Crispy Gluten-Free Bread

I have read a number of recipes – all copying the recipe from Gluten-Free Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day – which I’m sure is delightful but it complicates things a bit too much. So I am distilling this recipe down so that it doesnt take you 9 years to read it. I also happened to misread the recipe the first time around, but the accident turned out perfectly and I think you’ll like the adjustment.

You will need to make a big vat of this flour mix in order to then portion out for your bread. I will begin with the flour combination. Following this is the recipe for 3 loaves of bread.

Flour Mixture

6 cups all-purpose gluten free flour (or you can do 3 cups all-purpose flour and 3 cups sorghum flour for a more whole wheat look to it)
3 1/4 cups white rice flour
1 3/4 cup tapioca flour
1 1/4 cup potato starch
1/4 cup xantham gum or psyllum husk powder

Add all ingredients to a container with a lid. Close container and shake aggressively so that the xantham/psyllum is evenly distributed throughout the mix.

Gluten-Free Bread (3 loaves worth)

6 cups of the flour mixture (above). Store the remaining in a sealed container
1 tablespoon (or 1 package – slightly less than 1 tablespoon but works well) instant yeast
1-1 1/2 tablespoons course kosher salt
2 tablespoons sugar (**note, sugar is a wet ingredient, not dry)
3 3/4 cups lukewarm water
parchment paper or extra flour

In a small bowl, whisk together the yeast, sugar and lukewarm water. Let it sit for about 10min.

Add the lukewarm water to the flour and salt. Mix the dough – either with a stand mixer or by hand – until smooth. It will be wet. No kneading is necessary.

Cover the dough with a propped lid, or saran wrap and let rise for 2 hours.

**at the two hour mark if you are not making all of the bread you can refrigerate the remaining (or all) dough for up to 10 days.

To bake:

Preheat oven to 450 and warm a pizza stone for 30min.

During this time – if taking dough from the refrigerator let the dough come to room temperature or if working with fresh dough – take a soft ball portion (larger than a grapefruit) of dough and place on a floured or parchment lined pizza peel. Dust the dough with flour, liberally. Making sure the dough is round, and slightly patted down to make a flat surface.

Take a knife and make shallow scores in the bread – more for decoration than anything else.