Dark Teff Sandwich Bread

This is the same bread that is in your new cookbook? If so we love it! This bread has become the weekly bread I make for my daughter and me. I have tried so many other Gluten Free Breads that we just did not like the flavor or texture. The first time I made it, I thought no way but it work and turned out great. To us it just has a great whole grain flavor. I have also started to experiment with this recipe, I did half buckwheat and teff and loved it just as much. Thank you! We also love the Buckwheat and Chai Wraps, and the dinner rolls. Just love the cookbooks! Thank you!!

To the people asking about buying bulk teff flour- I recommend Maskal Teff teffco.com I've gone through many bags of this stuff and it's fantastic quality! I have a lot of food allergies, in addition to gluten and i've never had any problems with it.

I have been on the elimination diet for 4 weeks now and your website has done a lot to help me through it! Thank you for all of the information.

I made the teff bread this afternoon and it turned out fantastic! Even my picky 6 year old liked it (and he is used to eating wheat bread). It was easy and I will be making it again.

Hi, I just tried your everyday sandwich bread, which really came out nicely!
Was wondering about this recipe, can I subsiture the flax seed for anything else? The family I make this bread for is also allergic to flax seed...

thanks a bunch!

Hilde

This is so great. As my husband said, it "tastes just like bread". (We are only recently cutting out gluten, and are used to real deal bread from the local bakehouse.) This is so much better than the other GF breads we've made.

I modified my second loaf a little: I made it in the bread machine on the GF setting. Also, I subbed in an egg for the flax.

To make in the machine, I put the egg in the measuring cup, then filled it up with water to total the 1.5C. I beat that, put it in the pan, added the 1t sugar, 3T oil and 3T honey. Then I put in the dry, which I had premixed in a bowl, and the then the yeast. It turned out great. I'm going to measure out several batches of the dry to have ready to go.

Thought I'd share, since some folks have asked about the machine.

Hi,

This bread is now a staple in our regular menu rotation. Thanks !

I notice that Authentic Foods no longer carries the Teff flour. I was wondering where you get your bulk teff from these days and failing that which brands would you recommend ?

Ree

I have had good luck using a bread machine with the following changes:
Proof the yeast as directed until foamy.
Get the rest of the wet ingredients mixed at room temp and rest of dry ingredients in another bowl.
Add the yeast, then wet bowl then dry bowl.
I use a Zojirushi bread maker. I made a custom program of 15 min knead, 60 min rise, then 50 min bake.
If it comes out not brown enough, I pop it in a 350 deg oven on a cookie sheet for 5 minutes and it tastes great.

Can I sub buckwheat flour for the teff flour? No teff on hand

This is a really fantastic recipe! We absolutely love it and also love the fact that it is so nutritious. We like it spread with almond butter and fruit spread.

I made it with 2 eggs instead of the flax seed and it turned out beautifully.

This bread has become a staple in our household. I usually bake two at a time, slice both loaves, and put one in the freezer. So wholesome and delicious!

I just made this bread yesterday and it is delicious! I'm so excited-I've had trouble with other gluten free bread recipes I've tried. This is the first time I've used teff flour. Our family loves the whole grain taste. I think I'll be making this recipe on a regular basis from now on. Thank you for posting this! :-)

Hi Ali,

This looks amazing--is there a way to use a bread machine instead of the oven? I was given one and have been wanting to use it, but not sure how it works as opposed to the oven times and all!

My family and I LOVE your recipes!!

WOW...I haven't had much success with GF bread baking, but will def use this recipe again. I subbed cornstarch for the arrowroot, and it still turned out amazing. Thanks!

Hi Ali,
I just love this recipe and have made it many times already. I tend to prefer darker grains like teff and buckwheat over the lighter grains. However when I ran across some ivory teff recently I was intrigued and ordered some to try. Just wondering if you have tried that and if so what your experience or thoughts were on that.

