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This gluten-free peasant bread has such a nice texture — soft and spongy, light and moist — and moreover, when sliced, the pieces hold their shape. Bread lovers, even those not adhering to a gluten-free diet, rave about the texture and flavor of this bread!
For the past year, the most frequent question asked on this blog is this: Can the peasant bread be made gluten-free?
Everyone knows someone — a friend, an uncle, a cousin — recently diagnosed with Celiac disease who has had to forget bread as he/she once knew it.
You might have this friend, this uncle, this cousin. I do. And you might want to treat him/her to a loaf of freshly baked bread but you don’t know where to begin.
This is the position my mother found herself in a month ago while preparing for the arrival of her brother-in-law, who had recently adopted a gluten-free diet. Panicked by the thought of serving dinner without warm, fresh bread on the table, she called asking if I had ever successfully made the peasant bread gluten free. I answered as I have to everyone who has asked thus far: no, not yet.
It seemed like a good time to take an earnest stab at making a gluten-free peasant bread. Unfortunately, a respectable loaf did not materialize before my uncle’s arrival, but one has since.
5 Gluten-Free Bread Baking Tips
- For every cup of flour (128g), use about a teaspoon of xanthum gum.
- For every 2 cups of flour (128g), use 1 egg.
- Use a little more yeast proportionally to help lighten the bread’s texture.
- Bake at a higher temperature (425ºF or so) for the entire time to ensure the loaf will be cooked through and not super dense.
- Use a high-quality gluten-free mix, such as C4C or King Arthur Flour
*** UPDATE 4/9/2018: Since publishing this blog post in 2014, I’ve done further explorations with gluten-free bread baking and have created a recipe, which I prefer. The recipe first appeared in my cookbook, Bread Toast Crumbs, and many of my gluten-free blogging friends, including Feed Me Phoebe, have posted the recipe on their blogs. I’ve included the recipe above along with a video and photos. I’ve deleted the original post for clarity purposes. ***
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The Best, Easiest Gluten-Free Bread
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours
- Yield: 2 loaves
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
From my cookbook, Bread Toast Crumbs.
Ingredients
- 4 cups gluten-free flour—my favorite is Cup4Cup
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
- 2 cups lukewarm water
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 eggs lightly beaten
- 2 tablespoons neutral oil like grapeseed
- 1 teaspoon white wine or cider vinegar
- softened unsalted butter for greasing
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and instant yeast. In a medium bowl, pour the water over the honey and stir to dissolve. Add the eggs, oil, and vinegar. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix with a spatula to form a batter.
- Grease two 1-quart oven-safe bowls with the softened butter—be generous. Divide the dough evenly between the prepared bowls. With wet hands, smooth the surface of the dough. Let the dough rise in a warm or draft-free spot for 30 to 45 minutes, until the top of the dough just crowns the rims of the bowls. Halfway through the rising, set a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat it to 425 degrees F.
- Transfer the bowls to the oven, and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375 degrees F and bake for 17 to 20 minutes more, until golden all around. Remove the bowls from the oven and turn the loaves out onto the cooling racks. Let the loaves cool for at least 20 minutes before cutting.
- Category: Bread
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: Gluten-Free
Keywords: gluten-free, bread, yeast
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
Lija Day says
Namaste GF Flour, I get 2 5lb bags on Amazon for $40, is what we use and there is nothing i can not make with it including bread, i would love to try this recipe, i just use the regular recipe, i dont have to follow GF recipes with this flour, i works jut like regular flour. There is a organic GF version also.
Christina says
I made this bread over the weekend. I followed the instructions exactly, using the same ingredients (C4C and Saf Instant yeast). SO easy – even easier than I imagined after reading the recipe! And the bread turned out beautifully. I don’t eat gluten-free, but I hosted friends who do, and we all agreed it was delicious. The best part: we only ate one of the loaves, so I’m enjoying the rest of the bread as toast all week.
I live in Denver, at 5280′, and it worked perfectly as-is. I didn’t make any high-altitude adjustments.
