Yep, I realize the headline is provocative. Even we celiacs have to admit that most GF breads are abysmal. But, thanks to insights gleaned from you lucky majority of bread builders  – you're able to digest gluten! – I’ve come up with a natural-leavened GF bread that not only tastes great, but stales slowly and contains no dairy, fat or eggs.

The secret? This bread is leavened only with wild sourdough.

To make it you’ll need some equipment in addition to ingredients. Items include: A pizza stone. A cloche top (I use a Romertopf clay top). A gram scale. Saran wrap. A plant sprayer. Rubber/vinyl gloves. A heated proofing environment. A pizza peel or flat cookie sheet. Six plastic “picnic” wine glasses (if making rolls) or a length of sawed-off plastic PVC pipe if making loaves. A very sharp fillet knife or a razor blade on a stick. Or a lamé.

Ingredients:     60 grams millet sourdough in storage concentration (See below)

                        67 grams millet flour

                        260 grams Analise Roberts Brown Rice Blend  (see below)

                        3 teaspoons Xanthan gum

                        1 1/4 teaspoon salt

                        331 grams spring water

                        Cornmeal for dusting

Making the sourdough: I followed the instructions in The Bread Builders, by Daniel Wing and Alan Scott. To 120 grams of millet flour I added 120 grams of water and stirred well. I let this sit in a covered, non-metallic vessel in a cool (62 degree) area in my house. After 48 hours I threw away 1/2 this mix, added 60 grams flour and 60 grams water and let stand at the same temperature for another 24 hours. At the end of this 24 hour cycle I again threw away 120 grams of the mix and added 60 grams flour and 60 grams water. I let this stand until it showed signs of life – bubbling, froth, fermentation stink –

then removed it to a 70 degree environment, added 60 grams of flour (to bring the mix to a 50% hydration) and let stand 3 hours. At the end of this time I put it in my refrigerator.

It looks like this:

To make a bread recipe I remove 60 grams of storage sponge, add 40 grams of millet flour and 80 grams of water to it, mix and cover. I place it atop my refrigerator, where the temp is 75 – 80 degrees, and let it stand 12 hours. Then it looks like this:

I remove all but 80 grams of this sponge and weigh what I remove. Then I add enough flour to the removed amount to create a 50% hydration leaven, put this back into the storage container, and let this stand 3 hours, after which it goes back in the ‘fridge.

            So, what I have left is 80 grams of 100% hydration leaven.

            On with breadmaking:

            Mix 67 grams of millet flour, 260 grams brown rice mix (Available from Authenticfoods.com) 3 tsp xanthan gumn and 1 1/2 tsp salt and blend carefully and well. It’s important to do this thoroughly because the xanthan will coalesce as soon as water hits it and you want the distribution to be even when this happens/

            Dump mixed dry ingredients into a large bowl, add the water, and stir just enough to wet all the flour. 

Let this stand 1/2 hour. As it stands, take the 6 hemispheric classes and stuff a small square of plastic wrap into each. Spritz this with water. Also lay a sheet of plastic wrap on your counter and spritz this well. Warm up your proofing chamber (mine, btw, is a heating pad and two kitchen towels J ) Put on your rubber gloves and wet them thoroughly.

            Add the leaven to the dough, stir until blended fairly well, then turn out onto the wet plastic and mix by hand, squeezing out lumps and working to create a very rough-textured  sheet about 1/2” thick. Remember, there’s no gluten to protect or develop – what you’re after is a thorough blend and a shaggy-surfaced sheet of dough. When you’re certain you’ve got a good mix, lift the edge of the plastic and roll the dough into a long tube.

            If you’re making loaves, simply divide this tube into two lengths, continue to wrap loosely and place the sections into the halved PVC pipe. Cover with a towel and set in your proofing chamber.

            If you’re making rolls, stuff chunks of dough into each glass, pressing down with your fingers to get good contact with the plastic wrap. Spritz the dough surface well, cover with the plastic you used as a work surface and stick into your proofing chamber. The glasses should look like this:

Let proof 12 hours at 80 – 85 degrees

Now heat oven with pizza stone and cloche to 500 degrees. Dust your peel thoroughly with cornmeal, and work with one loaf or 3 rolls at a time. Roll loaf onto flour and remove plastic, or invert glasses onto flour and remove plastic. Slide loaf/rolls onto pizza stone. Repeat with second loaf or remaining 3 rolls, arranging so that your cloche lid will fit without touching any of the loaves/rolls. Place lid over rolls/loaves and close oven.

            Bake for 8’.

            Remove cloche top and score rolls/loaves with knife/razor.

            Re-close oven and bake 19 min more.

            Remove bread and place on wire rack atop oven so that products cool slowly. This will help prevent shrinkage.

            Here’s what you’ll have:

The crumb:

Unlike any other GF bread you may have eaten, this one doesn't stale in half a day. If you leave the rolls out their crust stays crunchy and their innards, moist. Freezing softens the crust, making them ideal hamburger buns. Of course they don't taste like wheat bread - they're mostly millet, after all - but they are excellent!

second endeavor after coming back to my electric oven after a month of wood fired brick oven adventures. delicious little rolls for pretty much anything, for me it was a dinner roll.

pretty good rise for a 100% whole wheat, but that seems to be the standard since switching to natural leaven, open crumb, super moist. i was quite pleased. the crust was pretty good too even for the electric oven, although my heart still has a brick oven sized hole...

