Last year I started playing with raw honey from the Tasmanian wilderness. With the right techniques it is possible to ferment the honey and produce a leaven for bread making. Recently I returned to working with the honey ferment. Dough made with it behaves a little differently from sourdough and dough made with a baker's yeast poolish. It doesn't rise much during fermentation. At first, I thought the yeast wasn't working, then I noticed a little expansion. In the oven, however, the story was quite different. Suddenly the dough came alive and it was expanding as I watched.

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.

A while ago I bought a jar of organic honey from a stall at Salamanca Market in Hobart. The honey was collected in some of the pristine old forests in Tasmania. It is a strongly flavoured, rich honey. Organically produced, cold extracted, unheated, unprocessed, pure raw honey. (www.miellerie.com.au)

Apart from enjoying the wonderful honey, I had an idea. Some time ago I read just a few words about honey yeast. The gist of the idea is that in raw, organic honey there are yeasts that remain dormant. If the honey is diluted with water the yeasts can be activated. I found a few more words about honey yeasts in issue 3 of 'Bread Magazine'. So, keeping it simple I worked with honey and water, then when I could smell the yeast activity, I took some of the water and added it to a mix of flour and water (50/50 brown rice flour and water). It was more than 24 hours before I saw the first activity in the preferment, so I left it longer. Eventually I could see some tiny bubbles forming in the preferment. Next I mixed a dough, similar to my baguette dough. Fermentation was still slow, so it was another overnight bulk ferment, before I shaped the dough and left it in a banneton to proof.

Eventually it went into the oven; and that is when the excitement began! Ok, I am a bit obsessive about bread. The dough had only been in the oven a few minutes when I started to see the oven spring expanding the loaf. Usually there is a little movement in the first 10 minutes, then a little more until 17 minutes. This seemed pretty rapid!

I had to wait a few hours for the loaf to cool before I could see what the crumb was really like. I was not disappointed. For a first loaf using a new technique I was very pleased.

Overall, only a few tweaks needed to refine this recipe. The flavour captures the richness of the Lake Pedder Nectar. With this honey yeast loaf I can demonstrate, once again, that gluten free bread does not need to be boring!