Finally the time has come. How long have I been talking about it on Instagram? It seems to be for an eternity. You probably already thought, okay, when will this bread finally be online? We’ve already voted on its name, so finally post it or stop dangling it in front of us 😀 Now it’s finally ready to be shared. Wolfgang’s farmer’s bread. Gluten-free German sourdough bread for you to bake at home. We feel like we made a hundred baking attempts, until the bread was the way we wanted it to be. But it finally worked out…
All Beginnings Are Difficult
The first breads we made were hard as a stone. This is actually often the problem with home made gluten-free bread. It becomes too sticky or too hard instead of being as fluffy as we know normal bread. But after all, bread should be something you enjoy. And we wanted to put an end to tasteless, sticky stones called gluten-free bread.
We wanted to see if we, as normal, unskilled non-professional bakers, could make a really delicious gluten-free bread. A bread that gluten-intolerant people, and all other food lovers who decided to avoid gluten think of: I’m going to bake a nice gluten-free sourdough bread BECAUSE the bread is so delicious and I can’t get enough of it and not: Well, I’m hungry and I can’t eat normal bread, so luckily I have at least this one. This is exactly why we didn’t give up and continued our experiment. By the time we had the “stone issue” under control, our next challenge was already waiting for us.
Get the Flour Mixture Right
The bread looked fantastic from the outside and tasted fantastic, too. However, it was only crispy on the outside and much too “wet” on the inside. Unfortunately, we found out that leaving it longer in the oven doesn’t let it become dryer on the inside. So another solution had to be found. We reduced the water content and researched what the correct ratio of flour and starch was. To mix the perfect, gluten-free flour mixture, you can remember the following rule of thumb if you want to experiment with other types of flour:
1/3 starch (potato starch, tapioca starch, rice starch, etc.)
and
2/3 gluten-free flour (buckwheat flour, millet flour, corn flour, etc.)
This composition simply works. It’s perfect. Especially for me. Because at the beginning, baking bread seemed to be a highly complicated process. It almost reminded me of a long text assignment from math or physics class in 8th grade. If you feel the same at the beginning and you think: Oh dear, what is easy about this bread?! I can reassure you.
There are just a few things you need to know before you start:
You need patience. Baking bread is a little science on its own. However, once you have the necessary knowledge, it’s going to work out 🙂
A Few More Notes
- For a gluten-free sourdough bread, as the name suggests, you need a sourdough. If you don’t have it yet, you have to prepare it first. It must develop and be fed until it is “mature” enough. That takes a couple of days. So, if you decide to bake the bread today, you probably won’t be holding it in your hands before next week. So preparation is prerequisite No. 1. But: once you have your sourdough, you can always feed it and use it again and again. So your future breads won’t take that long anymore 🙂
- As I said, the sourdough starter needs time to develop. It has to be strong enough. Therefore, you have to take enough time and feed it at least three to four times until you get a nice bread. The more active the sourdough starter becomes, the better the bread. That’s also why many bakeries work with a sourdough that is several years old and only feed it with new flour again and again. Therefore, prepare your sourdough and always feed it nicely before you want to bake a new bread. Every time the bread becomes more delicious, that is our experience.
Plantain Flour – Do I really need it?
If you read “plantain flour” in the recipe, you might ask yourself: Do I really need this? I definitely don’t want to say that you can’t bake the bread without it. If you don’t want to spend a fortune on flour, you can try to replace the plantain flour. Maybe with rice flour or millet flour, because both have a light color and taste rather neutral. We made the flour mix with plantain flour and so far it is the one that worked best. The plantain flour also brings a delicious aroma. Below you find a list of ingredients and equipment that you may need for baking your gluten free sourdough bread.
Ok, long story short. The recipe consists of two steps:
- Preparation of the sourdough.
- Baking the bread.
Now, if you are completely new to preparing sourdough, and you ask yourself – Oh dear, what does “the sourdough has to develop?” mean?, you might want to read our personal “Bread Baking Bible”, the Plötzblog (German only) Here the sourdough principle is explained in detail. I will take over the basic steps from there in the sourdough instructions. Here, you find also a good source in English.
Of course, when it’s still warm, the bread tastes best. You can store it in a paper bag for bread (you can get it at the bakery or order it here). The bag has fine holes, so the bread can “breathe” inside. There your can store it up to 5 days. Slice it, toast it and top it with an amazing vegan pesto or vegan cream cheese and radishes or tomatoes. You can also bake two loaves of bread at once, and slice and freeze one of them right away. Then you can always take a slice out of the freezer and toast it on middle heat. The plus is: you won’t be tempted to eat the whole bread when it’s fresh and has only come out of the oven.
