Kuechli's wonderful gluten-free wood-fired bread

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 200 g flour, gluten-free
• 200 ml water, warm
• 1 cube of yeast
• 75 g grains, gluten-free (buckwheat, millet, quinoa, amaranth, etc.)
• 225 ml water
• 600 g flour, gluten-free
• 150 ml water, warm
• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 150 g sourdough, gluten-free, if necessary
• 1 cube of yeast
• 3 tsp, leveled salt
• 50 g flaxseed
• 50 g psyllium husks
• 1 handful of seeds (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, etc.)
• Flour, gluten-free, for the proving baskets

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour; Rest time approx. 5 hours; Cooking/baking time approx. 1 hour; Total time approx. 7 hours

with firebrick also possible in a normal oven, makes 2 loaves

To prepare the cooked grains (soup), boil 75g of gluten-free grains in 225ml of water for about 30 minutes. Bring to a boil once, then simmer over medium heat. Turn off and let stand while the grains absorb the remaining water. For the starter, mix 200ml of warm water with a cube of yeast, add 200g of gluten-free flour, mix well, and let rise in a warm place for 2-3 hours. For the main dough, dissolve the yeast cube in 100ml of warm water, mix with 600g of gluten-free flour, 200g of cooked grains, the starter, salt, vinegar, and sourdough starter (if desired). Add a little more water if necessary, until the consistency is compact but still sticky after thorough kneading (at least 10 minutes). Then briefly knead in the kernels and let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour. Knead the dough again briefly (it will still be sticky) and transfer it to well-floured proving baskets or other molds. Let the dough rise for another hour (it can also stand a little longer – it’s fine). Now set the oven to high and heat the firebrick for 1 hour. Or fire up a wood-fired oven! Turn the dough out of the baskets onto a rack and immediately place it on the hot firebrick. Use a watering can to create a good shot of steam in the oven, close the oven, and bake for 1 hour (make sure the temperature in the oven drops; the wood-fired oven does this automatically). Tip 1: You can prepare the soft-cooked kernels/brewed grains in larger batches and freeze them in portions! Always use three times the amount of water to the dry kernels – for example, 100g kernels and 300g water. Adding the cooked grains gives the bread a good texture and keeps it moist for longer. Once they’re cooked, let them cool slightly and use immediately! Adding these cooked grains to the bread dough ensures that the bread is wonderfully moist and, even the next day, has a consistency that rivals any wheat bread! Tip 2: I bake in a small wood-fired oven with firebricks, which I heat with wood for an hour before baking. You can also do this in the oven if you have a firebricks, which you heat for an hour on the highest setting in the oven. Make sure you buy the thickest firebricks possible—they really retain the heat. Then the bread goes onto the brick and the temperature is reduced to 200°C. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 180°C and bake for a further 45 minutes. The crust on top won’t be quite as perfect in the oven as it would be in a wood-fired oven, since the oven only has a firebrick underneath. For the gluten-free flour, you can either use store-bought flour or mix your own gluten-free flour – you’ll find two recipes for mixing your own in my recipes!