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I just returned from the King Arthur Flour Co’s Baking Education Center and wanted to share my experience taking the 10hr, day and a half class:  “Naturally Leavened Breads” with Jeffrey Hamelman. Being greeted by sunny 70 degree weather in beautiful Vermont was a great way to start the day and the Education Center is a light and airy building with lots of well managed work space. 

We were set up two at a work bench and each of the 12 participants had their own set of tools:  a 6qt Kitchenaid or 7qt Viking mixer, a scale, metal and plastic dough scrapers, stainless steel bowls and of course access to lots and lots of Flour. We were also given a packet with formulas we would be using for our Breads along with others on Desired Dough Temperature, making Liquid and Stiff Levains, etc. The class room is in the same building as the K A Bakery and we would work in the commercial equipment area as needed during the day.

the breads

After a short introduction Jeffrey had us dig right in … within minutes of arrival we were Scaling materials and preparing in earnest for the 7-8 loaves of Bread we would each be bringing home  by the next day’s end of class. It became clear from the beginning that this was not going to be a walk in the park … not a lecture format about Bread … rather an intense, professional, emersion into natural levained Bread … real ‘on the job training’ under the hand of a Maestro.

The whole class, the flow and timing of everything we did, was built around the Bread.  When our dough was taking a breather then we had time for a demonstration, a talk from Jeffrey or questions and answers, otherwise we were attentive to our job ... making and baking Bread.

We worked with:  a Pain au Levain with All Purpose Flour (KA Sir Galahad) and Medium Rye, a Currant and Walnut Sourdough with Sir Galahad and Whole Wheat Flour, and a 5 Seed Sourdough with Sir Gal, High Gluten Flour (KA Sir Lancelot) and Whole Wheat Flour.

5 seed sourdough

We used both Liquid and Stiff Cultures and were shown, and then directly used, different techniques on each loaf: hand or machine mixing, autolyse, soakers, room temperature bulk fermentations with folding, and 40deg overnight retarding to name a few.  Forming options for different types of loaves and slashing styles were shown and then tried out. We received countless tips like: adding optional fresh yeast, using a lined benneton when retarding, how to convert a liquid levain to a firm one, and on and on. Luckily these many learnings were not isolated lectures but put to use right after the individual descriptions/examples were shown. This made everything Jeffrey taught easier to integrate.

This was set up to great advantage because it not only allowed us to learn the varied construction possibilities but also to be able to do comparisons. For example, a machine mixed Pain au Levain could be compared side by side with a hand mixed Pain and an overnight retarded Pain.  Or a Sourdough Bread made with Stiff Levain compared to one made with a 125% hydration Liquid Levain. So, ease/timing of production using different techniques at the bench was directly mated with actual taste tested results from the oven. I saw that everything we do in Bread making is more than just a method choice … it is a choice for a desired result.

currant and walnut sourdough

If there was an overriding theme to the class it would be this:  Once a ‘technique’ was completed he directed us to then look to the dough for confirmation/nonconfirmation of what we had done. I saw how measurement and clock work are very important parts in Jeffrey’s production. They are a foundation that helps bring consistency and a standard and honesty to our work. But, he stressed that only through direct connection with the dough itself can we see if what we are doing is really working well and will make the best Bread. 

At some point during the two days of class each participant called out ‘ Jeffrey!!! ‘   Is this Poolish ripe?   or    is the gluten developed enough?     am I too wet here?     Is this proofed enough?  

“ See with your fingers ”  he would reply,  and then he’d call us all over to give our opinion, each to look and touch … to know for ourselves. He would never tell us what his take on the matter was until we gave ours. That was a real gift.

I’ve attached a few photos of the Breads I made in class.  One of my Pain au Levain is missing from the group picture … I ate it on the drive home.

Thank you Mr. Hamelman

        and Susan and Crew at the KA Baking Education Center.

Dave

Pain au levain

miche style pain au levain approx 1.5 kilos

I tried really hard to screw up this olive levain from Hamelman's Bread. It was enjoying its bulk fermentation in a bowl on top of my stove when I started preheating my oven for some other loaves. Of course, it was sitting on the burner above the vent from the oven. D'oh! By the time I noticed, there was a crusty bit at the bottom of the dough. I cut that off, moved it off the burner and hoped I wouldn't end up with bricks. It had its folds, got shaped and I let retard in the fridge for about 24 hours. It flattened out a bit in the fridge so when I took it out to bake, I reshaped it a little then just tossed it in the oven. Happily, I hadn't killed all the yeast and it did rise in the oven. And it tasted amazing. Oh, and this is the first time I used the Italian culture I got from Northwest Sourdough. Looking forward to making this one again. More pictures of my weekend baking activities.

  I recently read this on the Fresh Loaf as a "non-member" of the site. 

     Here and there Hamelman makes a nod to the home baker, but it doesn't take long for the amateur baker to realize that Hamelman is not all that interested in his or her plight. The continual references to steam injectors and oven vents, proper posture when lifting 75 pounds of dough, and potential injury from improperly holding 7 to 8 foot long peels while unloading dozens of loaves of bread quickly make the amateur realize this book was not intended for him.