Gluten free multiseed bread
Gluten free multiseed bread
I got a bit bored of the staple winter breakfasts that I alternate between – porridge or cinnamon bagels – and decided to shake things up a bit and make a super seedy and slightly sweet loaf of bread instead. I’m rather pleased with the end result and thought you might appreciate the recipe.
It’s studded with a selection of oh-so-good-for-you (especially for your hormones) seeds, some nuts and a small amount of cranberries. It reminds me of the nut-packed dark bread my gran used to buy in her favourite bakery in Krakow. It was the kind of loaf that was crunchy with nuts and slightly sweet with added honey and we would have some more honey on top usually. I used to love that bread! I definitely inherited my love for nuts, coffee and a general sweet tooth from my late grandma.
This bread is so easy to throw together, you’ll be laughing. It requires no yeast, kneading or proofing! Thanks to buckwheat flour it’s naturally gluten-free, yet there is no need for xanthan gum (or other gums typically added to make gluten-free dough possible) either. Ground up flax (or chia) seeds hold it together just fine. If you can throw a few ingredients into a bowl and give them a good stir, you will manage on your first go, promise.
Dry-toasting nuts and seeds isn’t necessary, but it doesn’t take that much extra effort and gives the bread a deeper flavour so it’s worth it, in my opinion.
This bread is an ideal vehicle for open sandwiches, which are a thing in my native Poland (Germany and Scandinavia too, as far as I know). Both sweet and savoury toppings work well and I can personally think of a few dozen different combinations which I am going to try out in the course of the next few weeks. I hope you’ll love this recipe as much as I do!
DRY INGREDIENTS
- 140 g / 1 heaped cup buckwheat flour*
- ¾ tsp baking soda*
- 1 tsp fine salt
- 2 tbsp ground chia seeds or flax seeds
- 85 g / heaped ½ cup almonds (walnuts or hazelnuts)
- 40 g / ¼ cup flax seeds (I used golden flax seeds), more to decorate
- 35 g / ¼ cup sesame seeds, more to decorate
- 65 g / ½ cup pumpkin seeds, more to decorate
- 70 g / ½ cup sunflower seeds, more to decorate
- 30 g / ¼ cup dried cranberries (dates, prunes or apricots)
- ground cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves (optional)*
WET INGREDIENTS
- 45 ml / 3 tbsp oil (I used mild olive oil) + more to grease the pan
- 15 ml / 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 1½ tsp apple cider vinegar (or lemon juice)
- 360 ml / 1½ cups water
- Mix the first four dry ingredients (use BAKING SODA not baking powder – video caption is incorrect!) in a large mixing bowl. Set aside.
- Set the oven to 150° C / 300° F fan forced (or 170° C / 340° F no fan) and grease a 1kg / 2lb baking tin with a bit of oil. I also recommend lining the tin with a piece of baking paper as this bread tends to stick.
- This is an optional step, but recommended! Heat up a medium size pan on a low-medium heat. Once hot, add almonds to it. Dry roast the almonds for a few minutes until fragrant and lightly browned on both sides – move them around the pan frequently so that they don’t burn. Remove the almonds from the pan and place them on a chopping board. Add pumpkin and sunflower seeds to the pan and dry roast them together, stirring frequently.
- Chop toasted almonds up roughly and if using dates, prunes or apricots rather than cranberries, remove the stones (dates) and chop them into smaller pieces too.
- In a small mixing bowl combine all the wet ingredients.
- Add cooled-down nuts, seeds and dried fruit to the dry ingredients.
- Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ones and mix well to combine. Let the batter rest for about 30-60 minutes so that ground chia or flax seeds (also known as a flax egg) have had a chance to activate (become jelly-like) in the added moisture.
- Pour the batter into the prepared baking tin and decorate the top with extra seeds before putting the bread in the oven.
- Bake for about 60 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Let the bread cool down completely before cutting into it and use a serrated knife to cut it.
*BAKING SODA: Please ignore the fact that the video calls for baking powder (instead of baking soda). It’s a typo that we didn’t spot in time. Baking soda is the correct ingredient.
*SPICES: If you intend to have this bread with sweet toppings, adding some ground spices and optionally increasing the amount of sweetness (to 2 tbsp maple syrup) is a nice idea. I would start with ½ tsp cinnamon and ¼ tsp ground ginger and nutmeg and a good pinch of cloves. For a savoury take on this bread, nigella seeds make a nice topping and olives a great substitute for dried fruit.
I recently found your page and I love it. Made this bread on the weekend (and just ate some for breaky :)
The bread is great I just have a couple of questions. Im being lazy and asking before I do the experiments myself, which I will.
I left my mix for a good hour, but I live in the tropics and think it may have absorbed\dried out a tiny bit too long? Can that be a thing?
My bread was a bit crumbly, which I don't overly mind but my 'sweet' boyfriend who I am making the GF bread for, thinks it makes it a little hard to 'handle'. :)
So, for my next round of bread making my questions are;
Do you think I rest it for less time so I don't lose any moisture?
Can I add in egg to hold it together better?
Maybe my ratios were off?
Thanks in advance.
Abby.
