This bread looks beautiful upon completion but is very simple to make. It’s slightly sweet and chewy, but made without white sugar, gluten, or dairy. Adapted from the recipe “Swedish Braided Bread” from Jennifer Katzinger’s book Gluten Free and Vegan Breads.
Ingredients
- 2 tbs chia seeds
- ½ cup water
- 1 cup teff flour
- 1 cup tapioca flour
- ¾ cup brown rice flour
- ½ cup garbanzo bean flour
- ½ millet flour
- ½ almond meal flour
- ¼ cup sorghum flour
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp ground cardamom (I omitted in this batch, but I’d recommend using it.)
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp xanthan gum
- 2¼ tsp instant active dry yeast
- 1½ cup water (room temperature or a little below is preferable)
- 3 tbs canola oil
- 2 tbs sucanat
- Preheat oven to 350°
- In a small bowl, combine chia seeds and ½ cup of water. Let soak until the seeds and water become a gooey fluid, about 25 minutes. Stir once to break up the layer of seeds on the top.
- In a large bowl, combine the flours, salt, spices and xanthan gum.
- Using another large glass bowl, mix yeast and 1½ cup water. Wait for the yeast and the water to mix, then add oil and sucanant. Wait for liquids to start foaming. Add the bowl of dry ingredients and bowl of chia seeds. Using a scrapper tool, mix ingredients together until they form a dough. Make sure you do this throughly, because the sucanant likes to clump.
- On a clean counter, sprinkle brown rice flour. Pour dough from bowl onto counter. Next, separate the dough into three balls, each similar in size. Roll each out into a thick strip, about 1½ inches thick and a foot long. Transfer strips onto a piece of parchment paper. Join the three strips together at one point, and then braid the ends. Put the parchment paper and braid on a sheet pan.
- Put pan in oven and cook for 80 minutes at 350°.
A nice thing about the braided bread is that you don’t have to slice it. Tearing off an exposed part of the braid gives a piece thats crusty like a roll, but also chewy at parts.
GF-Breads 
