Gluten free sourdough brown rice bread

Grains are not really my thing. Being a blood type O non secretor, the category of foods called “grains” is not a kind of food that my body metabolizes or digests easily. They actually can create quite a bit of chaos in…me. But perhaps not in you. It all depends on your blood type and/or your GenoType.

I can eat a few of them like rice, teff and quinoa. That’s about it. And even then in small quantities. And it suits my health fine.

But sometimes I just love a slice of bread and finding one that suits me was a challenge. So I made my own. The recipe below is made with brown rice flour and it’s leavened with sourdough made with rice flour which makes the bread so much more digestible. In addition, the fermentation process heightens the taste by bringing out aromatic compounds making the bread so much more delicious.

I learned how to make it with Sharon Kane’s book, The Art of Gluten-free Sourdough Baking.

This is of course a gluten-free bread. However, I avoid putting those two words together as I feel it is not a rule to live by and can be misleading in making people think they are making the right choice for their health. There is so much more to choosing the right foods for your body than following a gluten and/or dairy free diet. That is the beauty of Dr Peter D’Adamo’s work. You can find out how to benefit from a personalized approach to nutrition by clicking here.

Back to the bread.

The difference with classic sourdough breads where the leaven is a small part of the ingredients, in this recipe the leaven is a large part.

It also contains other ingredients beneficial for everyone’s health: lin seeds, chia seeds and arrowroot powder. The chia seeds give it structure and increase the lifespan of the bread, the lin seeds also contribute to the structure of the bread, the arrowroot is beneficial for digestion and acts as a thickener.

There is no corn, buckwheat, guar gum, coconut flour, potato flour, tapioca. These ingredients that can be a problem for so many people.

The sourdough

The first step is to get your sourdough going. It will take a few days for it to be ready for bread making. The warmer the temperature the faster the bacteria will do their work. If you have a wood stove burning, put the jar next to it. It will appreciate the gentle heat. Otherwise place it in the warmest part of the house.

Ingredients:

Brown rice flour, 30g (1 oz)
Water, 30g (1 oz in weight)
Fermentation helper: kefir or whey, 2 tsp

Prepare a 1 liter (1 quart) mason jar type container. Put it on your scales and add 30g of brown rice flour and 30 g of water. Use filtered water. The chlorine in tap water could inhibit the fermentation process. Mix well.

Add a fermentation “helper” like water kefir. I have been making it myself for years. It’s a great way of getting probiotics in your body. Otherwise you can add some whey drained out from a pot of yoghurt or fresh cheese. Whatever you choose add 2 tsp and mix well.

I have also made my sourdough without this “helper” and it turned out fine. I had simply forgotten!

Place the jar in a warm area of your kitchen or home. If the temperature is cool the fermentation process will just take a bit longer.

Cover with a kitchen towel to keep the insects out.

This is what the sourdough looks like after a few days of feeding: bubbly!

Feeding your sourdough

Every day, twice a day, in the morning and evening, add 30 g of whole rice flour and 30 g of water.

After about 1 or 2 days you will see bubbles appear on the surface and on the sides of the glass jar as in the photo. It’s a good sign. Your sourdough is on it’s way.

It should also have a pleasant smell with a slightly acidic edge.

You’ll be able to make your first bread when you have about 900 ml of sourdough (3 and ¾ cups): 3 cups for the bread and the rest to continue making the sourdough. This will take about 5-6 days.

Remember, above I mentioned that for this type of rice flour sourdough bread you need a bigger quantity of sourdough than for a normal wheat or spelt sourdough bread.

You can also increase the speed of the sourdough making by adding 50g of rice flour and 50g of water.

Recipe : Brown rice sourdough bread

Ingredients :

3 cups sourdough (750 ml)
2,5 ounces (70 g) brown rice flour
1 Tbsp chia seeds
7 Tbsp ground lin seeds
5 Tbsp arrowroot powder
1 tsp salt

Start by preparing a chia seed gel. Mix the chia seeds in ½ cup of water. Whisk every now and again, while preparing the other ingredients so you don’t get clumps. The gel should be somewhat congealed. You can also prepare the gel in advance the day before and leave it to thicken in the fridge.

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Pour in a rectangular cake mold (mould for the UK!) lined with parchment paper.

Let rise for 7 hours or overnight, next to a heat source if possible.

Heat the oven to 180 ° Celsius (350° Fahrenheit). Cook for one hour. Take out of the oven and let cool on a rack.

Don’t forget to taste a piece of the hot bread with fresh raw farm butter!

Feeding your sourdough after your first bread making

You now need to feed the sourdough leftover from making the bread. Use the same procedure as above: feed morning and night with 30g of rice flour and 30 g of water. It will take about 5-6 days before you can make another loaf of bread.

If you leave on holiday or if you don’t want to make bread again so soon, you can use up the entire amount of sourdough. Just make sure you adjust the ingredients according to the amount of sourdough. You may just have a bigger loaf of bread. When you are ready to make bread again go through the whole procedure from the beginning.

You could also, probabIy (but I haven’t tried it yet) leave some sourdough dormant in the fridge while you’re away. I just use it all up and make it again when I come back.

NOTE : I have noticed that when my sourdough is young the bread rises less easily. When it is more mature (meaning when I have been making it from the leftover sourdough for some weeks or months) the bread rises better, as if the sourdough starter had more punch to it.