Awesome, whole fruit, fruit bread
AND, its GLUTEN FREE!
To call this a fruit bread is such an understatement. There is a lot of ordinary fruit bread out there, and to be honest, when it comes to gluten free breads, I have not ventured to try any.
This bread is inspired by the best fruit breads I have ever tried. If you are in Brisbane or on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia, then you may have tried them - Levain Bakery Middle Eastern Fruit Bread and Essential Grain Fruit Loaf. Both of these loves feature gluten. However, what they have in common, that I have incorporated into this gluten free recipe, is an abundance of whole pieces of fruit, spices, and seeds and/or nuts.
You can be flexible with your choice of fruit here, dates or prunes would be nice. I used organic apricots as I enjoy the sweet, almost smoky, flavour that they impart.
Why Whey?
Personally, I was looking for a use for the abundance of whey I had left over from making labneh (yoghurt cheese) and ricotta, however, you could use a combination of water and buttermilk, or even just water and apple cider vinegar to make this recipe dairy free/vegan, as the recipe I based this on, does - see https://theloopywhisk.com/2020/11/29/gluten-free-seeded-loaf/
In the picture, you will see I served the bread toasted with aforementioned ricotta and honey, but, I must say that thickly spread with almond butter is my topping of choice.
Side note, for appearance, you could brush the baked loaf with warm apricot jam or marmalade. Beware, it will get extra brown when toasting though.
This loaf yields 14 generous slices.
Grease and line with a 900g loaf (approximate dimensions 21cm long x 11cm x 7cm high).
In a small bowl, mix together the yeast, coconut sugar and 1 cup whey. Set aside for 10 – 15 minutes, or until the mixture starts frothing.
In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining whey, chia and rosewater.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, salt, and spices..
Add the yeast mixture and the chia mixture to the flours. Mix together (I find a bowl scraper useful) until well combined.
Add in the seeds, nuts and dried fruits until well distributed. The dough will be a sticky and gloopy. Spoon into the prepared tin
Lightly cover tin with greased cling film and allow to rise in a warm place for 1 hour 15 minutes – 1 hour 30 minutes or until approximately doubled in volume.
Preheat the oven to 250ºC. Place a small cake tin with 5 cm of water in the bottom rack of the oven.
Once risen, put the loaf in at the middle rack of the oven. Bake for 15 minutes at 250ºC. After the 15 minutes, remove the water cake tin from the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 220ºC.. Bake for a further 60-70 minutes, rotating if necessary, half way through. The finished loaf will be dark golden brown. If the loaf starts browning too quickly, cover with a piece of aluminium foil, shiny side up, and continue baking until done.
Remove the baked loaf out of the baking tin transfering it onto a wire cooling rack to cool before cutting it.
Ingredients
Directions
Grease and line with a 900g loaf (approximate dimensions 21cm long x 11cm x 7cm high).
In a small bowl, mix together the yeast, coconut sugar and 1 cup whey. Set aside for 10 – 15 minutes, or until the mixture starts frothing.
In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining whey, chia and rosewater.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, salt, and spices..
Add the yeast mixture and the chia mixture to the flours. Mix together (I find a bowl scraper useful) until well combined.
Add in the seeds, nuts and dried fruits until well distributed. The dough will be a sticky and gloopy. Spoon into the prepared tin
Lightly cover tin with greased cling film and allow to rise in a warm place for 1 hour 15 minutes – 1 hour 30 minutes or until approximately doubled in volume.
Preheat the oven to 250ºC. Place a small cake tin with 5 cm of water in the bottom rack of the oven.
Once risen, put the loaf in at the middle rack of the oven. Bake for 15 minutes at 250ºC. After the 15 minutes, remove the water cake tin from the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 220ºC.. Bake for a further 60-70 minutes, rotating if necessary, half way through. The finished loaf will be dark golden brown. If the loaf starts browning too quickly, cover with a piece of aluminium foil, shiny side up, and continue baking until done.
Remove the baked loaf out of the baking tin transfering it onto a wire cooling rack to cool before cutting it.