Five stars!
alexandra says
Wow, amazing! So great to hear all of this Christina. Baking at altitude is tricky; g-f baking is tricky; the combination might deter some all together. So happy this worked out 🙂
Lindsey R says
Spectacular, what a perfect way to spend a chilly damp fall day making soup and this GF bread. Thanks awesome momma for filling my home with warmth today.
alexandra says
Awww Lindsey, it’s so nice to see your name here 🙂 🙂 🙂 Wishing you a happy happy Thanksgiving. Grateful for you and your family. xoxo
Cassandra says
Loved this recipe, made it twice now with ease and great success. Whole family (even those not gluten free) loved it! Can I scoop this into a muffin tin to rise and to make small rolls instead? Or after it rises, can you tear little balls off to bake rolls? I know the timing would be different, less.
alexandra says
Wonderful to hear this! I think you probably could make rolls — no knead to let the dough rise once before shaping into smaller rolls. I would try the muffin tin. Mix the dough, portion into muffin tins, and let it rise. The worry with free-form baking with g-f bread is that there just isn’t enough strength in the dough to keep the shape. Hope that helps!
Julia says
So I decided to try and turn this recipe into rolls….
I used 6 extra large muffin tins and using a large ice cream scooper I filled them with half the dough. The other half I baked as usual in a glass bowl. I followed the recipe as written for the muffin tins and the rolls turned out beautifully and delicious!!
They are so cute and ‘rustic’ looking. I took a picture of them and can send it to you if you’d like.
Thanks again for this awesome recipe!!😀
alexandra says
I would love to see the picture if you have time: [email protected] So happy to hear all of this, Julia! Smart to use the jumbo muffin tin 🙂
julia macias says
Hi Alexandra,
I’ve made this bread many times and love it, thanks so much for posting it!!
I would really like to Try this recipe for making rolls instead of loaves. Do you have any suggestions on baking time?
Thanks so much,
Juliaz
alexandra says
So happy to hear this Julia! I think baking time will be roughly the same. I worry about the potentially frustrating step of trying to form this g-f dough into rolls. I just don’t know how they’ll hold up.
Michelle J says
Do you still recommend using a tsp of xanthum gum for every cup of GF flour?
alexandra says
Michelle, maybe! The truth is that when I do gluten-free baking, I only use Cup4Cup gf flour now, which means xanthum gum is unnecessary. That said, with other mixes, it might be a good idea — it certainly couldn’t hurt. I should note, however, I don’t do too any gluten-free bread baking apart from this recipe, so I am maybe not the best person to ask on this subject. Hope that helps somewhat.
Sheila Selman says
I adore this recipe. My bread tasted like bread!! It was a wonderful texture, soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. Thank you!
★★★★★
Sarah says
Tried making this recipe today. for GF flour, I only have Bob’s Red Mill all purpose flour – ie without xantham gum. So I put in 3 tsps, as an experiment (since I know too much of the gum can make the bread, well, gummy!)
The batter was v wet but the loaves looked lovely when I took them out of the oven. However, an ominous sign was how they began to collapse under their own weight, almost immediately, after I turned them out onto the rack.
Fast forward 6 hours: I got home from work, sliced the loaves – and sure enough, there were large moist/gummy areas in each. Mostly down by the bottom! So that made me think they were at least partially raw, and that in turn made me wonder what happened.
I think 2 potential culprits =
1) more xantham gum needed. I only used 3 tsp, for the reasons outlined above – do I need 4 instead?
2) longer rise needed. Because I had to go to work right after baking, I only let the loaves rise for 35 min. Though that is within the window in the recipe, I wonder if a longer rise would help. they did get some good height in the oven, but they had that tear on the side that indicates “under proving” (as GBBO would have it).
Anyway, sorry for the lonnnng post. I’m just curious as to what people think. I’d like to get this recipe right, since the bit of bread I tried (from near the top of the loaf, where it seems more baked) tasted delicious!
alexandra says
Hi Sarah! OK, a few options:
1. Try another teaspoon of xantham gum.
2. Let the rise go longer and wait for the visual cue of the dough rising above the rim of the bowl before sticking the bowls in the oven … this can take an hour, especially when it’s cold out.
3. Try Cup4Cup flour … I don’t do too much gf baking, but I’ve had the best results with that brand.
4. Maybe bake the loaves a little longer. Is your oven generally accurate? How long total do you think you baked the loaves?
Also: are you using a scale to measure the flour?
Lori says
Instead of the gum can u use arrow root starch?
alexandra says
Hi Lori, I don’t know … I always use cup4cup flour mix these days, so I haven’t experimented with alternatives to xanthan gum. I just did some googling, and it looks as though there are many alternatives to xanthan gum, but it’s not necessarily a 1:1 swap. This is the only gf bread recipe I bake, which is to say, I am not an authority on gf bread baking … I would reach out to someone whose focus is gf bread baking. It’s such a tricky one to master. Wish I could help more!
