I had a scary moment a few weeks ago. For reasons that I won’t go into as I’d be at risk of overshare, I came to the conclusion that I might be gluten intolerant. Not something that I wanted to be true, what with being a bit of a bread addict, a pastry chef in training and someone who’s rather fond of pasta. But I was up for cutting it out for a little time to see if it would help at all.
Still, a little problem like no gluten wasn’t going to stop me making bread so I fished this gluten-free bread recipe of the internet, trusting to it being a good one because it’s the creation of Dan Lepard. Wheat flour is here replaced by cornflour and toasted golden linseeds are included for flavour and for a gum that helps with the crumb texture.
The recipe is detailed below but I’ll reserve this particular part of the blog for the more peculiar moments I encountered when trying to make it myself. The first step of toasting the linseeds was simple and the next bit of the recipe, combining the wet and the dry ingredients was familiar enough. But the first puzzling moment came with the texture the dough took with the ingredients combined. The recipe said it should come together as a “smooth batter”... mine was nothing like a batter and, despite the addition of extra water, stayed as a claggy mess. The ingredients seemed to absorbing the water as fast as I added it so I gave up and left it to sit for a while, as specified in the recipe. I then turned it out onto the worktop and attempted to knead it for 10 seconds to better combine the ingredients... again, claggy mess was mostly what I was left with. The recipe then specified to rest the dough for 30 minutes. My pet hate resurfacing in yet another recipe; a time limit rather than telling me what I’m looking for the dough to do. So, I simply followed the instructions and, after the 30 minutes, placed the dough on a baking tray and attempted to shape it into a sausage shape. Claggy dough meant a rather lumpy sausage. Another time limit was given but, worried that the yeast did actually need time and encouragement to do its thing, I put the dough above the oven while it preheated. After 30 minutes, the sausage looked more like a massive, oval burger but it still got brushed with olive oil and placed in the blisteringly hot oven.
The recipe said to remove the bread from the oven after 40 minutes when a “rich golden-brown in colour”. There weren’t any issues with it turning brown but the hissing noises coming from the loaf itself were a little worrying and tended to make me think it wasn’t done, so I poked it with a knife several times to check if it was still doughy in the middle, which it was, even after about 1 hour 20 minutes. And that was the stage at which I had to leave the house, so, still a little worried that the loaf wasn’t evening cooked, I turned it over and left it shut in the oven, which was turned off.
I returned a few hours later and retrieved the bread from the oven... finally. It was time to hack into it but I had to crack out the college bread knife because the crust was rather crisp. The bread itself was airy (apart from the pressure point from when I’d turned it over, which had got a bit squashed) but the stuff forming the bread... well, I’ve never seen opaque bread before. The taste wasn’t that bad and the linseeds had added quite a bit of flavour to something that was otherwise a bit bland, but the texture didn’t exactly win me over, not the fluffy, soft crumb of wheat bread but something a bit kind of... grisly.
Got to be honest; I ate a little of this but it then went out to the birds. They’re not sure about it either.
And luck has it that I don’t appear to have a gluten intolerance after all. Hurrah!
Simplified recipe
Ingredients
50g golden linseeds
475ml warm water
10g fresh yeast
100ml natural yoghurt
450g cornflour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon caster sugar
50g psyllium husk powder
50ml olive oil
Olive oil and cornflour to finish
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F or gas mark 4). Place the linseeds on a baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes until golden (for flavour and to get the linseeds to release a gum when wet that helps with the crumb of the bread)
2. Mix together the water and yeast and stir to dissolve the yeast. Add the yoghurt and the linseeds and mix again
3. In a large mixing bowl, mix together the cornflour, salt, sugar and psyllium husk powder
4. Add the water/yeast/seed/yoghurt mix and the olive oil and stir into “a smooth thin batter”. The mix will begin to firm up as the ingredients absorb the liquid so allow it sit for a few minutes
5. When the mix is firm, turn onto a worktop and knead for about 10 seconds to combine the ingredients. Return to the bowl, cover and rest for 30 minutes
6. Prepare a baking tray (grease, line or rely on a non-stick tray), transfer the dough to the tray and form it into a sausage shape. Brush the top with “olive oil, cover and leave to rise for 30 minutes”
7. Preheat the oven to 240°C (465°F or gas mark 9)
8. Slash the top of the dough (the step I always forget) and dust with cornflour. Bake for 40 minutes until golden brown, then leave to cool
References
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