I have been busy whipping up a bunch of new gluten free bread recipes, but I knew I wanted to finish this recipe first. This recipe for teff bread is similar in nature to my gluten free buckwheat bread recipe – majority teff flour with just a small amount of starch. The result is a nutty yet elastic loaf that is at home as a sandwich or as toast.

Teff bread (gluten free)

Name: Teff bread (gluten free, vegan)
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 50 min
Ingredients: 500 g white teff flour; 100 g tapioca flour or cassava flour; 25 g psyllium husk powder; 10-12 g salt; 1 X 7.5g sachet instant yeast; 40 ml (2 tablespoons)* maple syrup ((8 American teaspoons)); 20 ml (1 tablespoon)* oil ((4 American teaspoons)); 750-850 g water

This teff bread is made from 500g of white teff flour and 100g of tapioca flour or cassava flour. I wanted to keep the ratio majority wholegrain, but I find that wholegrain gluten free breads benefit from a small amount of starch. The starch content of the bread adds lightness, elasticity and binding as well the characteristic chew you expect from a slice of bread.

The bread is bound together with psyllium husk powder. Not only does this create structure in the bread, but it also absorbs enough liquid to create a soft and plush slice of bread. In my testing, I found that teff flour is quite an absorbent flour. As such, this bread needs both a generous amount of water and psyllium husk to hold all that water in.

Yeast is the leavening agent of choice for this bread. I am working on a gluten free yeast free bread but they are very difficult to do well, so there is no option to omit the yeast at the moment.

Finally, salt, maple syrup and oil add flavour, texture and crumb softness. All of these ingredients work together to create a beautifully toothsome and tall teff bread.

An aerial image of a slice of teff bread toast on a pale pink ceramic plate

Can I use brown teff flour?

I haven’t tested brown teff flour yet. It is harder to find than white teff flour here in Australia (which is already harder to find). When I get my hands on some, I will test it in the recipe.

I should also note, while we’re here, that I have only tested white teff flour from a local bulk food store. As time goes on I promise I’ll test different brands of white (and hopefully brown) teff to see if there are any differences in texture or absorbencies.

Can I use any baking tin?

If you’d like to make a bad loaf of bread, sure. Otherwise, no. Like all my gluten free bread recipes, this loaf uses a USA pan small Pullman tin. Not a large, not a medium, a small. This is the pan I use for all my gluten free loaves, so if you make my recipes often it is a worthy investment.

Because all quantities are based around this size loaf tin, using a different size won’t work the same way. A larger tin will produce a shorter loaf that might be over-baked. A silicon tin does not have the strength (or the capacity) to hold all this dough and push it upwards as it proofs. If you want the best chance of success, I highly recommend using that bread tin.

I’m not sponsored by them and I removed Amazon affiliates because I don’t feel their business practices align with mine. So, know that I am recommending it purely because it’s good and not because I am making any money from it.

A side on image of a loaf of teff bread on a cooling rack atop a white marble table. A slice of bread has been taken, revealing the soft inner crumb. The loaf is set against a dark backdrop

Ideal texture for your dough, before and after proofing

Before proofing: When freshly whisked, your dough should look and feel like a thin, aerated batter. It should feel light under the whisk and have little air bubbles on the surface. I would describe it as a thin batter with baking soda that just had vinegar added – that sort of light and aerated. If your dough is significantly thicker than this immediately after whisking, add more water until you reach this consistency. NB: the dough/batter will thicken relatively quickly as the psyllium husk absorbs liquid, so you need to assess the batter right after mixing.

After proofing: When you take the cover off the dough, it should be firm with bubbles on top. Depending on how much liquid you added, you should be able to pick it up in a ball, even if it is soft and floppy. If you break the dough apart with your hands, it should feel nice and bubbly.

After proofing in the Pullman pan: The loaf should dome just slightly over the Pullman pan edges. This teff bread does get some rise in the oven, so just domed is the perfect time to put it in the oven. Proofing takes as long as it takes: you can’t rush it and you can’t bake an under-proofed loaf and expect it to turn out perfectly. In Australian winter, my loaf takes about 2 hours to dome over the Pullman pan.

