Bread remains one of those essential items that you need in your larder………… for an easy sandwich lunch or picnic, morning toast, to dip in soup, or just to slather with a good spread and enjoy! Gluten free bread remains hit and miss. Occasionally you get a reasonable loaf on the market, but somehow, the major manufacturers still struggle to achieve a loaf which is moist and does not disintegrate the moment you pick it up. Without gluten, there is not much to bind the ingredients together and the result is often a big mess and the need for a bib…………
Because of my lack of satisfaction with the bread you can buy (even the artisan loaves are mostly like bricks), one of the first things I did when we had a confirmed coeliac diagnosis was to buy a bread-maker. Although I was very careful to pick one that had a gluten free programme, I have to say that I rarely use it and find that I am largely developing recipes to suit the general settings. My bread-maker is made by Panasonic and has not let me down yet, but I am sure that bread-makers differ from make to make and it may be that a good recipe for me, needs a bit of extra tweaking for you.
Bread-making by hand can be a very therapeutic process, but this is probably down to the need to knead the dough (which was always good to work off a bit of stress and frustration). Gluten free bread does not require kneading (in fact it positively shies away from it), so half the fun is gone.
Although hand-made bread will often taste very different (and may in some cases taste better, even when using the same recipe as for a bread-maker), I do love the convenience of my bread-maker. I can throw the ingredients together and set it running with only 10-15 available minutes and then get on with my day, knowing that I will have a tasty fresh loaf to come back to. If you haven’t invested in one, I thoroughly recommend you think about it, particularly if you want to be freed up to spend your cooking time on other things.
My Chestnut and Rice Flour Bread is a bread-maker loaf that we have been eating for some months. It makes great sandwiches, but mostly we love it because it makes amazing toast, – crunchy, well browned, holds its shape and is delicious when topped with almost anything (I recommend homemade butter). I developed it after I was mooching around in our local wholefoods shop one day and the owner suggested I try using chestnut flour, which she advised was nutritious and flavoursome. The flour is quite ‘heavy’, has an unusual scent, and a deep, rich, slightly bitter, nutty flavour. Used in moderation, it adds a distinctive depth of flavour to breads and cakes and I think, tastes fabulous in this loaf. I use Allinson Dried Active Yeast for this recipe and again, have not tested any alternative brand.
I will be honest, that I have never tried making this bread without using a bread-maker, and have tweaked the recipe to get it just right for my equipment, but I can see no obvious reason why it wouldn’t work in any other bread-maker or in a conventional oven, providing it is mixed thoroughly and allowed time to rise sufficiently. If anyone risks it, let me know…………..
Chestnut & Rice Flour Bread (for bread-makers)
Ingredients
150g brown rice flour
125g white rice flour
90g chestnut flour
85g potato starch (flour)
1 tablespoon xanthan gum
4 tablespoons dried milk powder (I use semi-skimmed)
1
½ tablespoons caster sugar
1 ½ teaspoons fine sea salt
3 large eggs
370ml water
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
1 teaspoon lemon juice
23g dried active yeast (1 ½ tablespoons + 1 teaspoon)
Method
- Mix together the flours, xanthan gum, sugar, salt and milk powder in a bowl and set aside.
- Whisk the eggs with the water until light and airy and pour into the bread-maker pan.
- Add the oil and lemon juice to the pan.
- Spoon the flour mix evenly on top of the wet ingredients.
- Sprinkle the yeast on top of the flour mix.
- Set the bread-maker to Basic, Large, Medium Crust and leave to cook.
- When cooked, remove from the bread-maker immediately and tip onto a wire rack to cool.
- If the dough paddle has become stuck, remove when the loaf is cool.
- Eat as fresh bread, toast or slice and freeze.
This really is a very nice load of bread; absolutely lovely toasted. Thanks for the recipe!! Actually, thanks for your two flour mix recipes. I use them regularly for pretty much everything.
Your buttermilk scones recipe is fantastic too – I haven’t had such good scones for years and had actually given up on making them until I came across your recipe and gave it a go.
I’m not GF but wheat intolerant so have a bit more freedom to use spelt, rye etc too. Still, they don’t compare to your mixes!!
Thank you SO much Jill. That’s great to hear… I work really hard to try and make better than average GF food and as close to the ‘real thing’ as possible. And the flour blend is crucial.
The Chestnut Bread is an old recipe which I keep meaning to revisit and improve (although I know a few people have said they like it, so would have to leave the old recipe available too). But I have to agree… It makes amazing toast!!
xx
This bread looks beautiful. I can’t believe It was gluten free. ….
Thank you.
I’ve been wanting to try chestnut flour and this looks awesome!! Do you think it would be possible to sub something or omit the milk powder or would it not work? I can’t tolerate it. Thanks for any help!
Hi Natalie.
Absolutely yes!
You can either use coconut milk powder or easier, just omit the milk powder altogether and use milk in place of water.
I hope that helps.
Best wishes
Kate x
Oh Wow!
I was looking for a way of using up some chestnut flour and came across your recipe. Not only is this the best GF bread I have ever been able to make at home, I can also get out my old and sadly unused Panasonic bread maker again and do the whole job in a few minutes!
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thank you Harry. If you loved that recipe, we have a load more GF breads here… and the latest I have developed (the wholemeal ones are my best ever! Here’s a quick link to the Bread Index… x
https://www.glutenfreealchemist.com/p-index/gluten-free-bread/
Thank you so much for this recipe.
You're welcome Roger x
Hi. I need to make a gluten free loaf for a guest who is also allergic to eggs. Any tips? Thank you!
Hi there. You might want to check out http://freefromfairy.com
She has some recipes which look fab.
Good luck xx
Hi Kate – I'm really interested in this recipe as I eat mostly gluten free. But I live in a very inaccessible place and although I've imported some flours myself, I find most GF recipes on the internet contain something that I don't have. In this case it's potato flour. Can I omit it and increase the quantities of other flours? Should I add cornstarch to improve the starchiness? Thank you!
Hi Amy. Yes I think you could probably substitute the potato flour for either tapioca flour or oat flour (you can make oat flour yourself by finely grinding oats) and it should work ok. Let me know if you try it and how it goes.
Hi,
I would like to try this bread! My question would be, how big will be the bread in kilogramms? Is this around half or 1 kg? Thanks! Julia
Hi Julia. It is about 1 kg. You can substitute the recommended yeast for an alternative suitable for bread-makers. I have also used 14g of an Easy Bake yeast and it worked fine.
Thank you! I baked it in the "normal" owen with some modifications (used baking powder and baking soda instead of yeast, and replaced xanthan gum with psyllium husk). It was not bad, I enjoy the flavour of the chestnut flour! Thank you very much for your recipe! 🙂
You're welcome. I have never made a loaf without yeast! Glad it worked ok………