Easy Gluten Free Bread Recipe

With a soft and tender crumb, this easy white gluten free bread recipe is the original and best, made in just 4 easy steps. It bends and squishes, tastes like the “real thing”, and has a beautiful bakery-style crust.

This is the bread that readers make every week for school lunches, and that bakery owners have told me they sell to customers in their gluten free bakeries!

4 Easy Steps To Gluten Free Bread

This recipe is as easy as mixing the ingredients, beating them until smooth, letting the loaf rise, and baking it. It calls for a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment to make a smooth, cohesive dough that rises cleanly and evenly.

1. Combine the dry ingredients, then add wet.

Whisk together the dry ingredients except the salt (gluten free flour, xanthan gum, instant yeast, cream of tartar, and sugar), then whisk in the salt. Add all the wet ingredients (warm milk, melted butter, apple cider vinegar, and egg whites) to the bowl.

2. Beat the dough well.

Beat everything with the paddle attachment until the dough starts to look fluffy and whipped in appearance. It will be like a thick batter, not something you can knead with your hands.

3. Let the dough rise, then bake.

Transfer the raw dough to a greased prepared loaf pan, and smooth the top. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise until it’s about 50% bigger than how it started (it won’t double). Bake on the middle rack OR top oven rack (whatever is appropriate for your oven) for about 50 minutes at 375°F until it the internal temp is about 205°F.

4. Let cool, slice and enjoy!

Let the loaf of bread sit briefly in the pan, then place it on a wire rack to finish cooling. If you don’t let it cool completely, you’ll squish the bread as you slice it and you won’t get clean slices. So try to be patient!

Ingredient substitutions

Dairy free

Replace the butter with block-style vegan butter. Melt and Miyoko’s Kitchen brands are my favorite.

You can even use Earth Balance Buttery Sticks and reduce the salt to 1 teaspoon, but keep in mind that it has more moisture than butter, so our loaf may sink a little as it cools.

Use your favorite unsweetened, unflavored dairy free milk that appears similar to cow’s milk. Canned coconut milk is too thick, but the carton style should work fine.

Egg free

Try one “chia egg” (1 tablespoon ground chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel) in place of the 2 egg whites or aquafaba. Some readers have had success using 1 egg’s worth of Bob’s Red Mill egg replacer.

Xanthan gum-free

To try replacing xanthan gum with psyllium husk, I’d recommend using 20 grams of psyllium husk powder.

Instant yeast

This recipe calls for instant yeast (also called rapid rise or breadmaker yeast), which you add without soaking first. To use active dry yeast instead, you need 1.25 times more, for a total of 10 grams (about 3 teaspoons). Soak it first in some of the milk until it foams, and then add it when you add the rest of the milk.

Adding seeds

For some flavor and crunch, sprinkle the top of the risen bread dough with seeds. Add sesame, chia, quinoa, sunflower, or pumpkin seeds, and maybe even some finely chopped nuts.

4 rules for gluten free bread baking

Rule # 1: Follow the recipe as written: If at all possible, avoid ingredient substitutions at first, Some may work, but many will not. And early failure will make it very hard to stay motivated.

Rule # 2: Measure ingredients by weight: Volume measurements (cups) for dry ingredients like flour are inherently unreliable, as human error is unavoidable and volume measuring containers vary in size. A simple digital kitchen scale is cheap, and easy to use. And then ignore the volume measurements!

Rule #3: Be patient during rising: Yeast rises more slowly in cooler temperatures, but will still rise. Overproofing means too much rise, but not too long a rise. In a warm, moist environment, your yeast bread will rise more quickly. And make sure your bread is covered during rising so it doesn’t dry out, which could prevent rising.

Rule # 4: Use an oven thermometer: Most ovens run hot (mine included), often by about 50°F. Use a simple, cheap oven thermometer to gauge your oven’s baking temperature properly, and replace it often. When you bake in a too-hot oven, the outside gets overbaked before the inside has a chance to develop enough structure to support it. The bread will then cave in on itself as it cools.

FAQs

Gluten free bread machine bread

I don’t love bread machines, but many of you need to use them. Here’s how to make this recipe in a bread machine:

Use whole eggs and oil

Instead of 2 egg whites, as the recipe calls for, use 2 whole eggs. Instead of 4 tablespoons of melted unsalted butter, use 4 tablespoons (56 grams) extra virgin olive oil.

Only one rise

You must not let your gluten free bread dough rise more than once in a bread machine. If your bread machine has a “gluten free setting,” be sure that means that it has only one rise. If it has multiple rises, the dough will deflate and be dense.

The settings

• 20 minute rest (to make sure that all your ingredients are at the same room temperature)
• 20 minute mix (no more, you don’t want to overmix)
• 1 hour rise (any less, and the bread hasn’t risen fully)
• 1.5 hour bake (if your machine allows you to add baking time (mine doesn’t), then set it to 1.25 hours of baking time and add more if necessary; otherwise, set it to 1.5 hours and check for doneness at 1.25 hours)

The method

• Whisk together the wet ingredients (milk, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, 2 eggs) first, and pour them into the loaf pan
• Whisk together the dry ingredients minus the yeast separately (gluten free flour blend, xanthan gum, cream of tartar, granulated sugar), and spoon them in an even layer on top of the wet ingredients in the loaf pan.
• Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients without exposing the wet, and add the instant yeast
• Start the cycle; after the machine has nearly finished mixing, scrape down the sides of the loaf pan with a silicone spatula in case there are any unmixed dry ingredients
• After the mixing cycle is done, smooth the top with a wet silicone spatula
• After 1.25 of baking time, check the loaf with an instant read thermometer. If it doesn’t read at leaset 205°F, let the loaf bake until it does.
• If you like a browned top, place the loaf in the oven (after all that!) for about 10 minutes at 400°F.

Bake fully

Your gluten free bread machine bread must read at least 205°F on an instant read thermometer. Since a bread machine won’t create a crusty bread, it isn’t going to burn if you bake it longer than usual (unlike bread baked in an oven). And without that stiff crust, the crumb of the bread has to hold its shape all on its own, so it needs to be baked to a higher internal temperature.

Recommended bread baker

I recommend the Zojirushi Home Bakery Virtuoso Plus Breadmaker, 2 lb. loaf of bread, model BB-PDC20BA. It has a “homemade” setting that allows you to control everything.

Make this recipe as is in the 2 pound loaf pan for a short loaf, or increase the yield to 15 slices for a larger loaf. Be sure to use 3 eggs instead of 3 egg whites, and 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in place of 6 tablespoons of melted butter. You will almost certainly need 1.5 hours of bake time with the larger loaf.