From time to time I the question is asked: 'How do you get such good gluten free bread?' or a variation might be: 'What else are you using in your bread?' It is as if I have a secret ingredient that I won't disclose unless I'm paid absolutely huge amounts of money.  Well, no there is no secret ingredient. The truth is I hate the idea of using anything that cannot be bought in a local store, or produced in a home kitchen. So, what does it? How can I make such good gluten free bread?

 Other Perhaps a story it will help:
​So, I've been playing with ideas for making gluten free crumpets. Some months ago I made my first attempt. They were disappointing, but edible, made with a thick rice and tapioca batter; I forget the details, but I probably have notes somewhere. Since then I have been reading recipes for crumpets, thinking about how they are made with wheat, and how they might work without gluten. Some things just seem to need gluten more than others.

​Then there are my own constraints: what do I want in the recipe, am I happy with lots of starch, or do I want to reduce the starches? There is an earlier question: is this to be an every day recipe or one for special occasions?  If it is for special occasions, a treat, then lots of starches may be alright. Who is going to be eating it? If it is me, then milk and butter are ok, if I'm making it for my daughter, or some particular friends there will be no dairy.
​What about the nutrients? If I want a quick recipe and the nutrient values are not so important it might be alright to use baking soda or bakers yeast. But if I want to make as many of the potential nutrients available as possible I'll stick to a cultured leaven: usually a sourdough cultured from rice, buckwheat, millet or quinoa, or perhaps another variation of a naturally cultured leaven. This will allow the enzymes, bacteria, and yeasts to make the flour much more digestible.  Apart from these constraints, I want a product that looks, tastes and feels right.

​So, back to the crumpets. I want crumpets that I can eat frequently, for breakfast or a quick lunch. I'd like to be able to make a big batch and freeze most of it for other times. So, I began with a mix of freshly milled brown rice flour and buckwheat flour.  To make the most nutrients available I chose to ferment. Fermenting rice, because it is a little gritty, is better fermented for longer. To get a softer texture I used whole milk and water. The fats and proteins of the milk help with this. So, 200g freshly milled brown rice was mixed with 100g whole milk and100g water along with 50g brown rice and 50g quinoa starters. I allowed 12 hours fermentation.

​At the end of the 12 hours I added a further 50g milk, 50g water, one egg (about 50g without the shell). Then I mixed 100g freshly milled buckwheat flour to the liquid, and set it aside for nearly an hour - long enough to get the buckwheat fermenting. After preparing the frying pan (a lidded chef's pan) and egg rings with a little butter (the butter I had on hand was home made, cultured butter). With the pan heated to a bit more than a medium heat, I began cooking: one large spoon of batter to each ring. I kept the heat a little lower than it might have been because I wanted the leaven to be able to work in the increasing heat, rather than kill the bacteria and yeasts too quickly. This would allow more bubbles to develop in the crumpets.

​The first batch of crumpets were a little flatter than I was hoping for, so I ensured the pan was just a little hotter for the next batch. The second batch rose better, but were still not as 'holey' as I want. So, my next move was to take the remaining 1/3 of the batter and make a quick adjustment. In my reading I noticed that many recipes use yeast as well as bicarbonate of soda or baking powder. The aim is to increase the gas in the batter and create more holes in the crumpets.

So, here are the results:
​The first batch were too flat, so I adjusted the temperature. I should have made a smaller first batch to get the temperature right.
​The second batch were still not as good as I had hope for, but they had the right characteristics, especially the full depth holes that are the hallmark crumb of the humble crumpet.
​The third batch were not crumpets! They were lovely, light, and airy. They rose well, very well. The crumb is delicate and exceptionally light. They are tasty, but not overpowering. This is the basis for an excellent large pan muffin.

​What next? I'll look at adjusting the flour for the crumpets, perhaps a just a little tapioca, perhaps a slightly different rice flour to get the texture I want in a crumpet. The bicarbonate of soda may work when there is gluten to contain it, but without gluten it is not the ingredient of choice.

the flour was old and sometimes rancid. Of course being new to gluten free flours I found it difficult to know what was 'normal' and what was stale. The day I discovered weevils in my flour bags everything began to change. A bag of red sorghum flour was the source: nearly all my flour store was affected. Our backyard chooks were happy enough with the expensive, protein enriched mash they were fed for the next week. I invested in airtight containers to keep each flour separate. The I began looking at home milling.

