Gluten Free Brown Rice Sourdough Bread

My brown rice sourdough bread was a success!  Again, I was skeptical about the rice flour thing, but I am desperate because I hate paying $6.50 for a loaf of bread for my allergic kids.  Plus, I LOVE SOURDOUGH! Have I mentioned that before? I cannot take credit for this recipe, only give credit where credit it due so, thank you: www.rodalesorganiclife,com

I tried to take a picture of the finished product, but my kids take pictures with my phone like the paparazzi,  I can't lock the camera from the logon screen, and they messed something with my camera up seriously this time.  Ugh.

I cannot compare this to wheat natural yeast bread, because it just isn't the same. I can say that it was delicious and cohesive.  It didn't fall apart like most of my gluten free bread experiments have done.  I would let it cool well before slicing, and use a nice sharp knife whereas it does have somewhat of the iconic crunchy sourdough crust.

My kids ate this with peach freezer jam (see a former post), cultured butter and soup. They were thrilled to eat bread fresh out of the oven.

Hooray for sourdough, gluten free cooking, brown rice sourdough starter, and successful high altitude cooking!  

Gluten Free Brown Rice Sourdough Bread

Source: http:www.rodalesorganiclife.com 

I started with a brown rice sourdough starter from Cultures for Health.  It came from a local health food store. I fed it according to package directions until I had enough starter for my recipe. Then I followed this recipe I found online:

2 cups actively bubbling gluten-free sourdough starter

2 cups gluten free flour blend, such as Bob's Mill (I used King Arthur)

1 tsp sea salt

1 TBS organic sugar, molasses, or honey (optional)

2 TBS melted organic butter or olive oil (optional...I used butter)

1/2 to 1 cup warm water

Directions:

1. In a large bowl mix the first three ingredients along with sweetener and fat, if using, until just blended.  Add water a few TBS at a time until you have a pourable batter like a thick cake batter (not a mass  you can handle like wheat-based bread dough).

2. Grease a baking pan or line the pan with a single sheet of parchment paper. Us a loaf pan to make sandwich bread (which is what I did), or a round oven-safe casserole dish or mixing bowl to bake a country-style loaf.

3. Pour the batter in to prepared baking pan, cover it with a wet tea towel (don't let the towel touch the surface of the batter), and set it in a warm place to rise 4 to 8 hours (or longer if that's how your schedule works). Your batter should have risen at least a third by this time.

4. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and bake your bread for about 40 minutes. The bread is done when it no longer jiggles in the center and the internal temperature is at least 200 degrees F.

5. Remove it from the oven, let it cool for about 15 minutes, then turn the loaf onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely before slicing.

6. With any luck you have a tasty loaf with lots of small air pockets inside. Eat it up in a day or so, or slice it and store it in a sealed container in the freezer.

As I said, gluten-free baking is more of a nuance than standard baking. If your bread turns out too dense, you may want to make sure your starter is really active before you mix your next batch.  If it's too crumbly, try adding a little more fat and maybe a beaten egg (I would do 1 TBS ground flax if need be, but I didn't need any extra fat or anything other than what is listed on the regular list. Mine was just fine the first try) to the batter next time. Either way, don't waste a bad loaf ! (Mine was great though!) Slice your not-so-great efforts and dry them out to make breadcrumbs for cooking or use it to make bread pudding.