As promised, I tried my old recipe for French bread with Jules Gluten Free Flour and while it tasted like French bread, it was gummy in the middle and had to be toasted to finish baking! Not deterred, I decided to try another recipe by Annalise Roberts in her Gluten-Free Baking Classics for French-Italian Bread (p. 131). This recipe requires mixing 5 different flours to achieve an artisan-like bread, but the rest of the recipe is very simple, so it really wasn’t so much trouble.
The 5 flour mix was: 2/3 cup of millet flour, 1/3 cup of sorghum flour, 1/3 cup cornstarch, 1/3 cup potato starch, and 1/3 cup tapioca starch. This gives you 2 cups of flour. I blended them together with a whisk in a large bowl and then added the rest of the dry ingredients for the bread: 1 1/4 tsp. xanthan gum, 3/4 tsp. salt, and 4 tsps. sugar. I then proofed 1 packet of active yeast with a bit of sugar in water (110°) and added it to the dry ingredients (by this time in the bowl of a stand mixer) plus 2 tsp. of olive oil and 1 cup water, heated to 110°. The recipe says to beat on high for 3 minutes, then form into a loaf and place in oiled pan (I used a French bread pan) and let rise (loosely covered) in a warm spot for 40 minutes, then bake in a preheated 400° oven for 40-50 minutes. It came out great and made a sandwich to die for. Mine was smoked turkey with brie, dijon mustard and lettuce.
The same morning I made this I whipped up a loaf of Jules’ sandwich bread with her flour.
Here is a closeup on the French bread after I cut into it:
After not having eaten French bread in three years, I sat and ate my sandwich in blissful silence. It was soft inside and crunchy on the outside. Hats off to Annalise Roberts. Buy her book. You won’t be sorry.
Karen, herself
