In Search of the Lost Sandwich : Gluten Free Bread 2 #lockdownooking #glutenfreebread #glutenfreebaking

Since having to go wheat free the thing I have found that I miss the most is a decent sandwich. Yes there are commercial sliced breads out there but most are as tasteless as any other sliced loaf, and in some cases are downright revolting – not to mention horrendously expensive in comparison to a standard wheat loaf.

A few days ago I tried a GF sourdough bread, and something I would make again as is was tasty, but it failed the sandwich test quite spectacularly .

Today I tried another recipe from Phil Vickery’s Essential Gluten-free book – with a few modifications of my own. This one is specifically for a bread maker.

Ingredients.

• 300g white bread flour
• 100g buckwheat flour
• 300ml tepid water (or half water, half milk)
• 2 room temperature medium eggs (beaten)
• 2 tsp white wine vinegar
• 3 tbs olive oil
• 2 level tsp xantham gum (see notes)
• 1 tsp salt
• 7g fast action yeast
• 2tsp seeds of choice (optional)

Method

• pour warm water, eggs, oil and vinegar into the breadmaker pan
• mix dry ingredients together (except seeds) and tip them onto liquid
• start bread maker on GF setting – after a few mins mixing open lid and scrap side of the pan with a spatula to make sure flour etc is incorporated properly
• at end of mixing cycle open lid again and make sure mix is evenly spread, sprinkle on seeds if using
• close lid and let the machine do the work!
• when bake cycle is ended open lid and let the load cool for 10 mins before tipping out.

Notes

• you can use all 400g as bread flour, or else replace the 100g  buckwheat with sorghum or amaranth or teff
• if you use a ready mixed check to see if it has xantham gum already added – in which case no need to add more.

And the end result? not too bad. A little dense, but not as cake-like as many homemade GF loaf can be.  This passes the sandwich and toast test (other than it being smaller slices than average wheat loaf – but then we wheatfree-ers  are used to that!

(I would say at this point there was a printing error in the Vickery book when it starts out by telling you to oil a 900f loaf tin… not sure what you are meant to do with that as the loaf cooks in the breadmaker – but there you go 🙂 )