Cook: Delicious Home-made Bread ‘made with Yeast’. Gluten Free. Two Ways

Miss Veronica Cook provided this recipe in 1931.

‘Home-made and made with Yeast’

Florence White is full of wonderful tips for baking breads – both different yeasted breads and soda breads.

She tells us that many of the old recipes require ale yeast, which we know of as Brewer’s Yeast or Nutritional Yeast. I had always thought that this yeast was inactive, but I notice in the ale yeast recipes, the cooks double the amount of the compressed yeast equivalent.

Compressed yeast is not the same as the quick dried yeast that we buy today for our bread machine breads – but we can still find it easily. I bought mine at The Grocery, Hoxton whole food supermarket – but it’s no doubt possible to find it at quality supermarkets too.

This loaf of bread was incredibly easy even without a bread machine.

I used the active yeast (Allinson’s brand), not a dried yeast, and followed Miss Veronica Cook’s instructions to the letter in order to activate it. My son and I had enormous pleasure watching it grow to 20 times its size in a bowl before I added it to the other ingredients after 15 minutes.

There are many breads in Good Things In England. Most of them are ‘teacake’ style – small buns as opposed to loaves. There are several soda loaves, leavened with bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar. And just a couple of yeast loaves.

Here is one of them, given my gluten free treatment. There is another called simply “Quickly Made Bread”. Honestly, that could so easily apply to this one too!

Let your bread rise and bake as you complete your morning’s work, and you’ll have fresh “Delicious Home-made Bread” for lunch.

I made two slightly different loaves at once and herewith is how… the title, by the way, is 100% Florence White (except the words Gluten Free)

Delicous Home-made Gluten Free Bread, ‘made with Yeast’

Preparation Time: 20 mins

Cooking Time: 40 mins

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ tbsp active Yeast
• 1 tsp sugar to feed the yeast
• 150ml warm water (⅔ cold, ⅓ boiling)
• 1 ½ cups of sourdough starter ( I used this because I have it and I love the flavour and nutrition it adds) – OR
• 1 cup buckwheat flour with
• ½ cup extra water – AND
• 1 cup organic chickpea flour
• 1 cup organic rice flour
• ½ cup organic flax seed meal
• 1 tsp xanthum gum
• 1 tbsp organic rapadura (can’t be xylitol as the yeast won’t grow)
• 1 tsp nutmeg (or your favourite spice)
• 1 tsp sea salt
• ½ cup rice milk or any milk of your choice, at room temperature
• ½ cup warm water

Makes One Small Sandwich Loaf and One Foccaccia-style Loaf

For the Foccaccia Loaf:

Top with fresh rosemary, sea salt crystals and a generous spattering of olive oil over the top and around the pan’s edges.

Method:

1. In a 600ml measuring jug, put the 150ml warm water, 1 tsp sugar and 1 ½ tbsps of active yeast. Whisk well until dissolved and leave to grow for 15minutes. When there is a fluffy brown foam covering, the yeast is ready to use.

2. While the yeast grows, in a mixing bowl combine the sifted flours and all other

ingredients. Add the water and rice milk slowly, to ensure you don’t put too much. Gluten Free bread needs to be wetter than wheat bread, but remember, when you add the yeast, you’ll be adding another 150ml of water, so don’t overdo it too soon.

3. When the yeast is ready, add it to your mixture, folding as you go. Make sure it’s all well combined – but remember, there’s no gluten to develop, so no need to knead.

4. When you are confident that the mixture is the right consistency, wet, without being

soppy, leave it to rise for about an hour. I left mine for almost two hours, because I wanted to give the sourdough that bit of extra time to work too. And it’s cold in London right now! The hotter the weather, the quicker the rise.

5. Once it had doubled in size and looked a bit like this, I put it into two pans.

6. Firstly, I greased the pans with plenty of Coconut Oil and scattered some gluten free organic muesli

(no added sugar, with amaranth seeds) around the inside to help prevent sticking.

7. I poured the mix into the two pans, putting ⅔ of the mix into the small metal loaf pan and ⅓ into a slightly wider ceramic dish to make the Foccaccia loaf.

8. On the Foccaccia loaf, I generously scattered sea salt, crushed peppercorns, rosemary sprigs from the garden and sloshed around some rich Extra Virgin Olive Oil over the top and into the sides.

9. I left them to prove for half an hour and turned the oven on

to 230°. I placed a baking tray full of hot water into the bottom of the oven to ensure a crisp, browned crust from a steamy oven. I also placed a heavy base biscuit tray on the oven rack, so that the bread could be placed on something piping hot for a great hot start to the baking.

10. In the Foccaccia, I pricked a few gentle holes with the point of a knife.

11. I placed them in the oven and cooked at 230° for 7 minutes.

12. Turn down the oven to 200° and cook for a further 30 minutes.

13. Take them out of the oven (Foccaccia first as it’s thinner).

14. Cool for a few minutes in the pan, then turn onto a wire rack that you have covered in a tea towel.

15. Leave to cool, then wrap in a tea towel and store in your breadbox. After you’ve had some lovely soft, crunchy-crusted slices for lunch with fresh butter, that is.

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