The Drama of the Gluten-Free Loaves
As an aside – I’ve not been feeling very much like picking up the metaphorical pen recently. I’ve been a little daunted at the prospect of putting my thoughts down on paper. Why? No idea. But hopefully I can get over it.
One thing I’m really going to miss about being gluten-free is a decent loaf of bread. And I couldn’t believe the price of the mean little offerings in the supermarket, so I need to find a good recipe of my own. Now I have my trusted Kitchen Aid stand mixer, it takes no time at all to bake anything, so I have no excuse.
So far I’ve make 3 loaves of gluten free bread, and this is their story.
The first gluten-free loaf.
Loaf 1
I decided that a good place to start would be the recipe on the packet of the Doves Farm Gluten Free Strong White Bread Flour, so I merrily made up a batch. I only realised afterwards that I had used the wrong kind of yeast. Rookie mistake if ever there was one.
This loaf was dense and chewy and generally quite weird. In the toaster it made a fizzing noise. That is definitely not ideal. Loaf 1 was a definite fail.
Gluten-free loaf #2.
Loaf 2
I decided that I couldn’t really blame the recipe for the failing of Loaf 1, using the wrong yeast was pretty stupid, and it could be amazing with the right yeast. The texture was better and more bread-like, but it was still somehow dry and chewy at the same time. It didn’t fizz in the toaster which was a definite plus, but it wasn’t very tasty, so I’m afraid it’s still a no.
And my third attempt at gluten-free bread.
Loaf 3
I am a massive Dan Lepard fan. His How To Bake column in The Guardian is a serious must read for me, and I’ve never cooked any recipe of his without success, so I was quite excited when I stumbled across a Gluten-Free Sandwich Bread Recipe of his from 2009.
This recipe was a lot more time intensive than other recipes as you have to leave the bread to rise twice and then cook it for fifty minutes. Yes that’s right I said fifty minutes. For some reason my dough didn’t rise at all the second time, and I hadn’t really done a great job at shaping it, it was getting late and I was trying to watch something, but this is still my most successful attempt so far.
The texture was much more like bread, which having done some internet reading is probably down to the psyllium husks. These are apparently the new wonder ingredient in gluten-free baking and you’d hope so for the price! But they vastly improved the texture. My one criticism was that when the bread was warm I could smell the vinegar as I ate it, which was a little off putting. But I will definitely try this loaf again, perhaps with another vinegar (I probably used Red Wine, so perhaps Apple Cider?), and maybe next time I’ll attempt to make it look a little nicer.
Anyway, those are my gluten-free bread adventures so far. There will be more. Many many more. Watch this space.
