Whisk together the flax slurry ingredients in a jug or bowl and set aside while you weigh out the other ingredients.
2 tablespoon ground flax seeds, 2 tablespoon psyllium husk powder, 500 g water
Whizz the wholegrain flours, starches, salt, sugar and yeast in a food processor for a few seconds. (Thermomix: 15 secs / sp. 5)
120 g brown rice flour, 90 g sorghum flour, 30 g oat flour, 30 g masa harina corn flour, 30 g millet flour, 75 g arrowroot powder, 75 g potato starch, 1½ teaspoon Himalayan pink salt, 1 teaspoon dark muscovado sugar, 1½ teaspoon instant yeast
The add the flax slurry (which should have gone gloopy) and olive oil. Whizz again for a little longer to make a wet, sticky dough. Don't worry, it won’t look much like a bread dough! (Thermomix: 20 secs / sp. 6,scrape down sides, then set to 2 mins / knead).
1 tablespoon olive oil
Pour into a bowl that has been lightly greased, mix it by hand for a minute or so just to make sure that it is well combined (no need to do this if you followed the thermomix instructions). Then cover and leave somewhere warm for a 2-3 hours. If you don’t have a warm kitchen, leave the dough in the oven that is switched off but with the light on. (Just don't forget and inadvertently switch the oven on!)
After 1 hour, give the dough a good mix with your hands. Keep your hands wet so that they don’t stick too much to the dough and you can knead it and mix it really well. Then put the cover back on and leave it for the rest of the rising time.
Once the dough has expanded over the 2-3 hours of rising, pour it into a silicon bread tin (greased and lined with baking paper if it’s not silicon) and smooth over the top with wet hands. Loosely cover it with the now empty mixing bowl and leave on top of the counter for a short second rise while you heat the oven (about 20-30 minutes).
Put a dutch oven (I use a Le Creuset lidded casserole dish) in the oven and set it to heat to 220°C. Boil the kettle.
Once the oven has come to temperature, carefully remove the dutch oven, take the lid off and pour about 1-2cm of boiling water into the bottom. Carefully put the bread tin into the water (the water should come up just a little way up the side of the tin – definitely nowhere near the top of it!). Put the lid back on and put the dutch oven in the oven.Bake for 1 hour as follows:- 15 minutes at 220°C (lid on dutch oven), then- 30 minutes at 200°C (lid on dutch oven), then- 15 minutes at 200°C (lid off).
After an hour of cooking it should be browned on the top and cooked through. Remove the bread from the tin, turn it upside down and knock on the bottom with your knuckle. If it doesn’t sound hollow (it won’t sound as hollow as wheat bread), pop it back in the oven for 5 more minutes on its own (straight onto the oven rack - not in the tin) to make sure it is thoroughly cooked through.
Take the bread out of the oven and set on a cooling rack to cool. Leave to cool completely before cutting into it.
Notes
See blogpost for all the notes about making this bread. The main points to remember are:
as tempting as it may be, resist the urge to cut into the bread until it has cooled fully! Gluten-free bread needs this cooling time to set the structure otherwise it will fall a little and will be more dense.
Use wet hands for handling this dough, to avoid it sticking to your fingers. The wetter the dough, the better it will rise and the lighter the texture will be.
If you do not have a dutch oven, you can make this bread without but it will just be a thicker, crunchier crust and a slightly more dense texture.