​Flour mills were not cheap, even a hand mill from the local whole foods store was about $375.  Eventually I settled on the Hawos Billy 100, and bought one from 'Skippy Mills', the Australian distributor. At around $6/kilogram for brown rice flour compared with $2.50/kilogram for brown rice I treated my Billy as both a long term investment and a means of producing fresh flour when I needed it. That was about 6 years ago, and Billy still has his place in the bakery corner of the kitchen.

One of the early general principles I worked out for gluten free baking is: the finer the flour, the better the product. This is implicit in commercial GF flour mixes: fine starches  and flour, with the assistance of gums produce look-alike products that appear to work. After a few years of milling with Billy I began to look into how to make finer flour. Eventually Billy was joined by a hand mill (Survival Mill) for testing out ideas, and the occasional workout! The hand mill is used for testing out ideas like 'tempering' seed before it is milled, and milling unfamiliar types of seed to learn about it, before I try the seed in Billy. The hand mill can be stripped down to individual components to clean it after each experiment.

It is not really surprising to learn that each type of seed requires different handling to get the best from it. Quinoa often needs to be rinsed and dried before milling. Commercially 'cleaned' quinoa doesn't mill as finely as home washed and dried quinoa. Millet can be tempered by adding water 5% of the weight of millet, mixing it well with the seed, then allowing it to rest for a day or do before milling.  Teff can be milled finely if it is 'dribbled' into the mill.  A finer brown rice flour can be produced if it is milled twice: first milling coarsely, then sieving to extract the coarse part of the flour which is milled again on a fine setting.

​Despite experience with Billy and the hand mill I still wanted something to mill that elusive finer flour to improve the texture of my breads and pastries.  Earlier this year, when I was looking for another mill, I began to see posts about a new mill that is an attachment for a stand mixer. I must admit that at first I was skeptical. It appeared to be yet another new gadget, and gadgets seldom live up to the claims. So, when Paul Lebeau, of MockMill' contacted me I was a little cautious. Paul was gracious, and clearly convinced of the virtues of the MockMill. Would I be prepared to trial a MockMill to make gluten free flours?

The MockMill arrived and using it has been an adventure.`I have used it on two Kitchen Aid stand mixers. I like the way it allows me to control the position of the mill stones as well as the speed of milling, this enables me to mill the finest gluten free flour I have handled. At times the slight movement of the mill gets me a bit concerned, but that is a characteristic of the stand mixer, not the mill. Any attachment will have the same movement. So far I have milled amaranth, buckwheat, millet, quinoa, white, red, black and brown rice as well as sorghum and teff. Each seed needs its own setting, and it takes a little while to work out what that is for each one.

The batards are not as even or as uniform as I would like, but for the exercise they will do. They are buckwheat and red quinoa with a cultured buckwheat leaven (ok: a buckwheat sourdough starter). Now I usually only bake one loaf at a time, occasionally two, and I usually score them the same. This time however, inspired by Jesse Merrill's post (http://on.fb.me/1FnnW64) in the 'Universalbread' group on Facebook, I decided to score the two loaves differently.  My aim was to see how the same dough behaves with scoring in opposite directions. Even without gluten there is still a distinct 'grain' or texture in the dough that is developed by the shaping. This little test helped me to understand more about how important correct shaping and scoring are to the final crust and crumb. I aimed to have approximately the same total length and depth of scoring in each direction.

I have found that oven spring usually takes place in the first 10 minutes, most between the 5 and 10 minute marks.

These three pictures of the loaves in the oven show the loaves at the 1 minute, 5 minutes and 15 minutes marks. They are baked on a ceramic pizza stone with steam being generated in a metal dish on the lower shelf. At 1 minute (above) the scoring is still visible, but has barely opened.

At 5 minutes the scoring on the right (scored across the 'grain') is opening more than the batard on the left which is scored with the 'grain'. It appears that the tension in the crust, influenced by the shaping, is pulling the scoring open on the right, whereas the scoring in the same direction as the 'grain' is not under the same tension, and the cuts do not open to the same extent. As the oven spring continues each loaf expands, but the batard on the left is constrained, whereas the loaf on the right continues to expand.

Finally, after 50 minutes (20 with steam, 30 without) the loaves are baked and the effect of scoring and shaping is evident.

There is some crust tearing on the lower right side of the left batard, and on close inspection a number of minor tears in the crust of the left loaf. The loaf on the right has only a few minor cracks in the crust.

When the bread cooled the crumb revealed more of the effect of scoring and shaping. the circular 'grain' of the crumb is visible in each loaf, but more pronounced in the batard on the right. On the right the crumb is more open, and the increase in the girth of the loaf is clearly evident. 

