Gluten-Free Baguettes

It’s been years since I’ve made a yeast bread, my past efforts being completely underwhelming. But the other day I had a craving for my favorite kind of bread, a rich, crusty baguette. It’s not like I can just head down to the supermarket or local bakery and buy one there, not a gluten-free baguette anyway. So I jumped online and looked for some recipes for making them myself. We’d already found a great gluten-free baking mix in bulk the previous weekend (because gluten-free flour gets really pricey if you’re buying small amounts). I had no excuse not to make my own bread.

And I think I did pretty well in the end! My dough shaping and forming skills could be better – the baguettes pictured here came out a little lumpy (but no less delicious). This recipe is a combination from two wonderful blogs, Bread & Companatico and Art of Gluten-Free Baking. I tried the version that uses two egg whites and one whole egg instead of three egg whites. I think from now on I will stick to the three egg whites because when I think baguette, I think of a lighter style than what is shown here.

3 cups Namaste Foods Gluten Free Perfect Flour Blend

(this is my current favorite gluten free flour – if you want to create your own for this recipe, use one cup each of sorghum flour, brown rice flour and tapioca flour, plus two teaspoons xanthan gum; the Namaste flour has the xanthan gum already mixed in)

1 ½ tsp. sea salt

1 T. honey

2 T. active dry yeast

1 cup warm water (110 degrees F)

1 T. olive oil

1 tsp. apple cider vinegar

3 egg whites

Rice flour for dusting

Place flour and salt into the bowl of a heavy duty stand mixer. Mix to combine.

In a small bowl, dissolve the honey in the water and then dissolve the yeast. Wait several minutes for the yeast to foam and rise. Add the oil, vinegar and egg whites to the dry ingredients. Add the yeast mixture to these ingredients in the mixer bowl and mix slowly to combine for a minute or two. I used the flat mixer attachment, not the wire whisk beater or dough hook for this.

Turn mixer to high speed and mix for three more minutes. Pull the dough from the beater and turn the ball of dough into a large bowl. Cover with a towel and allow to rise in a warm place for 45 minutes.

Remove the dough from the bowl and separate into two halves. Spray a baking sheet lightly with olive oil and shape the dough into two long oblong baguette loaves. Taper the ends. Using a sharp knife, slash the top of each baguette diagonally three times. Cover the loaves with the towel again and allow to rise for another 30 minutes. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 475 degrees F. Pour some water into a large pan and place on the bottom rack of the oven. Allow this water to heat with the oven.

When the loaves are ready to bake, dust the tops with some rice flour and then place in the oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Enjoy the same day. If you must store them, place in a bread box or leave out uncovered.

Posted by Andrea & filed under Breads. This post has 5 comments.