This delicious gluten-free sandwich bread captures long forgotten flavors of a bitter "wheaty" whole grain bread. It does this using high protein flours that have deep and complex undertones: teff, amaranth and buckwheat. In addition, it is slightly sweetened with molasses. Paired with flaxseed meal, this combination gives us a beautiful brown coloration and a whole grain bitter feel/taste we all miss!
This bread is a type of gluten-free bread I like to call "batter bread". The dough feels more like you're baking a cake than a bread. It's runny. And it's okay! Gluten-Free on a Shoestring has an excellent artisan bread that uses the batter method. If you're curious about appropriate flour substitutions, please check out my Ultimate Flour Guide!
Now that you're hooked and want to bake this gluten-free whole grain bread, make sure you take a look at the gallery so you know what to expect with each step!
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Ingredients
The most difficult part of this recipe is sourcing the flour ingredients, the rest is really quite easy-peasy. I buy in bulk, and it costs me $7.12 (as of December 2023) of flour for one loaf. I am developing more affordable bread recipes, but for this "wheaty" loaf, we really need some of the more expensive gluten-free flours like amaranth and teff. Super worth it, and still more affordable than store bread.
- Amaranth flour
- Teff flour
- Buckwheat flour
- Tapioca starch
- Potato starch
- Xanthan gum
- Pectin
- Hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) - please see ingredient substitutions for a version using psyllium husks
- Salt
- Instant yeast
- Flaxseed meal
- Molasses
- Butter (dairy or vegan)
- Egg whites
- Apple cider vinegar
- Water
Instructions
Making the Pullman Pan
If you don't own a pullman pan, the first step is to create a makeshift one with aluminum foil. Raising the sides of your regular pan supports the rise of gluten-free bread.
I don't have affiliate marketing set up (yet), but I still want you to know which pan I use: it's this 9x4x4 inch pan. It's ~$20 and it's an amazing investment if you think you're gonna be making lots of gluten-free sandwich breads. Get the one with no lid.
Making the Dough
Mix all the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.
If you are using HPMC/xanthan/pectin mix as your hydrocolloid, please note that your batter will be more "runny", like pancake batter. That's because unlike psyllium, those hydrocolloids don't gel until higher temperatures are reached.
Smooth out the batter with wet fingers.
Rising
Cover the pullman pan with a piece of greased cling wrap. The pan underneath it is there in case of overproofing, to collect dough.
If using the Pullman pan I described, the bread should rise to about 3 inches total height, before going in the oven. Any more will be overproofed.
My mantra: It is always better to underproof than overproof!
Score a relief mark with a knife, about one inch deep.
Remove the middle oven rack prior to placing the loaf in the preheated 400F oven; it needs at least 5 inches of head space to complete its oven rise.
Baking
Another bread mantra: It is always better to overbake than underbake! If the instant thermometer reads less than 210F, put the loaf back in the oven a few minutes.
Take the bread out of the pullman pan once it has reached 210F. Turn off the oven, and place the bread back in the oven to slowly cool and evaporate more water. This builds structure.
After the bread has oven cooled for at least an hour, cover it with a tea towel and let it cool completely for at least 5 hours on the counter.
Hint: I like my bread to oven cool directly on the oven rack (no more baking tray), so air can circulate evenly and dry out the bottom; this helps avoid gummy bread bottoms.
Substitutions
- Dairy-Free: Yep, easy just choose a vegan butter, or your oil of choice!
- Egg-Free: In development.
- HPMC-Free: I am aware that HPMC is hard to source and is expensive. I get mine in bulk from the Modernist Pantry. Do you live in CA? Well, you could purchase the flour ingredient bread mix from me! Or...
- Subbing HPMC: Omit HPMC/xanthan gum/pectin altogether. Replace all 3 of those with 18 grams of psyllium husk powder (or 22 grams whole psyllium).
- Furthermore, instead of the 420 grams of water the recipe calls for, you will need 490 grams of water total; the psyllium husks should be gelatinized in 200 grams of water, and the remaining 290 grams of water will be added to the stand mixer. Use hot water, add the husks to the water while mixing. You can use an immersion blender if you have clumps.
