How To Make Gluten Free Brown Bread
We Americans seem very fixated, correctly or not, on eating plenty of whole grains. Most parents would not dream of feeding their children anything but whole wheat brad, and many people think their diet is health because they are eating whole wheat bread. In fact, most of us who were raised on squishy, white Sunbeam have even gotten used to the taste of healthier, heartier brown bread.s
And then you find out that you need to be gluten free, and that most bread recipes call for lots of corn starch or potato starch or tapioca starch…..which is not whole grain at all.
What’s a whole grain believer to do?
Well, when I decided to make a brown bread I decided to make a fake brown bread. i wanted to basically stick to the flours and ratios that I know work well for gluten free bread….but make it a bit more whole grain in appearance and in actuality.
(Actually, my flour mix is not all that bad. For a nutritional analysis, check out this post).
So, here’s what I did.
Add fiber: First, I started with a Gluten Free Mock Rye bread recipe that a reader had told me worked well. The recipe started with a flour mix that is brown rice flour, rice bran, and potato starch and tapioca starch in a ratio of 3 parts rice flour, 2 parts starch, and 1 part bran. Since I didn’t have rice bran, I decided to substitute ground flax seed meal so that the recipe would have more fiber than normal.
Add color: Now, ground flax seed will just give you light brown flecks in the white bread. It doesn’t turn the bread brown. For that you need cocoa powder. Yes, it’s a cheat, but it turns the bread a really nice brown color and it only takes 1 Tbsp.
Cut unessential ingredients: The recipe also called for 1/2 c. dry milk powder. I nixed that so that the bread would be casein-free. Milk powder is used in bread recipes that have been been written for bread machine use. However, water is the only liquid you HAVE to have for bread, so out goes the milk powder.
Add seeds and nuts: This bread recipe added caraway seeds, since it’s a mock Rye bread, but you can add whatever seeds you like. And you can add them in great quantities that I’ve done. Add an extra tablespoon or two each time you make the bread until you get to a consistency that you like. You can also sprinkle extra seeds on top of the loaf.
Check the ratios: One other thing that I look at when I’m baking bread is the ratio of flour to liquids. If I’m using my flour mixture I know that I need equal amounts by weight of flour and water, plus 6 oz of eggs. I also know that I need approximately 1 Tbsp of xanthan gum for every 11 – 12 oz. of flour. Or 12 oz of flour : 18 oz of liquids. However my flour recipe is very absorbent, and the flour mixture for this recipe is not, so I went for a 1:1 flour/liquid ratio.
When I weighed the flours for this recipe, the total weight was 14.75 oz. The recipe only called for 13 oz. of water and 4 oz of eggs. I added one egg (2 oz) to get the total flour and liquid ratio to be pretty much equal.
And that’s pretty much it. I tested the recipe; the dough was a great consistency (watch the video in Bread Lesson #1 to learn about that), and the final products was a well risen loaf that didn’t fall. Four out of the five of us liked it, and I think that’s pretty impressive since 3 of the 5 are kids that have never had brown bread before. The bread didn’t really taste like rye bread, but it did taste a lot like the whole wheat bread that I used to buy before we went gluten free.
Back to Cooking Class: Three Variations on Delicious Gluten Free Bread