Artisan Bread

A while ago (January), Paul sent me a link to a recipe for a simple, free-form gluten free bread. The exciting part for me was that I had heard about the book (or maybe it was their first book) thru regular flour users that were loving the whole rustic bread idea and having great results using this method.
When a different GF blogger recently posted her great results and love for this bread I decided I would give it a go. I even had everything on hand.

Gluten-Free Crusty Boule
Makes enough dough for at least four 1-pound loaves

2 cups Brown Rice Flour
1 1/2 cups Sorghum Flour
3 cups Tapioca Flour (also called tapioca starch)
2 tablespoons yeast (can be reduced but you will have to increase the rise time)
1 tablespoon kosher salt (increase or decrease to taste)
2 tablespoons Xanthan Gum
2 2/3 cups lukewarm water
4 large eggs, whisked together
1/3 cup neutral-flavored oil or olive oil
2 tablespoons honey or sugar

Whisk together the flours, yeast, salt and xanthan gum.
Combine the oil, sugar and water, set aside.
Dump the eggs into the dry ingredients and then stir while you gradually pour and mix in the oil and water.
Stir until the dough is nice and smooth. Cover and rest on the counter for about 2 hours. Place the dough in the refrigerator and store for up to 7 days.

On baking day remove 1-pound (grapefruit-size) piece of dough. Use wet hands to smooth out the surface of the dough. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and allow to rest on the counter for about 90 minutes. 30 minutes before baking time preheat the oven with a 5 1/2 quart Dutch Oven in it to 500 degrees.

The dough will not have grown much while resting, but it will seem a little bit puffier. Use a serrated knife to cut slashes in the dough. Lower the parchment and bread into the pot. Return to the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the lid, turn the heat down to 450 and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Allow the bread to cool completely before eating.

Because they said it makes 4 loaves, I halved the recipe. It's a lot of flours and xanthum gum to risk wasting on an experiment. When it was time to divide, I even weighed my dough balls. 2 dough balls, 1-pound each.

Look how well that turned out.
For reference, that is a sandwich bag the "loaf" is sitting on.
Can you guess how the inside turned out? That's right. Dense and heavy, and not in a good, hearty bread sort of way.

This is ALL the slices I got from a loaf.

I don't know why I keep following, to the letter, recipes that have me mix my yeast in with the dry ingredients. It ALWAYS fails. I don't think the beginning dough ball rose at all. But then, for the instructions to reassure me that I shouldn't expect the individual loaf dough balls to grow during their rest wasn't encouraging either. I know my yeast is still good. I am strict about checking the temperature of my water so I don't kill the yeast. IF I was going to try this again, I would let the yeast grow in the sugar water mixture instead. But, I don't think I'm going to try again. The flavour wasn't that impressive when I already have a bread recipe that has been successful every time. Although this does use less flours, yeast and xanthum gum per loaf - which could be worthwhile if they would rise more, you know, to the size of a regular loaf.