Delighted to hear that you enjoyed this bread and that you like my page, thank you. Hmmm, yes, possibly the bread dried out too much, although I would think that tropical climates are usually humid...Did you cover the bowl, if not it's worth trying. A few people have reported the same issue and my conclusion is that it must be to do with either their flax not being gelatinous enough (it happened to me once with pre-ground flax from a store) or maybe the bread dried out too much in the oven so less time in the oven or/and lower temperature could be the solution. I definitely recommend using scales for dry ingredients when it comes to baking as cups are an inherently imprecise way to measure. I've never added an egg for obvious reasons but it could work. Hope it will come out on point next time. Ania
how else can I bake it?
..
I am not sure as in the UK I have only seen one type and it but I am pretty sure it's the entire grain that's milled so that would be classified as brown. Hope this helps. Ania
I don’t have buckwheat or cassava flour.
Can I use chickpea flour instead of buckwheat flour?
I haven't tried making this bread with any other flours so I cannot advise. I would recommend getting buckwheat flour for best results. Ania
I didn't have buckwheat (half oats half tapioca flour instead), but will try next time. I also didn't use sunflower seeds, and instead used a small amount of sunflower butter. Did not use cranberries, and used walnuts and pumpkin seeds as the main nut/seeds. Turned out amazing.
Thanks
Third time of making this recipe today. And this time I’m using my air fryer. We have one that can lie flat and just takes a loaf tin.
thank you for your input
Glad you enjoyed the flavours. Do you use buckwheat flour a lot? If not, let me just reassure you that it does produce slightly wetter texture by default but if you would like it drier, yes, take the water amount down a bit and maybe bake for longer - you could increase the temperature a bit but the top might brown too quickly so prolong the baking time first and see what you end up with. Good luck. Ania
It was so good I’m making it again. This time with buckwheat flour , made by grinding the groats! I forgot to add the spicies though . Thank you again for sharing this awesome recipe.
I hope it comes out well but I personally never used cassava flour so I am not sure how it will behave. Not all gluten-free flours are the same - they all come from different types of plants that have different properties. Fingers crossed it worked out. Ania
More whole flax seeds or sunflower seeds, for example. Dried fruit can be replaced with olives for a savoury bread or simply more nuts/seeds. It's rather flexible. Hope you'll enjoy it! x Ania
How do you think I can avoid this in the future?
It's hard for me to comment as you changed the recipe by using oat flour, which is notoriously crumbly. It is probably more absorbent than buckwheat flour too so I would not be surprised if it needed more water. Hope your next attempt will be just perfect and good luck! x Ania
Perfect nourishing, gut friendly loaf! Thank you!
Firstly, I am sorry for taking so long to reply but my dad is very ill so I haven’t been online much lately. Sure, you can skip it, it's only added to neutralise acid, which helps this bread rise. Hope this helps! Ania
Firstly, apologies for a late reply but I've only just got back from my holidays. I am delighted to hear that you enjoy this bread and I can totally relate. I used to make it a lot, now this rye bread is my go to and I am somewhat addicted. You mean savoury suggestions to go into the dough? Sure, how about olives, finely chopped sundried tomatoes, herbs (like oregano, basil) etc.? As I am vegan myself, I haven't experimented with adding eggs or cheese, but you can give it a go if you wish. x Ania
I am sorry to hear that you weren't happy with your bread but it seems to me that a measuring error/s must have occurred. I have made this bread countless times and so many of my readers have too and none of them reported any issues with there being not enough water. When making a technical recipe like this weighing your ingredients is recommended to achieve the correct result. Ania
I will start of by saying that this is all a bit of a guesswork, but I make this sourdough bread every few days. Based on that experience, I would suggest 75 g / 2.6 oz of freshly fed starter and about 200 ml of water to compensate for all of the thirsty add-ins: nuts and seeds that are added to this bread. Hope this works out and I might work on sourdough version of this recipe when I find time. x Ania
Sure, how about replacing them with sun-dried tomatoes (dried and chopped) or just skip and stick to nuts and seeds. Hope this helps! x Ania
You should be ok swapping out 40 g of flax seeds (6th ingredient from the top), but ground flax (4th from the top) is needed as it's what holds the bread together. Ground chia seeds could be used instead. Hope this helps! Ania
That's fantastic, I am delighted to hear that you made it and are enjoying it. You can use sunfower seeds, flax seeds, chopped up walnuts, hazelnuts and even some chopped up apricots or figs if you like it to be slightly sweet. Thank you for taking the time to review, I really appreciate it. x Ania
No, there is no need. I am using raw buckwheat flour, not buckweat groats. You could use buckwheat grouts milled into a flour in a coffee grinder, but if you were to do that make sure to buy raw (they are greenish in colour) buckwheat grouts, not roasted (known as kasha) as they are different. Hope this helps! Ania
I don't have a bread machine, unfortunately but this bread does not require kneading at all so not sure whether bread machine would be of any use here? Ania
Glad to hear you loved the bread and the colour isn't an issue, is it? It's probably down to the colour of your buckwheat flour? I assume you used raw buckwheat flour, not roasted - that would certainly make it much darker (and give it a different flavour). Ania