Sherry Blanchard says
I don’t have any 1 quart oven safe bowls and haven’t been able to find any. Any ideas!
alexandra says
You can order them directly from Pyrex or you can use the 1-qt and 1.5 qt bowls from this set: 3-Piece Pyrex
Britany says
Is it possible to make this with flax eggs? My husband has just about every food allergy possible, the big ones being gluten, dairy and eggs.
I’ve been trying to find a bread recipe that works!
Sarah Hluchy says
Britany, I made my loaf using The Plant Based Egg, added to the dry ingredients, plus the appropriate amount of extra water to the wet ingredients to replace the moisture from the eggs.
I use The Plant Based Egg in place of xanthan gum whenever I have to mix up a DIY flour blend like I did for this bread (I don’t stock Cup4Cup, so I had to follow a recipe for Mock C4C). The thing about The Plant Based Egg is that, if I use it to replace the xanthan gum in the flour blend, I then MUST use it to replace the eggs in the recipe–else the end product will be remiscent of a brick.
(You can buy The Plant Based Egg at Amazon. No I was not paid to write this comment. I simply like the product!)
alexandra says
I’m totally going to check out The Plant Based Egg … thank you! I’ve never heard of it.
Kim says
Hi Alexandra,
I have not made this bread yet, but have a question. What is the difference between active dry yeast and instant yeast? Can I use active dry yeast for this recipe, since I already have it on hand?
Thank you!
alexandra says
Yes, you can! I would combine the lukewarm water with the honey, and sprinkle the yeast over top. Let it stand till it gets foamy, 15 minutes or so, then proceed with the recipe.
Kim says
Thank you! I will try this.
Sarah Hluchy says
This is the BEST gluten free white bread recipe I’ve ever tried! I made this today to have with the white chicken chilli I had cooking in the slow cooker. I sliced it right away after taking it out of the oven. I can actually slice it thinner than I usually can with the average home made loaf; it’s not very crumbly, especially in comparison with the average GF bread; the mouthfeel is AWESOME, slightly chewy, just like really good homemade bread; and it is about as dense as a non-GF home made bread.
Mom (non-GF, but an eager guinea pig) raved about it. Daddy said “eh it’s ok,” which is actually a compliment.
This is definitely a “do-again” recipe! I’ll be using it to make sandwich buns, I think.
Some changes i was forced to make: I don’t keep C4C flour on hand because, in my experience, it isn’t quite “all purpose.” However I did have glutenfreeonashoestring’s recipe for “mock cup for cup,” so I mixed that up. Since I also don’t have xanthan gum, I used The Plant Based Egg in the flour blend, which necessitated using it to replace the eggs too (i added the appropriate amount of extra water to replace the moisture of the eggs). And i didn’t have vinegar or lemon juice, but i noticed a jar of pickles, so I used a teaspoon of pickle juice. Can’t taste the pickle, which is good because I hate them.
★★★★★
alexandra says
I am so happy to hear this, Sarah! Thanks so much for writing and for sharing your changes …it’s so helpful for others to hear especially in regard to the egg replacement. Thanks!
Noelle says
Have you made this in a loaf pan? Would that work? don’t have oven safe bowls.
alexandra says
Yes! What size loaf pan do you have? I would suggest nothing smaller than a 10×5-inch pan for the whole batch of dough. If you have a smaller loaf pan, be sure to fill it no higher than 3/4 full.
Noelle says
I think it’s a 8.5×4.5 – good call on the 3/4 full, I’ll try that. Thanks!
alexandra says
Great!
Mckayla says
I tried this recipe in half and put it into a 1 qt pyrex bowl, but it spilled over the edges in the oven, any suggestions? (I used Active dry yeast and had to add xanthum gum to it because I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten free flour)
alexandra says
Hmmm… strange. How high had the dough risen in the bowl before you stuck it in the oven? Two thoughts: don’t let it rise as high next time; use a larger bowl. Do you have a 1.5 qt bowl? Sorry for the trouble! I’ve never had an issue with spilling with this one, but I always use SAF instant yeast, and I use Cup4Cup … subtle details with bread can make big differences sometimes.
LPQ says
followed recipe however it never turned into dough. Just a very wet batter; like a cake batter. I will see if it rises but I doubt it will turn into anything edible. Not sure what I did wrong.
★
alexandra says
Did you use a scale to measure the flour? Also what brand gf flour did you use? All gf flours absorb water at different rates. Next time, I would mix up the wet ingredients, and add them slowly to the dry. Reference the video so that you can see what texture the dough should be. It’s definitely wet, but it’s not pourable.