Everyday Bread

Delicious gluten-free bread doesn’t exist? WRONG – It does exist! Let me introduce my everyday bread, so we can start changing the world! I will be adding different breads with the time, but for now I decided, that an everyday bread is the most important one! 🙂

For someone like me, who loves bread and eats it everyday, finding great bread was probably the biggest challenge when going gluten-free. Quite quickly I had to realise, that it is near to impossible to BUY a good gluten-free bread in the supermarket or even in bakeries. If it tasted good, most of the time it was full of additives, such as sugar, Xanthan gum, etc. As I try to avoid any non-natural products and sugars, I decided it’s time to bake my own bread.

Baking my own bread, especially a gluten-free bread was a big step for me, as I had never baked a bread before in my life. So, off I went and tried different recipes until I stuck with the following recipe. I am eating this bread now since about 6 months and I have to say, that I like it so much, I don’t miss “normal bread” at all. This bread is better, than any other bread, I could buy at the supermarket or the bakery.

In relation to flour, I usually use a mixture of different flours. For bread, you should avoid using corn-flour, coconut-flour or nut-flours as they are too dense and absorb too much water. White-rice flour is lower in healthy nutritions, so I add a maximum of 50 – 100 grams.

One thing, when baking with gluten-free flours everybody needs to know: There is not >ONE< flour. It’s best to mix and everybody should experiment with taste & texture to find the “best” option. I never use “universal gluten-free flour mixes” from Schaer, etc. as they usually have lots of additives, which I do not use, as I prefer to eat as natural as possible.

Ingredients:

300g flour*

50g seeds

2 heaped tbsp psyllium husk

450ml water

2 tsp bread spice (e.g. this one from Alnatura)

2 tsp sodium bicarbonate

1 tsp salt

*My preferred combination is 100g of teff or brown millet flour, 100g of brown rice flour, 50g of white rice flour (for texture and because it absorbs excess water) & 50g of red lentil flour. Buckwheat flour is also one of my favourites for bread, as it has a nutty, dark-bread taste. I would substitute the brown-rice flour for buckwheat flour 1 for 1.

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degree Celsius (top/bottom heat) and lay put a baking tray with parchment paper.
2. Mix the psyllium husk with 450 ml lukewarm water and leave for about 1 hour.
3. Add the remaining ingredients & mix. (I usually use a silicon matt like this one.)
4. Knead well until everything is just slightly sticky. If necessary at a little bit of water. If too sticky, add some flower. I can recommend white rice flour, as it absorbs the water very well.
5. Form a bread loaf and place it on the prepared baking tray. If you want you can cut about 0.5 cm deep to give the typical “bread-look”.
6. Bake the bread for about 50 minutes, if it’s not done, decrease the temperature to 180 degrees and bake for another 10-15 minutes.
7. To know, if the bread is done pick it up and “knock” on the bottom side. It should sound hollow.
8. Leave to cool completely before slicing it.

The everyday bread only keeps for a few days, as there are no added preservatives. I tend to freeze half the bread, in slices, and keep it for a rainy day, when I’m too lazy to bake one. 🙂

I would love to see some of the results, so please do post some pictures. If you do have any questions, please let me know!

Happy baking,

Carolin