Gluten free bread was the thing that almost made me quit. Seriously. I spent my first six months producing loaves that could double as doorstops, crumbly messes that fell apart when you looked at them wrong, and once a sourdough so dense my husband used it as a joke paperweight on his desk for a week. That was 2019. What I know now would have saved me a lot of frustration and a lot of wasted flour.
The turning point was understanding that gluten free bread is not wheat bread minus the gluten. It is a completely different craft that happens to produce a similar end product. The physics are different. Wheat bread dough is elastic and forgiving because gluten forms stretchy protein networks. Gluten free dough relies on a combination of starches, gums, and hydration to create structure that mimics those networks without actually being the same thing. Once I stopped trying to make gluten free dough behave like wheat dough, everything improved.
Psyllium husk is the single most important ingredient in my bread baking. Not xanthan gum, not flax eggs, not any of the other binders people suggest. Our xanthan gum calculator shows exact amounts and alternatives for every recipe type. Whole psyllium husk powder, ground fine, at about 2 tablespoons per cup of flour blend. It absorbs water and forms a gel that gives dough stretch and helps the crumb hold together after baking. Our artisanal bread collection uses this technique across dozens of recipes, from French baguettes to ciabatta to challah.
Hydration matters more in gluten free bread than almost anything else. Our sourdough calculator helps you nail the hydration percentage and fermentation timing. Most of our bread doughs run between 80 and 100 percent hydration, which means they are wet and sticky and look nothing like traditional bread dough. That is normal. If your dough looks like it could be kneaded and shaped by hand like a wheat dough, it probably needs more water. I know it feels wrong to pour what looks like pancake batter into a bread pan, but trust the process.
Sourdough deserves special mention because it changed everything about how I think about gluten free bread. A gluten free sourdough starter is easy to maintain and it does things that commercial yeast cannot. The long fermentation breaks down some of the starches that make gluten free bread gummy, develops complex flavor, and produces a better crust. Our starter guide walks you through the whole process, and once you have a healthy culture going, you will never want to go back to instant yeast for artisanal loaves.
These 250 recipes cover everything from a basic sandwich loaf you can make in an hour to weekend projects like croissants and babka. The baked goods section has 224 recipes alone, so if you cannot find what you are looking for, it probably does not exist yet.
Beginner
75 min
