Here’s an option for those who want or need to steer clear of wheat. It’s a dense, heavy bread, similar to those old European sourdough breads that are almost impossible to find any more. It’s tricky to handle but if you give yourself a few tries you might end up with a tasty alternative. It’s an acquired taste, however. If you’re willing to keep an open mind and palate and not anticipate what you’ve always known of as bread, you might be pleasantly surprised.
Your work will be immensely easier with the following:
- A super-monster blender like Vitamix, or else a reasonable food processor and blender.
- A high-quality industrial bread-baking loaf pan. I have one from England with a double bottom; after I started using that in place of the ordinary loaf pan I was using things got so much easier.
Steps:
- Soak 3 cups of brown rice in 3 cups of good drinking water in a large bowl for 24 hours on your kitchen counter-top. If you want, cover with a sieve, but it needs the air.
- Next day, run the rice and its water through the monster-blender, or else first through the food processor and then through your blender until it is very smooth and creamy.
- Add it back into the bowl and leave it again for another 20-24 hours, depending upon how hot it is in your area. Cover it with a sieve if you want, but it needs to be exposed to the air, to collect natural yeasts from the air.
- The next day, the mixture might be a little bubbly, and this is no problem. It might have a smell, but it is a clean, not-unpleasant smell.
- Add about 2-3 tablespoons of good olive oil, a tablespoon of salt, and if you want, a tablespoon of sugar. You can also add sunflower seeds. You could probably add a whole lot of other things, like chopped onions, garlic, parsley, spices, other seeds or chopped nuts, but I haven’t tried any of them so far. Let me know if you do! But don’t do it on the first few tries, until you get the basics down.
- Pour the mixture into a heavily greased loaf pan (use butter or home-made ghee, or else good, thick olive oil) and bake at 350F or 180C for 45 minutes-1 hour, until a knife comes out reasonably clean and the bread has pulled away from the sides of the pan.
- If you plunge the pan into a few inches of cold water it will be easier to get the bread out. It tastes great fresh out of the oven but know that cutting it will be difficult and don’t even try without a serrated knife unless you want to decimate your loaf. It’s very worth the effort, however.
- Later after it cools it will be easier to slice. It’s best sliced quite thin, and it’s delicious toasted. Keep refrigerated.