We eat about 4 loaves a week. Seriously. It is the only recipe that is completely safe for all my highly sensitive kids. Teff is the only alternative we have found that works - as my daughter and son are sensitive to wheat, rice, almonds, oats, milo - not to mention dairy, eggs and soy. This recipe really saved us - and helped my older girls feel more normal about their crazy lunches at school. THANK YOU!!!!!

Since arrowroot is a herb, do you have any idea if it is ok to use during pregnancy/breastfeeding?
Just asking about experience/knowledge, not medical advice :)

I made this bread tonight! It was amazing! It is so hard for me to find good tasting breads that are both gluten free and egg free. Love that this has Teff in it too! Such a nutritious grain! I spread some wild blueberry jam on it. Delicious! Thanks again!

Jessica

Thank you for this delicious bread recipe! I have been GF for years and gave up trying to make decent bread long ago. All the ones I tried had a funny "off" flavor, especially the ones with bean flour. I suddenly got a huge craving for bread yesterday and had lots of teff flour to use up and ran across your recipe. It's easy, without a million different flours, and I love the dark, more whole-grain flavor instead of pasty, bland white GF bread. I did make the following changes successfully:
I didn't have any flax on hand, and I do fine with eggs, so I omitted the flax, reduced the oil to 2 TBS, and added an egg. I'm also out of tapioca flour, and since tapioca and arrowroot are often interchangeable, I just used a whole up of arrowroot and omitted the tapioca. It was delicious! Thank you!

this looks like a wonderful recipe. I love the idea of not using too many grains and keeping it simple. There are very few gluten free recipes that don't use too many grains. I like the texture too and sure will give this a try

Thanks
Ali

Just made this yeast-free and sugar free. I used chia seeds instead of flax, and added 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar and 1 1/4 tsp baking soda to replace the yeast. Also used 1 1/4 tsp guar gum instead of xanthan gum, and only 1 tsp of salt. Instead of the honey/agave I added an equal amount of water. Baked for one hour. It was delicious! Lots of changes, almost a new recipe! Next time I will try using baking powder instead, as it tasted a little too much like the baking soda. Thanks for a great bread, Ali! xoxo Kim

Tried this twice. Tasted great but didn't rise well and some compared the loaf to a door stop. The yeast mixture never turned out like you described after trying several times. Friend suggested reducing teff by a cup and adding sorghum plus a couple eggs. Did that and got a nice loaf. But put in a smaller pan.

Thanks for a great bread recipe Ali. I make this very often and it has always turned out super yummy!!!

I made this bread tonight for dinner with the Spicy Butternut Squash Stew you posted here 12/5/08. Both were wonderful! I didn't have arrowroot on hand for the bread so I used Potato Starch instead. The bread had such a great flavor, rose nicely, and we all gobbled it up. Thank you!

Ali - I had a bag of Teff flour after making your whole grain waffles. I decided to try this bread today. All I can say is FABULOUS! It tasted so good and the texture was wonderful. Thank you for this beautiful nutritious bread. I can't wait to try it on my children. I think they will love it and I will love that they are getting some nutrients as well. Keep up the good work.

Michael - I don't use a bread machine, so no, I don't have a recipe for teff bread using the bread machine. If you try this recipe please let us know how it turns out. :)

And thanks to all who commented with your modifications of this recipe and your results. It is great that you shared so everyone can learn! :)

Do you have a GF recipe for Teff bread made in a bread machine?
Michael

Thanks for this terrific teff recipe. It is delicious and rich and has a great texture. We are egg eaters and I know how much it can help GF bread, so I put in one whole egg and one egg white, and cut down the water to one cup, and left out the flax. I also did not have tapioca flour on-hand so I used brown rice flour. I put it into the bread machine, just to really live on the edge, on an expressbake. It turned out wonderfully and I can't tell you how satisfying it is to have a dark whole-grain bread full of nutrition for my family!

This looks amazing! I would love to try this. I was wondering if you could sub cornstarch, potato starch, or tapioca starch in this and it would still have the same results (taste/texture)? I don't have any arrowroot on hand....but I may have to get some! What is the advantage of arrowroot over other starches?

