This rustic loaf offers a thin, chewy, golden crust full of a rye/wheat-like taste, which is neat considering it’s gluten-free. The interior is moist, soft, and dotted with flaxseed — a nice contrast with the thin, chewy, rustic crust. And it smells wonderful in a heady, bread-y kind of way. 
Bakers will recognize the preheated-pot baking method, which captures the steam necessary for creating the artisan-style crust, as a technique from Jim Lahey of New York’s Sullivan Street Bakery that was popularized by Mark Bittman.
Unfortunately, most of the photos are of bread half-eaten. We often dig right in and forget about taking photos. Then at some point, someone (usually me) blurts out (with bread stuffed in the mouth), “Bwrey! Woh nod to tok a photo!” (Translation: Hey! We need to take a photo!) I’ve posted photos of Neat Bread (look for the flaxseed) and also a version of Neat Bread that does not involve flaxseed. Both have a similar crust and interior structure.
YIELD
About 6 servings of bread
INGREDIENTS
2 T ground flaxseed plus 6 T warm or hot water
1 t dry active yeast plus pinch sugar plus 1/4 c warm water
1 1/4 c Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose Baking Mix
1 1/4 c rice flour
1/4 c glutinous rice flour
1/2 c tapioca starch
2 T sugar
2 t xanthan gum
1 1/8 t unbleached sea salt, freshly and finely ground
scant 1 1/4 c to 2 c warm water (roughly speaking)
DIRECTIONS
In small bowl, proof yeast by adding yeast, pinch sugar, and 1/4 c warm water and mixing. If it bubbles in about 10 min., the yeast is alike and kicking. Wait till it almost doubles in bulk. If it doesn’t ever bubble, discard and repeat with a fresh t of yeast. Set aside.
In another small bowl, mix flaxseed and 6 T warm or hot water. Set aside 5 min to 10 min.
In a large bowl, mix remaining dry ingredients. Add flaxseed mixture and yeast mixture. Gradually add just enough of remaining warm water to make a sticky, thick dough. Mix with chopsticks or fork; do not use hands, as dough will be too sticky. The resulting dough will seem like a conventional wheat dough that needs maybe 1 c more flour, or it will seem like a too thick conventional wheat muffin batter. Aim for a doughy batter (or batter-like dough) that falls off your chopsticks in a satisfying clump, that doesn’t cling too hard to your implement, but that doesn’t slide off too easily either.
Oil a medium size bowl large enough to accommodate roughly twice the volume of the dough. Using an oiled rubber spatula, transfer batter to bowl. Use spatula to smooth/style top of dough however you like (opt). Loosely cover bowl with cloth, lid, or plastic wrap. Let rise undisturbed in a draft-free place till roughly double in bulk.
Preheat oven about 450 F. About 30 minutes before baking, place into preheated oven a large cast iron pot with lid on.
Remove pot from oven. Remove lid. With bowl in hand, slide dough into pot, using an oiled rubber spatula to push dough along if necessary. (Don’t worry if it’s misshapen; odd shapes often look better.) Quickly put lid back on and return covered pot to oven. You want to do this as quickly as possible to avoid losing too much heat from the pot interior. Be careful. Pot is HOT!
Cook 30 min. Remove lid and cook until crust is golden brown, about 15 minutes.
Remove from oven. Transfer loaf to cooling rack. Cool completely or till slightly warm before eating. Do NOT slice while still hot/very warm; doing so will cause bread interior to be undercooked.
NOTES
- For a nice artisan like touch, sprinkle corn meal or rice flour on top of the dough just before slipping it into the hot pot.
- If dough flips over lands upside down into pot, consider quickly smoothing top of dough with a wet rubber spatula, then sprinkling a bit of rice flour on top of dough. Dough that lands upside down into the pot cooks just as well as dough that lands right side up, but trust me, the crust looks funky in a not-so-nice way if you don’t alter it with a rubber spatula.
- Different method: Instead of using the oiled bowl method, spread parchment paper on work surface. Sprinkle rice flour onto paper. Turn risen dough onto paper. Sprinkle with rice flour. Gathering the corners of the parchment paper, flip dough into pot. Cook as instructed.
- One popular alternative way of getting the dough into the pot is to let the dough rise on a piece of parchment paper, then place the parchment paper (with dough on top) into the pot. This is ideal, since it doesn’t disturb the dough like the two methods do and end up reducing the rise. However, I’m not a fan of this method since, (A) my parchment paper is tested for safety at up to 425 F degrees — and I cook my bread at at least 450 F, and (B) parchment paper is coated with silicone and chemicals, and I necessarily trust these things next to food being cooked at high temperatures. i.e., I’m concerned those chemicials might do some nasty degrading onto my food at such high temperatures. I haven’t read anything to support this concern; however, I haven’t read anything that allays my fears either.
- I use a 5 quart Le Creuset enamel covered, cast iron pot.
- If your loaf is overly moist on the inside, try reducing the amount of water added. Aim for a thicker (but still overly sticky) dough.
- To avoid burning myself, I use a sturdy wooden spatula to remove the bread from the pot.I’m working on removing the xanthan gum, as I would prefer to simplify the recipe. Xanthan gum is not sold on the island where I live.
- I plan to offer a substitute for Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All-Purpose Baking Mix, but right now that’s one of the few gluten-free flours I can find in Saipan. I plan to put together a mix of sorghum, millet, and maybe garbanzo flour, potato or arrowroot starch, and more tapioca starch. But first I have to order that stuff online and wait for it to arrive, which could take weeks or more than a month. Will post once I figure it out.
SOURCE
Self
