Gluten Free Sourdough Loaf

No, for real, y’all. Bread questions all together! Y’all know I hardcore struggle with GF baking still, and that does seem to be the trend. Since we have so few GF recipes developed at this point, I want to repost this one that Sabrina put up in 2019. Our blog has waaaaaaaaaaaay too many posts for anyone but my spreadsheet to know what we’ve written about, so I imagine y’all probably struggle to find the unicorn-rare GF ones. I’ve prettied this post up a tiny bit for y’all.

Most gluten free breads are made in loaf pans because they usually are wet and lack a certain structure. This recipe calls for psyllium husk which helps the loaf retain its shape. Now I won’t take credit for this recipe because let’s be honest I’m no gluten free expert. While I was researching gluten free sourdough I came across this recipe on youtube.

I did deviate a little from the original recipe. I don’t really care for flax seeds so I omitted those. I also switched out some of the flours to suit what I already had in my pantry. I took out some of the starch because my first few loaves were pretty gummy. So here is my rendition of this recipe.

Here is what you will need:

For the Starter:

140 grams of unfed gluten free sourdough starter

40 grams brown rice flour

40 grams sorghum flour

110 grams of water

For the dough:

60 grams sorghum flour

60 grams oat flour

60 grams buckwheat flour

60 grams almond flour

60 grams tapioca flour/starch

24 grams of sugar

1 teaspoon salt (why everything else was by weight except for this I’ll never know)

350 grams of water

20 grams of psyllium husk

Let’s do this!

Before you begin you want to feed your starter. Take 140 grams of gluten free sourdough starter and add 110 grams of water. Stir well. Then add 40 grams of brown rice flour and sorghum flour, mix well, and set aside for 4-6 hours.

Once your starter is ready follow these steps:

Mix 350 grams of water with 20 grams of psyllium husk until it forms a thick gel.

In a separate bowl mix all of the flours, starch, sugar, and salt together.

Add the entire amount of sourdough starter you made to the psyllium husk mixture and stir well.

Now mix the dry ingredients slowly into the wet ingredients. Mix extremely well. You really can’t over mix this. If you don’t mix well enough the loaf will end up on the gummy side.

Take the dough and form it into a loaf. I did not flour my surface. I didn’t want to incorporate more flour into the dough. I did flour my proofing basket.

Turn it upside down into a floured proofing basket and cover with a tea towel. Place in a warm spot to rise for 4-6 hours.

Preheat a dutch oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Take the loaf and flip it over onto a piece of unbleached parchment paper.

Score the loaf.

Place loaf in dutch oven and sprtiz with a bit of water. Close the lid.

Steam in oven for 40 minutes.

After 40 minutes, take the lid off and continue baking with the lid off for 20 minutes.

After baking, take the loaf out of the dutch oven and leave on the rack inside the oven (leave the door cracked) for 5 minutes.

Next take the loaf out and completely cool. I have found that after 1 hour the loaf is still warm inside. Leave to cool for at least 2 or more hours even if it feels cool on the outside. If you cut into it too soon it will end up gummy.

Now this is by far not the only attempt we made. We do have an updated version of this recipe that we will post soon. For now this is a great option for those sensitive to gluten.