Beans & Roots Bread: A Grain Free Bread Recipe

Anyone who’s been frustrated with having to use multiple flours in a gluten free bread recipe has to have wondered, “Can’t good gluten free bread be made from two flours?”

I’ve tried 2 flour bread recipes before and they weren’t very good; but I was curious to see if I could adjust one of my successful bread recipes down to two GF flours and still have it work. I started my experiments with brown rice flour and cornstarch; the two flours that I happened to have on hand and was pleased with the results. However, I decided that I wanted to switch to non-grain flours so that I would have a bread recipe that worked with Arbonne’s “30 Days to Feeling Fit” program which is a cleanse/elimination diet program that I’m using as part of my adrenal fatigue recovery. That necessitated removing the corn from the recipe, and I also switched the brown rice flour to garbanzo flour since many of my you have been asking for grain-free recipes.

This new gluten free bread recipe, which I’ve named “Beans & Roots” since my kids insist that all recipes must have names, surpassed my wildest expectations. It has a great crust; the interior is reminiscent of store-bought wheat breads, and it rises well. I’m usually not very fond of the taste of garbanzo flour, particularly in cakes and cookies, but none of us have noticed any offensive garbanzo flavor in the finished bread, though the bread does have a distinctive yellow color.

The instructions for this recipe incorporate some new techniques that I’ve discovered to ensure that the bread rises well in the oven. I’ve also used a slightly smaller sized pan that I usually do because it happens to fit this recipe better.

Have you ever made a 2 flour gluten free bread? What was it like? Let me know in the comments.

Instructions

  • 265 grams garbanzo bean flour
  • 175 grams tapioca starch
  • 12 g salt
  • 10 g xanthan gum
  • 375 grams water
  • 7 g instant yeast
  • 15 g sugar
  • 185 g eggs*
  • 30 g olive oil
  • 10 g apple cider vinegar

Start by combining the yeast and sugar in a small bowl. Add the water while gently stirring the yeast and sugar. Let this mixture sit while you mix the rest of the ingredients – bubbles and foam should form if the yeast is happy.

Combine the flours, xanthan gum and salt in the largest mixing bowl and stir well.
In a third bowl, whisk the eggs, oil and vinegar until the eggs are a bit frothy.
By this point the yeast mixture should be foamy, so you can pour the two liquid mixtures into the flour mixture. Blend the dough with a mixer for 4 minutes.

*If you need to substitute for the eggs, 1 large chicken egg weighs around 50g, so these recipes uses approximately 3.5 eggs.

Conventional Oven Directions:

Scoop the dough into a greased 8″ x 4″ loaf pan. Move your oven rack to the lowest setting and, if you have one, place your baking stone on it. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees while the bread rises. Five minutes before you put the bread into the oven, turn the heat down to 375F.  Allow the dough to rise in a warm area until is peaking over the top of the pan. Then bake at 375 degrees for 50 – 60 minutes.

Bread Machine Directions:

Here’s what I do; you can follow normal bread machine instructions for mixing if you like: Scoop your dough into the bread machine and smooth the top of the dough. I bake my bread using an 80 minute setting that allows for 20 minutes of kneading, 18 minutes of rise, and 42 minutes of baking. However, since I don’t use the paddle in by bread machine, I’m effectively doing a 38 minute rise and a 42 minute bake. (The advantage of not using the paddle is that you don’t end up with a hole in the bottom of your bread.)

28 thoughts on “Beans & Roots Bread: A Grain Free Bread Recipe”

  1. Looking forward to making this! Ques: the liquid ingredients in grams? Not millilitres?
    I Always work with metric measures but this is new to me. ☺️

  2. I just wanted to encourage you to continue writing! I’ve been a blogger for over five years and the nost difficult part is when you aren’t hearing from people. You immediately wonder if you’re wasting your time – are you really helping anyone? You are! I’ve enjoyed your recipes and hearing about how you handle gluten issues. Thank you very much! Keep on writing!
    I haven’t made a bread with just two flours – anxious to try this though!

  3. I don’t do grams. Can you translate the measurements to cups or ounces, please?
    Enjoy your site and look forward to your blogging again.

  4. Valarie Jennings

    I would love to try this for my granddaughter as she is craving a bread she can make a sandwich with but of the many I have made and bought we can fine none close to what she calls “real” bread. I do not have a scale and would love to have cup and teaspoon measurements. If she likes it I will purchase a scale.

  5. We have an xtra bag of garbanzo bean flour, so very convenient recipe for us! Thank you for doing the trial & fail work on these recipes! The experiment that just doesn’t work out to be edible is the hardest part of gluten free cooking.

  6. ditto above measurments, I need old fashion cups and teaspoons. Also can MUNG BEAN flour be used in place of GARBONZA flour

  7. Sounds good, but I can’t get garbanzo flour in the country I live. Can I use other bean flours?
    I do make a 3 grain bread that I like the best, it has brown rice, tapioca and cornstarch.

    1. Yes, I think this recipe will work very well with other bean flours, and you can use cornstarch if you want as well. I picked garbanzo and tapioca based on what is available in the grocery stores near us and the desire to have one grain free bread recipe in my repertoire.

  8. I followed your recipe, but used Mung Bean flour instead. The bread was phenomenal, looked and almost tasted like rye bread. (I’m going to try it next time with anise and orange rind to approximate Swedish Limpa bread.) However, I left the dough to rise while I went out for several hours. The results were that the bread was more than twice the height of the loaf pan and, of course, took a few more minutes to cook through. No problem: now I have fresh bread and bread in the freezer!

  9. I love this recipe!!!!! This is the first bread I made using grams—I am a total believer in cooking this way now. Do you have the bagel and doughnut recipes in grams? I want to try to make them but I don’t trust my cup measurements now. Are you going to include gram measurements to each of your recipes the classes? Thanks for all of your information!

  10. We tried your 2Flour bread this afternoon.
    We couldn’t follow it to the letter because my wife can’t use tapioca flour.
    We did it with arrowroot flour and it came out PERFECT.
    I was wondering could we use potato starch in place of tapioca and get the same GREAT results.
    Thank You for this recipe and all the others u test and send our way. God Bless You abundantly.

  11. Best results I’e had with gf bread. If I knew how to send a picture I would. Uswed 4×8 pan and loaf raised a full 3 inches above top of pan and it didn’t collapse which is what has happened to other recipes I’ve tried. Had trouble with scale it didn’t want to measure 15gm it kept going between 14 and 16. I can get a small gram scale at Harbor Freight for $3.00 so not a problem. Love your school and site keep up the good work.

  12. how thick is the dough supposed to be? I just mixed it up and it’s too thick for my beaters to keep beating and I had to press it into the corners of the bread pan… I followed the measurements and if I erred it was on a little too much egg and oil, etc, not flour. or maybe it’s my brand of xanthan gum? It just seems too thick and I’m worried it won’t turn out.

  13. Well, I went ahead and baked it, but it was dense and doughy. I could have baked it more, but don’t think it would have fixed the problem. I hope you can advise as I really want to be able to use this recipe : )

  14. I am a diabetic with Celiac Sprue. An incredible gift would be a low carb bread, grain free, that tastes good. Can you approximate the carbs per slice in this recipe?

  15. I cannot eat rice now as well as gluten, so there goes rice flour. So I will try this recipe asap. I don’t even mind the taste of garbanzo beans or its flour, so this should work for me. Thank you for what I am hoping will be a go-to bread recipe for me!

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