I can’t stand the gluten free breads you can find at the grocery store, if you’re even lucky enough to live close to a store that carries an assortment of gluten free products. Although I live in a major metropolitan area, it is still a reasonable hike for me to get to a whole foods or health food shop for my dose of overpriced cardboard-like bread. I suppose I’m being awefully mean about the commercially available gluten free breads out there, but I am just yet to find one that tastes good, and is reasonably priced, and is not just made with refined white rice flour.

Obvious solution to the problem? Make my own bread of course. A good friend of mine gifted me a breadmaker last Christmas, and boy does that come in handy! This recipe would work just fine without a breadmaker as well, but you need to allow for some time to let the dough rise. If you use a breadmaker, even if the breadmaker doesn’t have a setting for gluten free bread, the time it takes to rise is already programmed.

This bread recipe is very simple, and can be used by those of us who are lactose intolerant as well. The recipe does call for three eggs, but you could easily replace the eggs with either a commercial egg replacer, or by using this egg replacer recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cup of unsweetened almond milk (or soy milk, or water). Almond milk adds something subtle to the taste.
• 3 large eggs (or egg replacer)
• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 Tbsp apple cidar vinegar
• 2 Tbsp of maple syrup or agave nectar (optional)
• 3 Cups brown rice flour
• 1 3/4 Cups buckwheat flour
• 1 Tbsp xanthan gum
• 1 Tbsp quick rise yeast

Preparation

If you are using a breadmaker, add all ingredients in the order presented above into the breadmaker pan. Select a rapid white or regular white course. These ingredients will make roughly a 1.5 lb. loaf, and most breadmakers will have an option to select the size of your bread.

My current breadmaker does not have a gluten free course, but I selected the rapid white (hoping it would be done soon enough for a BBQ dinner, but alas it wasn’t) and it turned out fantastic. You may need to fiddle with the settings on your breadmaker, but once you find one that works you can stick to it! Unless you can add more baking time manually (with my machine you unfortunately cannot), I recommend rather underbaking than overbaking. I’ve previously selected whole wheat settings to bake my gluten free bread, and the bread was a bit too dry and crumbly when it came out. If it is underbaked, you can always finish baking in your regular oven.

Enough said about breadmakers. If you are doing this the old fashioned way:

Beat the eggs first, then add in the milk and other wet ingredients. Slowly stir in the flour and finish with the yeast. If you are making a yeast free bread, just follow all the same instructions but omit the yeast altogether.

Kneed the dough well, and leave it for about 30 minutes to rise. Kneed it again.

Preheat the oven to 350F and grease a 9×5 loaf pan. Bake for about 70 to 80 minutes.

Whether you use an oven or a breadmaker, always let the gluten free bread cool completely before cutting it.

A few notes: I’ve made gluten free bread before without using Xanthan gum. It comes out tasting the exact same, and it can be omitted if you have no access to this ingredient. However, the Xanthan gum makes your bread far less crumbly! Gluten free bread is more often than not a bit on the crumbly side, and since I’ve added xanthan gum that has changed dramatically. I am thoroughly impressed with the consistency of this last bread I made using this ingredient. I found it in the health food section of my local major supermarket. But you can also order it online.