Thursday, July 23, 2009

Our Favorite Rice Bread Recipe


After becoming dissatisfied with the bread recipe that we were using, my daughter, Millie, and I started experimenting with a new recipe. Millie really does most of the baking around here and her bread is consistently delicious. She has perfected recognizing the right consistency (neither too stiff or too runny). You will develop a knack for it as well. If the batter is too thick, the bread will not rise well and will be very heavy when baked (brick-like :). If the batter is too runny, it will overflow and fall in the oven and the bread will be very course and crumbly. Be patient with the bread and yourself! Once you get onto things, you will be taking delicious smelling, looking and tasting loaves from your oven... and you will hardly believe that piece of fresh bread is gluten free!
One of the keys to good texture is the psyllium husks. They are available at most health food stores. If you mix them with water, they make kind of a slimy liquid that you can drink to get great fiber that is very gentle on your bowel.
To mix this batter, I use my large Kitchen Aid mixer with the cookie paddle. Probably a hand mixer could do it, but any upright mixer would be best. Of course, you could use a wooden spoon, and I have done it like this... it is great exercise!
I find that this bread keeps good for about 3 days. It can be toasted, or warmed in the microwave after the first day to freshen it. I have adjusted the recipe to make 2 loaves. Here at home, with 9 people eating gluten free, we make a four loaf batch every other day.

RICE BREAD

2 cups tapioca starch
1 1/2 cups potato starch
3 cups brown rice flour
1 1/2 Tbsp yeast (instant or not)
1/4 cup sugar or honey
2 Tbsp psyllium husks
4 eggs
3 cups hot water

1/2 cup oil
1 1/2 tsp salt

METHOD:
-Combine the starches and flour, yeast, sugar and psyllium husks in the bowl of your mixer and mix until well blended.
-Add the eggs and hot water and blend. Beat on medium speed for about 5 min.
-Cover the bowl and let the dough rise for 10 min.
-Beat down and add the oil and salt. Beat on medium for about another 2-3 min. The dough should be a bit thicker than muffin batter.
-Grease 2 loaf pans and divide the dough between them. Sprinkle the tops of the loaves with a little warm water and smooth the dough with a spatula.
-Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Set the loaves on top of the stove to rise - about another 10 min. The dough should be just above the tops of the pans. If you let is rise too much, it will run over the edge of the pans in the oven and make a BIG, smokey mess! To avoid this, place the pans on a cookie sheet to bake.
-Put the loaves in the oven and bake for 30 min. Remove from pans and place loaves on their sides on cooling racks. Do not try to slice until the loaves are cool to the touch. This fresh bread is a favorite for our lunches! Enjoy!

VARIATIONS: Substitute 1 cups of rice flour for 1 cup of sorghum flour, or buckwheat, or teff, or millet... maybe a combo of some of these. The sorghum flour is a bit expensive, but it really gives a nice texture.


4 comments:

Tereza said...

yay I'm so exited to browse around this site! I've got a loaf of gluten free bread in my machine right now...we'll see if it turns out...if not I'll probably tru this one as it looks awesome and appetizing on the pic:)
What are psillium husks? I've never heard of that before.

jennstar said...

Tereza, I will post about psyllium husks :)

Rhonda said...

I just made your basic rice bread and substituted in 1 C. of buckwheat flour for 1 C. of rice flour - turned out amazing!! Looks like bread, tastes like bread and most importantly "acts" like bread. I made it for my son who is a tree climber and has been unable to eat much more than rice cakes etc. for lunch for a very long time. He's very leery of most gluten free breads but I think he's going to be pleasantly surprised this time:). I am also going to try the potato substitution and make hamburger buns. Thank you so much for your trial and error so that I didn't have to.

Carol said...

Have you tried it with white rice flour?

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