The joy we feel, pulling fresh bread from the oven, drawing everyone into the kitchen and filling our homes with that glorious aroma, is hard to beat.
But when gluten becomes a problem, there’s trouble all over paradise and a comfortless gap in your life where home-baked bread should be.
Of course, there is a choice. (Or rather, a compromise.) An industrial version of almost any kind of bread, baguette, wrap, crumpet, scone, bun or pizza base can now be found, pallid and shrouded in plastic, on the gluten free shelves of your supermarket. It’s convenient, for sure. But is it authentic? Is it food for the soul?
Obviously, my answers are going to be no and no.
My solution is miles more positive. Bake your own!
Your own, organic, naturally gluten free and delicious artisan breads – which can be as fluffy and golden or as dark and sourdough as you choose – are well within your reach.
Gluten free baking is not alchemy. It’s super simple.
It’s just mix, rise (once or twice) and bake. No kneading, no folding, no fuss. Ask anyone that’s attended one of our three workshops at the School, or anyone that’s done one of our six online courses, and they will tell you how surprised they were at the tips, techniques and tricks they learned to keep gluten free super simple.
Home baked bread is one of the best things about gluten freedom.
- Leave the chemical additives where you left the gluten i.e. out of your diet
- Nourish your body with the specific minerals, vitamins, enzymes etc. it craves; every gluten free flour offers something special and different. You can blend your own flours to suit yourself.
- Support farmers growing crops that help the planet (not drenched with agrochemicals).
- Wars have been fought over bread, but it also unites! Bring your whole family together around such beautifully delicious, artisan breads that even the “wheaters” (wheat-eaters) will all be begging for more.
Are there weird ingredients?
Define weird! It’s all a matter of education. There are around 20 different flours in our GF cupboards, plus four or five kinds of natural binders, cider vinegar, salt and various kinds of sugar. (The truly weird stuff is listed on those packets in the supermarket.)
We recommend making your own blends in bulk, stored in plastic tubs, so that you don’t have to get too many items out when you want to bake. If you like, you can weigh out and bag up all the dry ingredients for your own ‘instant’ bread. Let’s say, a two pizza mix, including salt, sugar and yeast, and then write on the label ‘just add Xg water, Yg olive oil, Zg vinegar’. The same goes for bagging up your ‘instant mix’ for a loaf or a brace of baguettes, or whatever you like to bake most often.
Are there tricky techniques?
The absence of gluten means the absence of hard work; there’s just no need to knead. There’s no need for a dough mixer either. It’s all so simple to mix the ingredients together in a bowl, and allow it to rise – either straight off, on your counter, or tucked away in your fridge until you’re ready to bake. You can make a big batch of dough on Monday, and bake off a few buns at a time every day until the weekend, if it suits you. The flavor gets more pronounced as the fermentation time lengthens, but this is good, and interesting.
What about sourdough?
Gluten free flours contain wild yeasts and lactobacillus bacteria, just like wheat. Sometimes, flours like brown rice or sorghum will ferment even more vigorously, and we have used brown rice starter to produce a wheat leaven on occasion!
How do you make it?
The process of making a GF starter is the same as making a wheat one, just mixing flour and water and adding to it at intervals until the colonies of wild yeast and lactobacillus produce visible bubbles. That’s CO2, which will raise your dough. It’s a fascinating process, very satisfying, and produces gluten free sourdough breads with amazing character, which are also an absolute gift to your gut microbiome.
Does it freeze?
Yes.
Isn’t it too much of a hassle?
No. Anyone can do it! Get yourself on a good course, pick just one bread you really like and then make baking it a weekly routine until you’re really good at it. Then branch out.
What are your favourite GF breads?
At the moment, I’m loving the brown rice sourdough baguettes and the sunny fougasses from Easy Peasy Gluten Free Baking. Dragan loves the Sunflower Power from Naturally Gluten Free Sourdough.
And I’m really looking forward to Christmas and baking home-made, gluten free, vegan stollen. The recipe is in our blog for December last year.