I sifted through my email archives and blog comments and pulled out 10 questions that repeatedly make their way to me. If you have questions about gluten free bread that are not included her, just leave your question in the comments and I’ll add it in.
Kneadable Gluten Free Bread?
Q: I just made my first loaf of gluten free bread and this dough is crazy. It didn’t turn out very well. Shouldn’t the dough be thicker? There’s no way that I can knead this.
A: Ahh, yes. Gluten free bread dough is, shall we say, different. And one gluten free bread dough may act somewhat differently than a gluten free bread dough made from different flours. The key to learning to bake gluten free bread is learning what consistency the dough should be and getting comfortable with adding more liquid to the dough to get to the right consistency and being comfortable with doing that. In fact, the best part about this cooking class is that you’re able to see (and hear me describe) what the dough should look and feel like in the cooking demonstration video.
Doorstops
Q: I tried to make my favorite bread recipe and just used an equal amount of your flour mix plus some xanthan gum. The bread was horrible. Why is that?
A: First, a little background. Bread made from white wheat flour is generally 5 parts flour to 3 parts water plus some yeast and salt. When you take out the wheat flour and add in three or four different gluten free flours plus one or two binding agents (e.g. xanthan gum) the ratio of flour to water gets completely screwed up. There’s not one single ratio that works for gluten free bread. The ratio depends on the flours that you use.
Does this Recipe Double?
Q: If you double the bread recipe so you can make more than one loaf at a time will it still turn out correctly? It would be nice if I could make two loaves so I can freeze one for later. Also, does your bread recipe work the same in a regular oven?
A: Double away. I often double the recipe and bake one loaf in the bread machine and the other in the oven since I only have one good loaf pan. All of the recipes have bread machine and conventional oven baking directions.
Which Bread Machine to Buy
Q: Could you please tell me the difference between a standard Black and Decker bread machine, and one that is advertised as a gluten free bread machine?
A: First a disclaimer: I do not use a bread machine with a gluten free setting and I have no plans to buy one. I checked out the manual on the Breadman TR2500BC and the gluten free setting has a 13 minute knead and a 14 minute rise, followed by a 52 minute bake. The non-gluten free settings included multiple kneads, rises and punchdowns. A bread machine that does not have gluten free setting would probably not have a setting that only included one knead and one rise in the cycle.
I’ve been using an Oster 5838 for almost 8 years and I am perfectly content with the 80 minute Expressbake setting, as long as I mix my ingredients with a mixer and do not put the kneading blade in the machine. However, if my bread machine were to croak, then I would probably choose to buy a machine that allowed me to program my own cyles. That way I could play around with the rise and bake times to get the results that I wanted. But, in all honesty, I might not buy a bread machine when mine dies. Baking bread in the oven is really not difficult at all.
Falling Loaves
Q: I have been looking for a gluten free bread that I could taste without spitting out for the last 5 years AND I finally found it! I made one loaf yesterday morning to see what the bread was like and ended up making two more loaves to last us until I had time to bake bread again. I did have one problem with the recipe–the bread came out of the oven high and beautiful, but within 20 minutes it had sunken to half its height.
A: You’re not the only one that has had this problem when they were just working from the recipe on the blog. It’s actually a fairly common problem with bread baking in general. Fortunately I can tell you that I almost never have this problem, so there is a solution.
In theory, the bread falls because the structure of the bread is not sufficient to hold its weight. This is probably because we’re using different amounts of flour (by weight) although we both have measured out 2 1/2 cups of flour (by volume). Dough that is too wet will result in a loaf that falls after it is out of the oven. The fix for this is to measure your flour by weight with a digital scale, or to not add the full amount of water at once. Dribble in the last quarter cup or so, and stop adding water when the dough is the right texture. Watching the video demonstration for more on what the dough should look and do when it’s just the right consistency.
If your dough is the right consistency and you’re still troubled by falling loaves, then the next thing to do is to make sure your bread is completely cooked before you take it out of the oven. Buy a digital candy thermometer and take the internal temperature of your bread when you think it’s done. If the temperature is not 210F, then stick it back in the oven. If the top is getting too brown, you can lay some aluminum foil over the top, but leave the bread in the oven until you get an internal reading of 210F
“That much xanthan gum? Really?!?”