Variations
You can get super creative here with ad-ons!
- Seeded loaf - add your favorites, like sunflower and poppy seeds!
- Black olives - give this bread a little tang with black olives!
- Less bitter - if you find this bread too bitter, replace some of the amaranth with more buckwheat.
Equipment
You must have
- a pullman pan, or a makeshift pullman pan, to support the rise of this bread; see images in the instructions section above.
- an instant read thermometer is crucial to check the internal bread temperature, and a must investment for a successful gluten-free baking journey
- a kitchen scale, which I have two of myself: a regular kitchen scale and a coffee scale for small quantities like yeast, salt and pectin
- a stand mixer with a paddle attachment makes this much easier, though you could use an electric mixer and a lot of patience!
Storage
I keep my bread in a reusable bread bag on the counter. You could also keep it wrapped in a tea towel. In my family, we eat this pretty quickly and it keeps fantastic for 3 days on the counter. We tend to toast ours on day 3 though.
If you won't use it within 3 days, I suggest cutting individual slices, wrapping tightly in cling wrap, and storing in a Ziploc bag in the freezer. Thaw to room temperature as needed, and preferably toast.
Top tip
Bread rises at different rates depending on the climate, flour temperature and water temperature. If it is cold in my house, I like using hot water (~110F) to create a warm dough environment, but if it is a hot summer day, I'll use warm water (~90F) to decrease the risks of a quick rise and overproving. See my thermodynamics lesson to understand optimal dough temperature.
FAQs
Unlike its gluten counterpart, this bread requires no kneading. Weigh dry and wet ingredients, combine in the stand mixer and let the paddle attachment do its work! The bread only undergoes one rise, and it's already time to bake! The hardest part about this recipe is sourcing your ingredients.
No, I'm sorry. It's not that I don't want to help you, on the contrary: I want to set you up for success. Weight measurements are crucial for success in gluten-free baking, as they are more precise; the hydration ratio here has been carefully calculated by weight and using volume measurements will simply not give you consistent results (for example, I calculated you would need 0.57 cup of teff flour for this recipe, that's very hard to measure). I did include volume measurements for some of the smaller amounts like salt. Please know that for non-bread recipes, I have included volume measurements.
I have not tested this recipe with a bread machine (I don't yet own one). A common problem with bread machines is that they mix/rise too long and don't bake long enough. Remember, gluten-free breads are over 100% hydration while regular wheat bread is around 60%. We need more time to evaporate that water, and so I often see "fail" pictures of gluten-free breads in bread machines that are sunk in and raw in the middle. I know it's a popular ask, and if I figure it out, I will update this page!
Please see this visual bread troubleshooting guide for common problems and how to avoid them.
Related
Looking for more bread recipes? Try these!
Gluten-Free Easy "Wheaty" Bread
Equipment
- 1 Stand Mixer
- 1 Pullman Pan
- 1 Instant-Read Thermometer
Ingredients
Flour Ingredient
- 80 grams teff flour
- 80 grams buckwheat flour
- 55 grams amaranth flour
- 107 grams potato starch
- 108 grams tapioca starch
- 5 grams HPMC please see substitution section if you wish to use psyllium husks instead
- 8 grams xanthan gum
- 7 grams pectin
Dry Ingredients
- 8 grams salt 1-¼ teaspoon
- 6 grams instant yeast 2-¼ teaspoon
Flax Egg
- 7 grams flaxseed meal 1 tablespoon
- 20 grams water warm, 110F
Liquid Ingredients
- 10 grams molasses
- 35 grams butter melted
- 90 grams egg whites room temperature
- 10 grams apple cider vinegar
- 420 grams water warm, 110F
Instructions
Make the Flour Mix
- Carefully weigh and mix together all the flour ingredients, in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Please note that if you keep your gluten-free flours refrigerated or frozen, they must come to room temperature first.
Dry Ingredients
- Carefully weigh and add the salt and yeast to the bowl of your stand mixer.
Flax Egg
- In a small glass, add the flaxseed meal and the 20 grams of warm water. Mix until gelatinized (~10 seconds). Set aside.