Before you start, have a look into your kitchen cabinet and check if you have all the equipment you need so your bread will be a success:
- A mixing bowl with an airtight lid.
- A stand mixer (kitchen machine), if you don’t want to knead the dough by hand. We have this one here. If it’s not available in your country, you might want to have a look at this similar model from KitchenAid.
- A baking tray for the bread with a lid. We have exactly this Pyrex bowl here. (affiliate links)
And here is the recipe for Wolfgang’s farmer’s bread (gluten-free sourdough bread):
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Wolfgangs Farmer’s Bread (Gluten Free Sourdough Bread)
- Yield: 1 loaf
- Category: gluten free bread, sourdough
- Method: Baking
Description
A delicious gluten free sourdough bread.
Ingredients
Sourdough Starter:
150 g Buckwheat Flour
150 ml Water
Bread:
80 g sourdough
130 g potato starch
130 g buckwheat flour
130 g plantain flour
20 g psyllium husk
15 g rock salt (Himalayan salt also fits)
20 g fresh yeast
450 g of lukewarm water
Instructions
Sourdough Starter: (Instructions by Plötzblog)
- 50 g buckwheat flour (20°C/68°F)
50–60 g water (40°C/104°F)
Mix the flour and water, cover it and let it sit at warm room temperature for approx. 24–36 hours at approx. 28–30 °C/82-86°F) until you see bubbles forming. - 100 g of the step 1-mixture (approx. 30°C/86°F)
50 g buckwheat flour (20°C/68°F)
50–60 g water (40°C/104°F)
Mix the 100 g of the first step with the new flour and water, cover and let the mixture sit for 8–24 hours at 28–30°C/82-86°F until the volume has at least doubled. Continue with the next step at the latest when the mixture has “collapsed” a little bit. - 200 g from the step 2-mixture (approx. 30°C/86°F)
50 g buckwheat flour (20°C/68°F)
50–60 g water (40° C)
Mix the 200 g with the new flour and water, cover and let it rest for 2–12 hours at 28–30°C/82-86°F until the volume has at least doubled. Continue with the next step at the latest when the mixture has “collapsed” a little bit. - 5–10 g from previous step (approx. 30°C/86°F)
50 g buckwheat flour (20°C/68°F)
50–60 g water (40°C/104°F)
Mix a small part of the previous batch vigorously with flour and water, cover and let sit for 6–12 hours at 28–30 °C/82-86°F until the volume has increased by approx. 50–70%.
Bread:
- Mix all types of flour and the salt carefully in a mixing bowl.
- Dissolve sourdough and yeast in the 450 ml of lukewarm water.
- Mix the water, yeast and sourdough with the flour mixture.
- Now knead the dough with a food processor with the dough hook or with your hands for 15 minutes until a smooth dough ball forms.
- Shape the dough into an even round bread, place it into the lockable mixing bowl and put on the lid. Let the dough rise for 90 minutes. You can put it in the oven and only switch on the light.
The following steps can be skipped, see UPDATE
- After 30 minutes fold the dough. You can find out how to fold bread dough in a short video by Plötzblog (it’s in German, but you just need to see the technique. Please note: The dough in the video is gooey and can be stretched easily. That’s because it contains gluten. Our dough is gluten free, so when folding the edges, they might break. But that doesn’t matter 🙂).
- After this time is over, remove the lid from the bowl and form the dough into a round bread. If you want to learn the exact technique to do this professionally, you can have a look here on the Plötzblog.
- About 15 minutes before this time is over, you can preheat the glass bowl that you use for baking in the oven to 250 degrees Celsius. It is best if you place the baking bowl on a grill in the oven and not on a baking sheet. This way, the bread gets heat from all sides.
- When the bread is done, carefully take the glass bowl out of the oven, remove the lid, and carefully put the bread in without burning yourself. Dust the bread with some buckwheat flour. Then cut the bread crosswise with a sharp knife. This way, it gets a nice pattern when baking. Don’t forget to close the oven door immediately after removing it, otherwise the heat will escape.
- Now put the lid back on and let the bread bake at 250 degrees for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes take off the lid and bake the bread for another 15 minutes.
- Now you take the grill with the bowl out of the oven, carefully remove the lid and let the bread “tumble” onto the grill. It should easily “fall out” of the bowl and not stick to it. Turn it the right way up and leave to cool for 60 minutes. Then it is ready and can be eaten straight away.
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