Q: If I’m converting a wheat recipe, how much xanthan gum should I use? This stuff is expensive and I don’t want to waste any.
A: I would recommend that you start out with 1 tsp of xanthan gum for every 4 oz of flour. If you do not weigh your flour then try 1 – 1.5 tsp. for each cup of flour. I’d also recommend that you experiment with the amount of xanthan gum even after you’ve made a bread that you’re happy with. I recently added more xanthan gum to a bread recipe that I’d though was perfected and found that I like the results even better when I added more xanthan gum.
And, xanthan gum may be more expensive by the oz than guar gum, but you have to use a lot more guar gum….so xanthan gum is really not that expensive after all.
This Bread is a Disaster
Q: I just tried your Really Good Sandwich Bread, and though it tastes great, it turned out, well, with a GIANT bubble in the top, and the rest of the ingredients in a mushy, dense loaf underneath. It tastes great, as I said, but I really don’t know where I went wrong… I followed all of your directions to the letter, though I did have to substitute the flours a bit: I used tapioca starch for the corn, garfava/quinoa for the soy and almond flour for the masa harina. I also used flax/water substitute for eggs, as I am allergic to soy flour, corn and eggs… is it the subs that messed it up?
A: Yep, it is the subs. Since almond flour is less absorbent than masa harina, the amount of liquid in the recipe has to be decreased when almond flour is used. Since you weren’t aware of that, your dough ended up being too wet and the interior of the bread couldn’t keep up with the crust which is what made the bubble at the top.
The collapsing interior of the bread is only partially to blame for the mushy dense qualify of the bread. I’ve been experimenting with flax eggs too and they do tend to make the bread slightly gummy. I thought that it was the combination of flax eggs and xanthan gum, but the bread was actually gummier when I took the xanthan gum out and added more flax seed. Thus, I’m still working on an eggless bread recipe.
Darn You, I don’t have a bread machine
Q: Your bread recipe is of no value to those of us without a bread machine. Might you consider a worthwhile bread recipe that doesn’t require a machine?
A: Ahhh, but it’s not worthless. Each of the recipes contains conventional oven directions right below the bread machine directions.
Up it goes, and down it comes
Q: My bread rose beautifully, but it completely collapsed in the oven. What in the world happened?
A: A beautiful rise that towers over the top of the loaf pan is not what we want to see. In fact, too good of a rise guarantees that the loaf is going to fall while it bakes. When you place bread in the oven, the heat encourages the yeast to work even harder. The result is a leap in the height of the bread which bakers call “oven spring”. If the loaf springs too much before the heat manages to create a crust, then the loaf collapses like the British empire.
I’ve had this happen to me when I’ve let the bread rise too long, used too much dough, or baked in an oven that was not hot enough. Even if you accidentally use too much yeast, you can still salvage the loaf if you pop it into the oven when the dough rises too the top of the pan. If you don’t catch it that quickly, then stir the dough (which will release some of the air) and let it rise a 2nd time. Put it into the oven when the dough is even with the top of the pan (or just a hair under it).
Gritty Bread
Q: All the gluten free products I have purchased (except for some from a company called Kinnicknick, Alberta Canada) are too grainy, granular or gritty perhaps is a better word. How do you eliminate the gritty feel? Is it the rice flour? I made bread using rice flour, it was gritty and went right into the garbage.
A: I use Bob’s Red Mill rice flours and I’ve never noticed a gritty taste. Arrowhead Mills is another story – I hate their brown rice flour because it is coarser. However, a recent experiment with a cake recipe makes me wonder if the problem is only in the flours. When my mom tried my 2nd stab at this cake recipe, she called it “gritty”. I then went back and compared the recipe to another gluten free cake recipe of mine that everyone loves and which no one at work realized was gluten free. The main difference between the two recipes was the amount of oil. The gritty cake did not have nearly as much oil. When I increased the oil in the recipe, the grittiness went away. So, all that to say: it may be the rice flour, but it might also be that the recipe just needs a tablespoon or two of oil.