Liquid Ingredients
- Weigh all the liquid ingredients and set them aside, each in a different container, with the water being last.
- Weigh the warm water. It should be 100-110F, which is roughly comfortable bath water for a child.
Mixing
- Add the flax egg and all the liquid ingredients to the bowl of your stand mixer, still fitted with the paddle attachment.
- Turn it on medium speed and set an 8 minute timer. You may need to scrape the sides after 4 minutes to ensure everything is well incorporated. The dough should look and feel like pancake batter, it's normal!
Preparing to Rise
- Meanwhile, grease a pullman pan (4x4x9 inches). If you do not have a pullman pan, you must make an aluminum collar on your regular pan so that the pan is at least 4 inch tall, to support the dough rising.
- Pour the dough-batter into the pullman pan.
- Smooth the top of the dough with wet fingers. Tap the pan on the counter to get rid of air bubbles.
- Cover the pullman pan with greased plastic wrap and place the bread pan on top of a baking sheet. The baking sheet "catches" overproofed dough (this happened to me a few times and made a huge mess, just better be safe than sorry!)
Rising
- Let the dough-batter rise until it has risen 170% (in a Pullman pan, it's at 3 inch height). It's better to underproof than overproof!
- The dough rising is a function of yeast activity, not time. Sometimes it takes 30 minutes, sometimes it takes over an hour! Be patient. You may turn the oven on for 2 minutes, turn it off and then let your bread rise in the warm environment.
- When the rise is almost complete, preheat the oven to 400F. (Remove the bread from the oven if it proofed there!)*Make sure there is at least 5 inches between the two racks in your oven, the dough rises a lot!
Baking
- Before putting the bread in the oven, use a knife to score a relief mark down the length of the dough-batter. Use a wet knife, as the dough is too sticky to properly score.
- Bake for 55 minutes (leave the bread pan in the baking sheet, again just to prevent messes). It is better to overbake, than underbake.
- The bread is done baking when the internal temperature is 210F.
- At this point, turn the oven off, take the bread out of the pullman pan.
- Return the bread to the turned off oven and leave the door slightly ajar.
Cooling
- Leave the bread to cool in the oven for at least an hour.
- Wrap the bread in a tea towel, and cool on a cooling rack another 5 hours and preferably overnight.
Storing
- Once you have waited at least 5 hours for the bread to fully cool, you may slice into it!
- Store the bread at room temperature in a bread bag or wrapped in a tea towel, for up to 3 days.
- You may also store sliced bread wrapped in plastic, and in a ziploc bag, for a month in the freezer.
- Thaw bread as needed, to eat toasted or untoasted.
Nutrition
Are you looking to bake more gluten-free breads without psyllium husks? Check out these gluten-free sweet brioche hamburger buns!
Kristin Memula
This bread is easy to make and delicious!! We devoured it fresh and I froze a few pieces and it toasts up fabulously as well. I will absolutely make this bread again.
Naelle @ GlutenFreeDIYers
So glad to hear it! The hardest part really is getting the ingredients!
Colleen Cook
The recipe is well written. Most of the active time is measuring out ingredients. The bread came out beautifully. It did not collapse at all and the texture is amazing. This is soft bread, softest we have had in the 14 years since a family member was diagnosed with celiac.
Naelle @ GlutenFreeDIYers
Yay, thank you! Here's to good gluten-free soft bread!
Cathleen
Wow, this bread looks perfect! I can't believe that it's gluten free! Bookmarked to make tomorrow, thanks so much for sharing ;)
Gianne
It's the perfect option for those with gluten sensitivities and the dairy-free option makes it even better. The taste and texture are fantastic, truly a game-changer!
Eileen Kelly
This gluten-free wheat bread has been a hit for me with my girls. They are gluten free and I have had so much trouble finding the right bread and this one was a hit. They love the flavor and it will be made often.
Kechi
What a perfect load of bread! I rarely bake bread but I have bookmarked to bake tomorrow and I can’t wait!!!
Kushigalu
Baked to perfection. This bread looks fantastic. Thanks for sharing.