A Simple Homemade Bread Recipe So Good, I May Never Go Back to Buying It
And gluten-free to boot.
Published On
Photo by Julia Gartland
Whenever I'm having a bread crisis, I turn to King Arthur.
Not the head of the Knights of the Round Table—the flour brand and virtual compendium for all things carb.
So on a recent Saturday, days-deep in some random cleanse I'd cursed upon myself (no gluten! No dairy! No—gasp—no alcohol!), I found myself scrolling through King Arthur's recipes. I had it bad for a sandwich. Not a particular sandwich, but rather the idea of any sandwich: soft, toasted bread spread with mayo and Huy Fong chili garlic sauce; lettuce for crunch; a mild, funky cheese (Comté, is that you?); sprouts for flair; perfect waves of turkey, or salami, or ham, piled high like yoga mats at the class I'd skipped earlier that day.
King Arthur to the rescue: I identified a recipe for gluten-free sandwich bread that looked so soft, I briefly fantasized about a nap on its surface. To rid its batter of dairy, I swapped in almond milk for its whole-fat regular milk, and warmed refined coconut oil for butter. (I also upped the salt, because I am who I am, and used cornstarch in place of xanthan gum, which I can neither pronounce nor ever locate in a grocery store.)
And with just a bit of mixing, then some downtime while the batter rose, I ended up with...the best gluten-free sandwich bread I've had in a very long time. It was slightly sweeter and crumblier than a regular loaf, almost like a bread-scone hybrid. It evoked sandwich bread that'd spent too much time with a horde of biscuits, and which had recently started trying to act like one.
It made the perfect complement to savory sandwiches and sweet open-faced ones alike.
Here are the combinations I enjoyed so much, my boyfriend asked if I was leaving him for bread:
- Toasted and layered with turkey, Swiss, arugula, Dijon, and mayo on one day, and ham and cheddar on another.
- Broiled for a minute, then brushed with a clove of garlic, drizzled with olive oil, and sprinkled with salt.
- Used for a classic peanut butter and jelly, which in my case was an almond butter and raspberry chia jam.
- Topped with a handful of crumbled cheese, melted under the broiler, and finished with a pinch of salt, chopped chives, and hot sauce.
- Oven-warmed and spread with dairy-free cream cheese and jam on one slice, and almond butter, honey, and Maldon on the other.
Do you have a favorite formula gluten-free sandwich recipes? Let us know in the comments.