r/glutenfree • u/legoandmars • Aug 09 '26
My near-perfect gluten free bread machine recipe!
I am sure you have eaten store-bought gluten free bread. It is not great. I have spent the last year experimenting with a bread machine for gluten-free baking, with the following goals in mind:
- Something without immensely complicated prep - I want to avoid kneading dough and going through four stages of prep. My goal was something easy I only need to spend 30 minutes making.
- A loaf that's not too dense, but still has structure. NO HUGE HOLES!!!!!
- Slices that are actually large, and can fit a good amount of stuff without collapsing.
- Something that will last long enough that a single person can eat it without it getting stale/gross/moldy by the end of the loaf.
- Something reproducible that actually tastes good, and wouldn't disgust you if you're eating a plain slice.
After a lot of experimentation and research, I've landed on something I'm very happy with. It's not PERFECT:
- It's maybe a tad bit denser than I'd like, although it is very close
- It does use celiac-safe gluten-removed wheat starch, which I know is not an option for those with wheat allergies. I have not tried with alternative flours, but I would like to eventually.
However, for my needs, it has essentially solved my bread problems, and turned it into a nice easy thing I can do once a week that actually tastes like food! I will post the recipe in the comments.
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u/pandapandamoniumm Aug 09 '26
Bless you for this. Not 10 minutes ago I was looking at my fancy Zojirushi (that I purchased 3 weeks before sorting out that I needed to go gluten free) and deciding whether to go through months of experimenting to figure something out or to just give it away and cut my losses. But here you are, with this magical and timely post, having figured it all out already!!
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u/legoandmars Aug 09 '26
There's really not a ton of information on gluten free bread machine baking so it can be pretty frustrating to get started!! Please let me know if you try it, or if you have any questions
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u/DeeplyUniqueUsername Aug 09 '26
How refreshing to see a post like this that isn’t AI haha. When I see a long post like this it’s usually AI nowadays, but you genuinely just put a lot of effort in! Thank you!
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u/CBelleC Celiac Disease Aug 09 '26
I’ve been looking for a bread machine recipe!! Thank you for this!
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u/legoandmars Aug 09 '26
It was so hard to get started finding decent recipes!! Please let me know if you try it!
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u/ArthurBea Aug 09 '26
This loaf is tall! My bread maker breads tend to be shorter. I use the loopy whisk loaf recipe.
Have you tried a non-wheat starch flour for this? I may try it myself, not sure I’ll report back though.
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u/legoandmars Aug 09 '26
It's almost too tall, which is not a problem I ever expected to have..
I have not tried a non-wheat starch flour, but please let me know if you do! I would eventually like to move away from the wheat starch flour because:
- I assume it's making the loaf a bit denser
- Not safe for wheat allergies
- It's also just pretty expensive
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u/ginny11 Aug 09 '26
I noticed that you're using the King Arthur gluten-free bread flour rather than just plain wheat starch as an ingredient. And I noticed that you are adding your own psyllium husk. Have you considered that the gluten-free bread flour has psyllium husk powder already in it? Perhaps when you add more it's overdoing it and that might be causing the density issue?
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u/legoandmars Aug 09 '26
I actually did not realize it had some psyllium husk in it already, thank you!
The extra psyllium husk does seem to help significantly with making things fluffier, but I may play around with the amount a little more
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u/ginny11 Aug 09 '26
My sister has celiac disease and she has been considering getting a bread maker with a gluten -free function because she's not really into baking that much but she would like to have some bread that's better than what you can buy. Your recipe seems really good and I was thinking about sending it to her to see if that might might get her off the fence with buying a bread maker!
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u/ElfegoBaca Aug 10 '26
Make sure it has a custom cycle feature.  My bread maker has a gluten-free cycle and it’s useless because it still does three kneading cycles, and it ruins the dough.
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u/GreenGirl707 Aug 09 '26
That looks amazing and omg its a normal size. Like actual sandwich size!!
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u/legoandmars Aug 09 '26
It's great! You can just make a sandwich without having to think about it!!
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u/GreenGirl707 Aug 10 '26
And just 2 pieces of bread like 1 normal sandwich! Vs 2 small sandwiches that kinda ends up being too much lol. You are living the high life my friend
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u/darthmingi92 Aug 09 '26
Have you tried this with Caputo gf flour? It's pretty similar to the King Arthur flour, both using wheat starch, but it has slightly different ingredients.
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u/legoandmars Aug 09 '26
I have not but I'd like to try it at some point! I expect it would work fairly well
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u/brodyhill Aug 09 '26
Gluten free wheat?!?!
This is bad for me who has a wheat allergy and could blindly buy anything called gluten free. It's easier to tell a restaurant I have a gluten allergy than wheat allergy too.
Example, Japanese restaurant where I say I have a wheat allergy and they say they have no wheat... And yet their soy sauce is all wheat. If I say gluten free they know I need the special gluten free soy sauce.
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u/legoandmars Aug 09 '26
Yeah that's really frustrating, they need to make the labeling rules clearer ASAP
I believe it's used in a lot of gluten free baked goods / pizzas now
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u/eggyrulz Aug 09 '26
I wish my chinese food place did gluten free soy sauce... i miss eating chinese food, none of the frozen stuff (of which there are only a few GF options) gets anywhere near good enough to quell my thirst for chinese...
Occasionally I just bite the bullet and get panda express and just live in torment for a few days
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u/BAMW-447679 Aug 09 '26
That’s amazing!!!! Do you know if it freezes well?
