Easy Gluten Free Yeast Bread – Mini Loaves

I always bake special mini loaves bread for our Christmas lunch. The choice of slices shape and size comes out of desire to have a perfect match for 2 pieces of home cured salmon, the compulsory entree on our menu for Christmas. Usually when baking mini loaves I use the tray for 8 mini loaves, with 6 positions filled, and 2 empty. However, his year I decided to bake only 3 medium to small size loaves in individual baking tins 8 cm x 15 cm.

The first mini loaves bread recipe, published nearly four years ago, was the first occasion then I used full fat sour cream as the source of fat, that also provided extra protein to support bread structure. During these four years I learned that adding and egg or two, increases the nutritional value of yeast bread and helps to make baking process more reliable. My most recent discovery in gluten free yeast dough was about the difference of potato flour vs potato starch. All of a sudden potato flour, I used to buy, disappeared from supermarket shelves. The product labelled “potato starch” seemed identical to me, at least by its feel and texture. However, it was necessary to add more liquid to the dough to get the same consistency. The taste of baking products, from cinnamon buns, to pizza base, was much better when starch component of the flour mix was made up not only by tapioca flour, but by the mix 1:1 of tapioca and potato starches. New flour mix and dry to wet ratio, as well as addition of an egg and increased quantity of sour cream, allowed to bake gluten free yeast bread, that the first time in my experience did not shrink during baking and had a nice dome shaped top crust.

The bread also had quite airy, even springy texture. It could be sliced when not completely cooled down. The taste was superb, my favourite combination of millet, quinoa and buckwheat flour. Buckwheat flour was from Bio-Oz company. It has higher water binding capacity, compared to other brands I used before, demanding to increase liquids for the dough one more time. The last feature of this bread I want to mention concerns baking regime. I always bake yeast dough when it is rolled in thin layers from warm oven. The dough rises, and when it had risen enough, I simply turn the oven to the desired temperature, not taking baking pans/tins out of the oven. This time I tried the same approach when baking bread, as I presumed that loaf tins were small enough to allow the dough to be baked through. The approach worked perfectly.

I cut the first slice from warm bread and the inside of the loaf was fully baked and not even wet, or too moist, as it usually happens when gluten free yeast bread is baked in loaf shapes.

The quality of the bake can be seen when comparing the size of air pockets on the top and bottom of the loaf. Even to my surprise they are practically even. Not many gluten free yeast bread loaves exhibit this, especially with the flour mix where whole grain to starches ratio is 2 to 1.

All loaves were sliced and frozen for Christmas day feast, to be consumed with cured salmon and horse-radish, sour cream and dill sauce.

Ingredients:

100g fine millet flour
50g quinoa flour
50g buckwheat flour (Bio-Oz)
50g tapioca flour (Ceres Organics)
50g potato starch
20g ground golden flax
20g sugar
7g non Iodised Saxa sea salt
5g xanthan gum
7g instant yeast 1 sachet
100g full fat (36%) Coles sour cream
1 egg
200ml warm water

Preparation:

mix all dry ingredients, including yeast, combine
put dry mix 2-3 times through a sieve, large particles remaining in a sieve, such as salt and ground flax, return to the mix
combine egg and sour cream, add warm water, mix with a whisk
add wet ingredients to dry, mix and combine well (I do it by hand)
grease baking loaf tins with butter or oil
when using baking tins of similar size, use 235g of dough for each tin
shape and spread each piece of dough in a tin
I sprinkle water on top and apply sesame seeds
the dough takes less than 1/2 of the tin and has plenty of room to raise
cover the tin with greased baking paper to prevent dough drying up
place tins in warm, really warm, but switched off oven, place a bowl with hot water on the bottom of the oven
let the dough raise 2 or 2.5 times
take baking paper off
switch the oven to 190C fan forced regime
it took only 40 minutes for my bread to be fully baked, but ovens are different