Thank you for this bread recipe - it's great! I'm so happy to be able to eat normal tasting bread again. I made it almost as written, just subbing one egg in for the flax and reducing the water to 1 1/3 cup. Baked for 50 minutes, let it cool about 20 and sliced a small end off to see the inside and realized it wasn't done all the way through. I actually put it back in, covered with tin foil, for 10 minutes, then uncovered for a few more. Perfect, tasty - great this morning with hazelnut butter and coffee. Wonder what'll happen if I use brown rice flour instead of teff some time. Thanks again!

I finally had time to make this recipe today. We made it this morning and had it for lunch. It has the most fantastic texture of any vegan gluten-free bread I have had yet. I am a teff convert now. I need to buy one of those large bags of it you talked about. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe!

Thank you Ali for the yeast free adaptation to the recipe. I definately plan on trying it.

Hi Ali,

Thanks for all the ideas. I am going to try it again with yeast this weekend maybe and see how it goes. Making the gel with the flax, or not having bubbly enough yeast seem to be the two most likely reasons. I used a glass pan, let it rise in the 9 X 13 inch pan of boiled water (good idea, by the way!), and think our oven temp is generally accurate.

For next time though, once the yeast/sugar gets bubbly in the water, how long is it good for and how careful do I need to be keeping that at the warm temperature?

I'll keep you posted on how it turns out!

Thanks everyone for your comments on this one! I just made the bread again to make sure I didn't explain the directions incorrectly and at the same time made a yeast-free loaf.

Here are some notes:

-I added the flax first to the warm water/foamy yeast mixture and whisked it together then let it stand for a minute or so while I measured the other liquid ingredients. By the time I added them, the flax had formed a thick gel.
-I rose it for only 40 mins. because I had a lot of heat surrounding the pan and it had already doubled in size.
-I baked it for nearly an hour because I forgot about it - the crust turned out better/thicker with this longer baking time.
-So be sure and follow the exact measurements in the above recipe but gauge the rising/baking time as you see fit. Longer rising times with GF bread will cause the yeast to overreact so don't let it go for more than an hour unless the loaf is in a cold rising location.

For making this bread yeast-free:

Basically you use the same recipe and directions. I took out the yeast and added 1 tablespoon of baking powder to the dry ingredients. Also, I reduced the salt to 1 tsp. I used 1 cup of water to make the flax gel then added 1/2 cup of hemp milk along with the other liquid ingredients. I baked this loaf for 1 hour (and remember no rising time - so just pop it in the oven after you put the dough into the pan.)

Hope that helps! Overall, both of these loaves turned out beautifully, the yeasted loaf, of course had a much better flavor though!

-Ali :)

Alison - The brand of pumpkin seed butter we use is from Omega Nutrition. It is sold along side all of the other nut butters at our local co-op. Hope you have some luck finding it - I bet you could also order it online.

Ali,
The bread looks great -- but I want to know where to get pumpkin seed butter! We love Sunbutter, but that sounds good too.

Bonnie - oops, forgot to add that arrowroot flour and powder are the same thing.

Bonnie - I was just reading the comments and about to respond to you and then I signed in and your second comment popped up. I am glad you tested it with the egg. I tested this recipe using 1 3/4 cups of water which was too much and caused the bread to rise nicely and then sink. One egg equals about 1/4 cup so essentailly adding the egg is similar to using 1 3/4 cups liquid. Possibly reducing the water by 1/4 cup next time (to 1 1/4 cups) would provide better results? Thanks so much for taking the time to share your results.

David D. - Thanks, I'll be interested in hearing how your bread turns out.

Lacie - I am currently experimenting with yeast-free breads, I may post one in the future. However, if you have an issue with candida then it is best to avoid all refined grain products, even as wholesome as teff! There are some great books out there on the candida diet such as The Body Ecology Diet.