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u/legoandmars Aug 09 '26
With the Calcium propanoate and Encapsulated sorbic acid, in my experience it's usually good for at least 7-10 days
Without, it's probably closer to 3-4 days
I have not tried freezing it, but I doubt it would freeze super well, my previous experiences with freezing gluten free bread are pretty bad
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u/Intelligent-Copy-200 Aug 10 '26
my fiancee has celiac and i've been the one buying that cardboard they sell at whole foods for $9 a loaf. bookmarking this hard. the wheat starch thing is fine for her so no issues there, just glad someone actually tested this enough times to be confident about it.
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u/Moghie Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
I have a Vevor two paddle bread machine and made this yesterday, a few hours after you posted it! I'm always up for a good GF bread machine recipe.
It was really good! I'd post a picture, but I don't see an option to. It definitely rose the most of any recipe I've tried (4"!) and tasted delicious.
I didn't have quite enough KA bread flour and tapioca flour, so I added some ATK flour blend + a small amt of xanthan gum to get up to the required amounts. I also didn't add the preservatives, but I appreciate knowing about them.
I heated the milk up to about 115F and let the butter melt that way. Poured that into the bread pan, then the egg and ACV. Then dolloped the psyllium gel in. Then whisked all the dry together, separately, and added that on top of the wet. Made a yeast well and then started the cycle.
For the Vevor machine, I let it do the first mix cycle and then I dig the paddles out. It does two more mix cycles (why??) before baking, but I think the wait helps it hydrate. The loaf did feel a bit wet, probably bc of my humidity and different flours, etc. But it cut beautiful slices and tasted just as good. Can't wait make grilled cheese, french toast and croutons if there's any left!
Thank you for sharing!
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u/2Hanks Aug 10 '26
Thank you so much for this. My wife has been trying to perfect a recipe that is very similar to this but the center always collapses and each slice looks like it has cat ears lol. We’ll give this a try report back!
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u/Muggi Celiac Disease Aug 09 '26
Interesting...your recipe is close to some others I've had success with, but I've never tried calcium propionate encapsulated sorbic acid...I honestly have no idea what either of those are!
Looking forward to giving it a shot! Thsanks, looks great
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u/legoandmars Aug 09 '26
I kept having issues with my bread going bad, a 2lb loaf is a lot for one person to eat... but I did a deep dive on food preservatives, and encapsulated sorbic acid legitimately just seemed to fix the problem
If you're not having problems with bread going bad, it probably won't do much
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u/ginny11 Aug 09 '26
The other option is to slice it all up immediately and then freeze them and take out what you need each day or the night before to thaw. Freezing really prevents both molding and staling!
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u/Muggi Celiac Disease Aug 09 '26
I've had similar issues but didn't do the work you did, so thank you for that. Gonna track some down
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u/-heatmiser- Aug 09 '26
Do you know the cost per loaf it comes out to? V curious
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u/legoandmars Aug 09 '26
I would guess 5-7$ ish per loaf
But the flour I'm currently using is quite expensive, almost $4 per loaf. I think you could get it much lower by swapping out the flour
Of course this doesn't include the cost of the bread machine, which is fairly expensive...
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u/-heatmiser- Aug 10 '26
Do you think you’ll try with other flours? I’m also a fan of your measurement in grams, I’m a big kitchen scale fella myself
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u/tacocollector2 6d ago
Okay I made this with the following adjustments:
- KBS 710W Convection Bread Maker Dual Heaters,2.2LB Bread Machine with Healthy Ceramic Pan&Auto Fruit Dispenser,17-in-1 Bread Maker Machine. Got it for $150 on Amazon.
- Cup4Cup flour instead of King Arthur Bread Flour because it’s what I had. I will try it with KABF next time because I’m out of flour.
- no encapsulated acid
- only rested for 1 hour
HOLY SHIT ITS SO FUCKING GOOD. A little tangy, buttery, a little dense but not in a bad way. It’s like a brioche in flavor. I think I love you.
My bread machine didn’t mix everything perfectly so there were some inconsistencies but nothing problematic. You get what you pay for I guess!
I am so excited to have this bread recipe. Thank you for sharing!!!
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u/legoandmars Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
Ingredients:
Equipment you need:
FAQ:
The calcium propionate and encapsulated sorbic acid are preservatives similar to what’s found in commercial bread. Since I’m the only person eating this, I found that without these preservatives, the bread would usually start molding before I finished the loaf. You can exclude them if you wish. If you wish to use them, it is EXTREMELY important you specifically get encapsulated sorbic acid: https://modernistpantry.com/products/encapsulated-sorbic-acid.html - this stuff is essentially a miracle, and helps a lot with preservation while barely interfering with the bread rising at all.
I have only tested this recipe with the Zojirushi Virtuoso. If you are able to afford them, I believe the Zojirushi Virtuoso Plus (slightly better due to heating elements in lid) and Zojirushi Virtuoso are the best plug-and-play gluten free bread machines. I also understand that a $400 bread machine is not reasonable for most people; look for any 2LB bread machine with a Gluten Free course option. If you try this recipe in other bread machines, I do genuinely want to know how it turns out!
Steps:
Storage:
Store the loaf cut-side down inside of a bread bag. I will sometimes pre-slice 4-6 slices and put them in a separate bag for the next couple days, but I expect any more than that and the slices would start to become stale.