Do you feed more than one mouth with Gluten Free bread? Prefer to stock up the freezer and bake less often? Then an X Large Brown loaf is the answer for you.
This brown bread flour mix from FG Roberts yields a slightly denser and flavoursome artisan crumb and has the most amazing smell and flavour. This makes an excellent sandwich bread, with a satisfying flavour.
Because the brown bread mix doesn’t have quite the same lift as the traditional white, I have modified the brown sandwich recipe to fit my XL pan. Being a denser crumb, I created a whopping 1.2kg loaf! That’s my bread needs for the week covered in just one bake.
I prefer to brush or spray my brown bread with either olive or rice bran oil. This gives the crust that deep, golden golden crust. Then give your loaf a light spritz of water immediately before popping in the oven, to keep the crust from forming too quickly. Voile! You will have a fabulously smooth and crisp crust that isn’t chewy.
Keep in mind that this brown bread mix from Gluten Free World will not have an initial lift in the oven like the white bread mixes will do. You will still see a slight post in height but it will not be quite so much as a white bread loaf.
To freeze a gluten free loaf, wait until it’s completely cold before slicing, then pop little squares of baking paper between the slices. This stops the slices sticking together once frozen. Easy peasy.
Recipe
XL Brown Sandwich Loaf
This recipe is scaled to fit an x-large loaf pan with the dimensions of 29.5 cm x 12 cm x 11 cm
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon salt
10 grams sugar
12 grams dry active yeast
30 grams olive oil
6 grams white vinegar
900 grams warm water, heated to 40 degrees celsius
Directions:
Heat oven to 210 degrees celsius.
Lightly grease a jumbo loaf pan. I prefer to spray mine lightly with rice bran oil.
Warm the water to 40 degrees celsius
Place the warm water and sugar into a bowl, stir to dissolve.
Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water, gently mix in.
Cover and allow the yeast to bloom.
Once the yeast has bloomed, it will look like a layer of cream on top of the water.
Add the oil, vinegar, bread flour and lastly the salt
Mix until a dough is formed. Don't worry it's going to look a bit shaggy at this stage!
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth.
For my jumbo loaf bakes, I prefer to halve the dough and then shape into two equal balls.
Place the balls beside each other in the jumbo loaf pan, allowing equal space around the balls of dough.
Cover with lightly oiled cling wrap or a damp cotton towel.
Prove in a warm place until double in size.
Once double in size, remove the cling wrap.
Glaze with your choice of either oil or egg and seeds or choice.
Lightly spritz with water before popping in the oven.
Once in the oven, turn the oven down to 200 degrees celsius and bake 13 minutes.
After 10 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 175 degrees celsius for a further 65 minutes.
Turn out onto a wire rack to cool immediately.
Do not leave in the pan or you will have a soggy bottom from condensation. No-one likes a soggy bottom!
Important: Allow the loaf to be completely cold before slicing.
Notes:
For a crusty top, glaze with oil. I spray mine with a little rice bran oil.
For seeds, brush lightly with beaten egg first then sprinkle over your seeds of choice.
Always lightly spritz with water before placing in the oven as this will assist the crust to form more slowly, resulting in a finer crust.
Placing a pan of water in the bottom of your oven helps the loaf to retain moisture while baking.