How do you answer this question? 

Is it the taste? The texture? The aroma that fills the air as it bakes? Is it the crisp, flaky crust that has that special bread taste?

So often gluten free bread is judged in a category all of its own, because, well, because it is different, and generally nothing like real bread.

Over the past few years I have been entering bread in the cooking section at the Devonport Show. Two years in a row my bread (Brown Rice Bread) was placed 2nd. Now, I should add that I was competing with bread made with wheat. There was no 'gluten free' class!

Last year a 'gluten free' class was added. I entered 3 loaves, one in each of the sections for 'bread' and one in the gluten free section. None of my loaves were placed. To be fair, I had entered my favourites, and, in the rush to bake had not paid attention to detail!

This year I entered 3 loaves, 'Homage to Borodinsky' was entered in the Gluten Free class. 

This loaf took a lot of work. It uses a roux as well as malted buckwheat. (I am still working on the process for malted buckwheat. Producing a powdered malt is demanding, but not too difficult.)  The bread has moderately strong buckwheat flavour, with a slight malt overtone, and a complex, almost citrus background from the coriander seed.

My 'Kindred Buckwheat' was entered in the 'any other bread' class. This is a 100% buckwheat bread with leatherwood honey. If you like strongly flavoured honey, you will find the honey and buckwheat work well together. Being made with local honey and local buckwheat (grown by 'Kindred Organics') makes this a local artisan bread - perhaps a first for our part for the world!

This bread is one of my favourites, but to be honest, it is probably an acquired taste, and not a smart choice for a relatively conservative competition! 

My third bread for the competition was Quinoa Miche. I entered in the 'white or brown bread' class. The dough is a beautiful, flexible dough, almost like a regular bread dough to handle, and it behaves very well.

The Quinoa Miche was awarded 1st place. This bread was judged against bread that is not gluten free. That is: a bread made without gluten or gum was awarded 1st place ahead of bread made with wheat!

(That recipe will be one for the book I am working on!)

Other pastries are easy because they are relatively thick - at least 2mm. Phyllo, is thin, so thin that it is difficult to make a sheet that doesn't tear under its own weight. This 'phyllo' is just under 1mm thick, not paper thin. There is no gum, just millet flour and tapioca flour. One day, perhaps another rainy day, I'll try this again, and perhaps I'll go all the way and make baklava or strudel!

I have been working with two flour mixes, tapioca and one other. Over the past few weeks I tried amaranth. Last week I used that mix for hot cross buns.

Today I used quinoa in one, and brown rice in the other. Another curious behaviour of the dough is that it becomes quite solid during the bulk ferment, and again during proofing. As the dough is kneaded it becomes softer and pliable. After kneading for a minute or so, the dough can be shaped.

The flavour is light and slightly sweet. The sweetness is not from the sugars in the honey alone, as only a small amount is used. I suspect that enzymes in from the honey cause more sugars to be produced during the fermentation.

The crumb is more open than other many other gluten free breads I have made. The honey yeasts seem to remain active longer and at higher temperatures than baker's yeast and wild yeasts in sourdough. I suspect a cooler, longer bake will result in a more open crumb.

The result was quite satisfactory. good oven spring. Unfortunately I got distracted and left it in the oven a little long - but that provided a really crunchy crust!

The crumb has a grainy texture from the cracked grains of rice, but as it was well hydrated, it is smooth and easy on the palate. The fine flours brought it all together into quite a pleasant bread. Flavour is interesting - it is reminiscent of Russian Caravan tea, with light, earthy smoky overtones. Quite a satisfactory and unique gluten free sourdough.

I guess the variations with Rice Bread are endless ... leave the olive oil in the recipe and add a few olives and perhaps some sundried tomatoes, or prosciutto; sprigs of fresh rosemary and crushed garlic; whatever you like!

Instead of placing a stick of almond paste in the middle, I chose to roll the almond paste flat and roll it up with the dough.

A few years ago we made liqueur from home grown green gages. drinking the liqueur is like drinking nectar. We still have some that is a little cloudy, so it was an obvious contender for use in soaking the fruit. The flavour worked well with cardamom, nutmeg, vanilla, almond and lemon.

The stollen is delicious, much better than I had expected for a first bake of a new recipe.

The Rice Bread recipe is available in my store.

Jan Hedh's book is 'Artisan Breads - Practical Recipes and Detailed Instructions for Baking the World's Finest Loaves', Skyhorse, New York, 2011. ISBN 978-1-6-61608487-5