Gluten-Free Bread: Dark Teff Sandwich Bread

I’ve decided to start a new series of posts dedicated to trying out different gluten-free bread recipes from around the Internet. Basically all the gluten-free bread you can buy at a store is unsatisfying, so we make our own using a bread machine. Here’s our guide to gluten-free bread machines. We also use the bread machine program recommended by Analise Roberts in her book about cooking bread with bread machines.

We already have a favorite gluten-free bread, but I think that it’s good to experiment and try new things. You never know when you’re going to find something better. This week I tried out an interesting recipe from the Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen. It’s their Dark Teff Sandwich Bread. I made some small changes to the recipe.

1 ½ cups warm water
1 package dry active yeast
1 teaspoon organic cane sugar
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or grapeseed oil
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons ground flax seeds
2 cups teff flour
½ cup arrowroot powder
½ cup tapioca flour
1 ½ teaspoons xanthan gum
¼ teaspoons sea salt

I’ve bumped down the salt quite a bit and removed some of the sweetener choices. The star of the show in this bread is teff. Teff is known for being very nutritious. Among other things, it is high in phosphorus, has a very high calcium content, and contains plenty of iron, copper, aluminum, barium, and thiamin. Teff is also high in protein. Arrowroot powder and tapioca flour are both more starchy flours, and aren’t amazingly good for you. Here is nutrition information for teff, tapioca, and arrowroot.

The recipe on the Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen’s site is for making the bread by hand, but my plan is to make all these recipes with our bread machine. Mostly because that’s the way it’s going to work for us in “real life.” As such, I’m going to rewrite the directions here. Basically, it amounts to mixing the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients. Then adding them to your breadmaker per the manufacturer’s instructions.

In addition to measuring, one thing we’re especially careful about is making sure that everything is the proper temperature. So the water needs to be between 100 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. I’m pretty sure that everything else can be added at room temperature.

Here’s the finished loaf. Yes. Yes. We were underwhelmed by the amount it rose. I want to keep in mind that a short loaf like this could very well be my fault. With bread, it’s hard to see something as a pattern until you’ve made the same recipe a number of times. It could also be the program I’m using on the bread machine. As could be expected from the amount it rose, the bread is pretty dense. Teff has a sort of sour nutty flavor, and the finished bread tastes almost like a mild dark rye bread.

The name of the bread includes “sandwich,” which to me means that it’s probably going to be a lighter bread that doesn’t have so much flavor that you can’t taste anything else in your sandwich. We found that to be the case with this bread. The bread doesn’t really toast much, but on the good side that means it isn’t easy to burn in the toaster. While it doesn’t exactly shine with some butter and honey or jam on it, the bread is very good for sandwiches.

My favorite application for this bread so far has been with eggs. There’s something about the flavor of the bread that makes it go really well with egg yolks. I bet it would make for a great egg sandwich. Sienna and I both liked this bread and we agreed that we should do some more experimenting with it. Here’s how it does with our new-fangled scoring system.

Easy to Make: 3 out of 5
Sandwich Bread: 3 out of 5
Toast Bread: 2 out of 5
Overall Score: 3 out of 5

We’re almost out of bread and are looking for another recipe to make. Do you have a favorite gluten-free bread recipe? Send us an email or leave a comment here!