alexandra_thorn

Along with many many others, due to the yeast shortage during the pandemic, I've started to work with sourdough instead of dried yeast. I recently achieved the following a pleasing result:


I started with my ordinary bread recipe here (https://alexandra-thorn.dreamwidth.org/52994.html) and made some modifications.

I used 200 grams of gluten free oat flour starter for the recipe. I unfortunately can't give a magic formula for how to first get the starter, because the original culture for my own starter came from my spouse's whole wheat starter, so technically this bread has a small trace of wheat in it. This approach is unsuitable for anyone with celiac or with a severe wheat allergy. There are a number of resources online on buying or starting truly gluten free starter, but I can't vouch for which ones work.

My method for maintaining the starter was to double the mass every day by adding equal masses of water and millet flour. I made my bread about a half day after the final doubling that brought the mass to 200 g total.

Starter:
200 g (approximately equivalent to 100 g gluten free oat flour and 100 g water)

Dry ingredients
• 6 Tbs dry gluten free oat flour
• 1 cup tapioca starch
(corn starch or potato starch also works, but I have friends who are allergic to either corn or potatoes)
• 1/2 cup brown teff flour
• 1/4 cup quinoa flour
• 1/4 cup almond flour
• 1/4 cup sorghum flour
• 1/4 cup fresh ground flax meal
• 2 3/4 tsp xanthan gum
(EDIT: previous version said tablespoons as a typo. This should be teaspoons.)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Wet ingredients
• 3 flax eggs (1 flax egg = 1 Tbs flax + 3 Tbs water, mixed and chilled
in the fridge for 10 minutes or longer)
• 3 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 2/3 cup water
• 2 Tbs maple syrup

Equipment:
• Baking sheet
• Candy thermometer
• Cooling rack
• Kitchen scale (for maintaining sourdough)

Steps:
1) Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix
2) Add wet ingredients to dry and mix
3) Shape into a loaf on an oiled baking sheet
4) Let loaf rise ~2 hours (the house was ~80 degrees F; you might need a longer rise if the temperature is lower)
5) Preheat oven to 375F
6) Score the loaf. It's important the the score lines be very close to parallel to the sides of the loaf to allow for expansion. I used a kitchen utility knife to make ~1/2 inch deep scores similar to the "double French cut" from this image: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j-BzKp0ZccQ/VMEJ235E-GI/AAAAAAAAMOk/RnzFg0L2UJA/s1600/Bread%2Bslashes.jpg
7) Bake 70 minutes (make sure that the internal temperature is 200-210 degrees F)
8) Allow loaf to completely cool on cooling rack before slicing

Note: I do all my mixing by hand.