I’m generally scared of all things yeasty. My cold hands make kneading a problem, and when you’re dealing with gluten-free flours you need all the help you can get. But these call for instant yeast, which is something else I usually avoid but in this case make this dough a breeze to make. These rolls are a bit sponge-y, and soft on the first day with a chewy exterior. The flax meal and tapioca turn it into a pull-apart bread, and the little bit of sugar adds an addictive sweetness, making it feel like a real treat, which it is.
You can make these in individual muffin tins to make small dinner rolls, or hunt for some slightly larger baking ware – I found some circular, 5-inch, glass baking dishes, but you could also do a loaf pan and just increase the baking time by about 8-10 minutes. The smaller dishes force the rolls to expand upward though, giving the illusion of a wheat bread that wants nothing but to grow vertically into a yeasty treat instead of a gluten-free bread that want to spread and spill over its sides. So if you make a loaf, check it regularly with a toothpick to see if it’s done, and tent it with aluminum foil it the top starts to look too brown before the inside is done. I also tried forming little dinner roll-type spheres with the dough, but it’s too liquid and the dough just spread together as it baked. So if you want individual rolls, you’ll have to use individual containers or muffin tins.
Gluten-free Dinner Rolls
Adapted from Gluten-free Goddess
Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups rice flour
1 3/4 cups tapioca flour (not tapioca starch. Anyone know what the difference is, though?)
2 tbsp ground flax seeds
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp fine sea salt
1 packet rapid rise yeast (aka “instant”)
2 tbsp light brown sugar (or 2 tbsp cane sugar plus 1/8 tsp molasses)
3/4 cup almond milk (or rice or soy or hemp)
3/4 cup hot water
1/4 cup sunflower oil (or neutral-flavoured olive oil, or earth balance, or butter at room temperature)
2 free-range local organic eggs, beaten (or Ener-G Egg Replacer for a vegan version)
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice or rice vinegar (this gives the dairy-free milk a buttermilk flavour)
Instructions:
Turn over to 350F for 5 minutes, then turn it off. You just want to warm it. Grease a 12-cup muffin pan or other baking dish(es) with the oil or earth balance you’re going to use, and sprinkle the cups with rice flour.
In a large mixing bowl, sieve together the flours and dry ingredients. Don’t just plop them all in the bowl or your bread will have a much harder time rising. Add some air by sieving all the ingredients together. It’s not as finicky as egg whites, but a few extra minutes here means fluffier rolls in an hour and a half.
Add in the wet ingredients (cutting in the earth balance or butter with a fork if using) and whisk until a thick, smooth batter forms, but don’t over-stir. Stop when all the flour is incorporated.
Spoon the bread dough into the twelve greased and floured cups. Even out the tops using wet fingers. Place the pan in the center of the warmed oven to let the dough rise. No need to cover.
Wait 50 minutes.
Then turn your oven to 350ºF. (Leave the dough in there while it heats up.) Bake until the rolls are golden and firm, about 22-30 minutes, depending on the size. “Thump them with a fingertip- they should sound hollow,” is the instruction from Gluten-free Goddess, but my hearing isn’t that good with bread, unfortunately. A good note from on high, however, is that if your oven is slow to heat, you may have to bake the rolls longer.
Remove the rolls from the oven and place the pan(s) on a wire rack to cool. Using a knife to loosen the edges of the rolls from the pan and ease the rolls out. They are tender when warm. Eat them while warm and a little sponge-y and gooey. They’re fine when they cool, but warm with a dollop of earth balance or butter or olive oil or almond butter, or jam, or – you get the picture – is heaven.
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