Jennifer L. - I so appreciate your detailed comment and am bummed that your bread didn't turn out so well. I don't have a solid answer for you but I do have some theories. Did you measure the liquids exactly? And where did you let your bread rise? Was it warm enough? Maybe it would have worked better had the flax formed a gel. Try adding the flax first next time, whisk it together, and then add the other liquid ingredients. What kind of bread pan did you use? Is your oven calibrated to the correct temp? These are all factors that could have caused yours to fail - though it sounds like it was still edible! If I come up with anything else I will make a comment here.

Thanks! -Ali :)

Ali,
I made your bread today, wrote earlier about using something besides flax and I went ahead and used one egg, although Tom thinks I have an alergy to them. Anyway, The bread turned out wonderful my who family liked it even the ones that don't have to watch there gluten, but it fell in the middle, but my next question is, you mentioned arrowroot powder, I only had arrowroot flour, is there a difference when baking with arrowroot which one you use?
Thanks for all your time Ali,
Bonnie

Yeast breads are making me crazy lately. I am trying the method of perseverance to get them right, and am very tempted to stick with muffins!

We made the bread today--D. is eating it happily right now. It is mostly fine, but I think, not quite right. It's a little heavy/soggy on the bottom (perhaps not long enough in the oven?) and a bit yeasty smelling.

The first yeast/water mix I made, I had to abandon for 30 minutes to get the girl down for a nap (she clearly wasn't having any more of me in the kitchen right then). When I came back, the yeast was good and bubbly, but I wasn't sure how long I could leave it, so I tossed it and started again. The next yeast/water made a foam and I am not sure what good bubbly is supposed to look like. After about 10 minutes, I decided to just go with the foam. I had premixed the flax seeds, oil and honey and poured that into the yeast/water/sugar and whisked it, but it didn't seem to change the consistency of the liquid at all (to more gel-ish). It still seemed pretty much like water. Should we not premix them and add them directly to the yeast water one at a time? Or does it not matter?

The flour part is pretty uneventful. I can measure flours and get them right :-). That yeast business, though--it's making me nuts.

I am hoping that it's mostly okay to eat in its imperfect state since my husband and my daughter seem to be gobbling it up. I can't quite tell if it's just undercooked (we did the full 40 minutes) or if the yeast did something weird.

I really like having breads around for the convenience factor, but you're right, the rice bread doesn't seem to have the same nutritional oomph as a nice dark bread. I think we'll try it again next week and see if we can get it right. Your bread just looks super yummy!

Hi Ali,

This bread looks delicious. I am wondering though if there is a substitute for the yeast. I have problems with Candida Yeast and can not have yeast products. Is it possible to make breads without it and still have the consistancy?

This bread looks so good. I too miss the hearty wheat breads I used to eat. I am going to give this one a try. Thanks for sharing this recipe. I will report back and tell you how mine comes out.

Ali,
I can't eat flax seed, what can I use to replace flax seed>? I also don't eat much bread but would like to try this yummy sounding bread.
I appreciate all the effort you and Tom put forth for us.
Bonnie

Shirley - I am sure your support group members would enjoy this bread. Thanks for your comment!

Ann - I make nearly all of my baked goods without eggs because half of our family does not eat them so I am not so familiar with gluten-free baking using eggs. I know most GF breads use eggs though. I think if you take out the flax and add one egg without changing anything else it might work. I'd be very interested in hearing how it turns out.

Thanks, Ali :)

Hi Ali,

I can't wait to try this. That said, what do you recommend for those of us who have eggs in the house more often than fresh flax seed? Can I still throw in an egg here and there for binder? Is there a ratio or guide I should consider? I see so many gluten-free recipes without eggs, and I understand why, but I'd like to keep eating them!

That's really beautiful bread, Ali! How wonderful that it's also nutritious and delicious. :-) Like you, I don't often make bread, but this would be good to try some time ... probably for one of our support group meetings.

Thanks for sharing the info on arrowroot again. I think that kind of info bears repeating because your regular readers (like me) might forget or you might have new folks who would not know.

Thanks very much!
Shirley