (flat) rolls a day later and took them along to a failsafe picnic. There was loads of food, so I didn't bother to get them out until the end when some of the other mums wanted to try. They passed that taste test too (or those lovely ladies were being very polite). The other big test was my daughter who has never willingly eaten gluten free bread. She ate an entire roll with her dinner last night and that is all I really need. There is nothing worse than slaving in the kitchen and no one wanting to eat it.

So after trawling through the internet for inspiration I decided to use a 'Gluten-Free Girl' recipe as my starting point, but that's where the help ended. Now I'm incredibly chuffed to present to you my very own bread recipe.

Bread!
Ingredients
  • 2 cups warm water
  • 2 Tbsp psyllium husks
  • 5 Tbsp boiling water
  • 1 Tbsp sugar
  • 3tsp yeast
  • 1 Tbsp failsafe oil
  • 100g brown rice flour
  • 100g sorghum flour
  • 170g white rice flour
  • 170g tapioca starch
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp baking powder
Method
  1. Put the psyllium in a small bowl or cup and pour the boiling water over them. Give it a quick stir and set aside.
  2. Pour the water, sugar and yeast into a big bowl (preferably in a mixer, but this should be fine by hand) and leave while you measure out the rest of your ingredients.
  3. Add the oil, the psyllium sludge and the dry ingredients and mix for a few minutes until it is all very well combined and smooth, like a thick cake batter.
  4. Tip into an oiled bowl and cover with glad wrap and leave stand somewhere warm for about an hour. It will rise in that time and become a lot more like dough and less like batter.
  5. While it is resting preheat your oven to 190°C
  6. Tip into a greased loaf tin (my tin is 20cm x 11cm) or using wet hands roll balls for rolls use pie tins for large rolls, muffin trays for dinner rolls or place them in a slice tin for flatter hamburger style rolls.
  7. Bake the loaf for about 50 mins and rolls for about 25mins.
  8. Cool on racks.
As this is a very new recipe I haven't had a chance to try different things with it or check how long it lasts. The rolls I made yesterday were slightly dry today, but still edible. The loaf I made the other night was sliced and went straight into the freezer and toasted beautifully for dinner tonight.

The next steps for me are to play with different flour (as I realise sorghum isn't the easiest to find) and to experiment with other styles of bread. But I couldn't make you wait any longer for this recipe. If you try anything that works leave a comment, it would be great to hear what things you can come up with. My next thought is brown sugar scrolls or white baguettes.

18 comments:

  1. Looks yum! And very timely for me as my current recipe uses a breadmaker, and I'm going away soon, so will need to be able to do by hand! I don't tolerate brown rice flour, so will be trying this with a different flour (hmmm maybe quinoa), and will let you know how it goes. I already make a very similar recipe using just white rice flour, but a blend of flours is always better for GF. Yours LOOKS softer. :)

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    1. Where did you find your other recipe? I can never find anything I want on the web, really bad at searching :) If you like quinoa I'm fairly sure it would work. My kids would definitely not eat it in that quantity though.
      Good luck :D

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  2. I have made this quite a few times now and it is a hit with the kids! Thank you! Heather

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  3. Hi there! This recipe looks great! We are going camping and I'm looking for a recipe that I can freeze and take along with us. Does it work without toasting after freezing? I've not yet found a GF recipe that lasts well.... So I'll give yours a go!

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    Replies
    1. It's still best for toasting after freezing, sorry. But it does keep for longer unfrozen than a lot of GF bread. I think it is to do with not using gums.

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  4. I know you are in AUS, so my question is about your measurements. I know you guys have a Tbsp that is equal to 20ml instead of 15ml. I am in Canada and would need to adjust... is that right? Or do you use a 15ml Tbsp??

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    Replies
    1. I use 20ml Tablespoons and our cups are 250ml.

      Hope you enjoy the bread :)

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    2. Okay, good to know. Next time I'll use 20ml instead of 15ml. It was kind of gummy today. Still good though :)

      Cups are the same here. Only diff is Tbsp. Don't get it.... lol

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  5. does anyone have a tried * tested recipie for yeast free bread?

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  6. thanks for the great recipe!! I only had psylium powder so I reduced it to 1 teaspoon with the same amount of water as in recipe. It was very thick like a gel, not a slurry, it wouldn't integrate into the mixture but stayed in lumps. I ended up whisking it then putting it through a sieve and the bread turned out pretty good, best one Ive made yet!! But can you advise me on the best measurement of psylium powder to use? should I just add more water? what consistency is your slurry? Im from Australia so Im using the correct measurements. thanks in advance :)

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    Replies
    1. The powder is harder to integrate into the water; I always get the gel with the powder. I found this comparison online: "A 1-tablespoon serving of the husk produces 1 teaspoon of powder, both of which have 20 calories per serving and 5 grams of dietary fiber." Maybe trying 2 tsp. of the powder, instead of 2 Tbsp., will help. I'll try your idea of using the sieve when using the powder as well. Thanks.

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  7. Sorghum flour slows my thyroid, so going to try sprouted sorghum flour. Accidentally bought sprouted sorghum, so will have to grind it with my extractor blender. Will Update. Thanks for giving me hope with another try at making gluten-free and salicylate-free bread.

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  8. How can I make this in a bread maker? I've tried just putting it all in first set and then dry. But the psyllium husk absorbed all the liquid and it failed miserablly. When I first mixed it all and then put into bread maker it worked beautifully and tasted yum. I had to really work the psyllium husk in. Any ideas?

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  9. Is this suitable for the strict phase?

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    Replies
    1. Absolutely. All the ingredients are on the low list.

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