An aerial image of a slice of gluten free teff bread on a white speckled ceramic plate

Troubleshooting

I recently wrote a guide to making the best gluten free bread which I think solves most issues you can encounter with this recipe. I highly recommend reading it as I have included every tip I can possibly think of to help you in your bread making journey. However:

My bread is dense?

Dense bread has a few main causes, but I’d argue that the number one cause is insufficient water. Yeast needs a moist environment to thrive and grow, pushing up the bread dough to create an airy loaf of bread. If your dough is too dry, the yeast will not proof the way it should. It doesn’t matter if you leave it for hours or proof it in a warm place. So, make sure your dough is moist.

This teff bread dough is more like a batter when you first mix it. To me, it looks like a liquid dough that has had baking soda and an acid added. It is quite bubbly and feels aerated under the whisk. After you first mix it, you should be able to pour the batter as opposed to spooning it or using your hands. Anything less than a pourable batter is not hydrated enough for this recipe.

How might a bread dough be too dry when you’re following a recipe, you might ask? Different flours have different absorbencies. It depends on how finely they are milled, how they’re milled, the humidity, the grain in question, etc. No two bags of flour will ever be the same.

Where my dough might be liquid with 800g of water, yours might be more of a dough. You need to use your intuition and adjust your dough as necessary until it is as described.

My bread is dense part 2?

What are the other causes of dense bread? Not giving your bread sufficient time to proof, old yeast and an oven temperature that is too low.

Bread recipes give proofing times, but they are always purely estimates. There are so many factors that will change from kitchen to kitchen – the dough itself, your yeast, the temperature in your kitchen, the season, the climate, etc. A bread dough is proofed when a bread dough is proofed. If you put it in the oven before it has finished proofing, it will be dense. The yeast creates air pockets in the dough, so if you don’t allow it time to do this then you will have dense bread.

As a general rule, bread proofs faster in hot kitchens, hot climates and humid climates. It takes longer in cold kitchens and cold climates. A loaf made in a hot kitchen in summer will be easier to proof than a loaf in a cold winter kitchen. As an example, most of my tests of this bread took the first 1 hour proof, then required a further 2 hour proof to reach the top of the Pullman pan. I daresay in an Australian summer, this proofing time will be different. I will update the post in summer.

My loaf is short?

Firstly, read through the ‘my loaf is dense’ sections. If there’s no room for improvement there: did you use a larger baking tin than specified? This will make for a shorter, squat loaf. Up the hydration a little, proof thoroughly without rushing, check your yeast and use the right size Pullman loaf tin for this recipe.

My bread is sour?

I had a couple of sour loaves that almost tasted like sourdough when developing this recipe. Most of them, however, weren’t sour. Which leads me to my hypothesis: sour teff bread is made from rancid teff flour. Not all of the loaves were sour, and teff flour is a bit more niche and thus more likely to sit on the shelf.

This is why the recipe contains 40ml of maple syrup. Not only does this help with browning, boosting the yeast and developing the flavour, but it also helps disguise any sourness if your teff flour happens to be rancid.

My bread is cakey?

In my experience of making this recipe, cakey bread is simply dough that didn’t have enough water added. Teff flour, unlike buckwheat flour, does not have any inherent elasticity. It needs to be a high hydration dough to ensure the bread isn’t stiff and cakey.

My bread is wet?

Firstly, I think it’s worth noting that gluten free breads are often ‘wet’. They need to have sufficient liquid to be edible and I think some people aren’t used to the feeling of a moist slice of bread. Dry gluten free bread is never a good time, so wet is much better than dry. I also think that this gluten free teff bread produces wetter feeling slices than my other gluten free loaves.

However, it can sometimes be too wet. Wet bread can sometimes be a case of cutting the bread too early, before the steam and liquid have evaporated and the crumb has set. Bread that is fresh out of the oven will likely feel quite wet, which is why recipes specify to cut it after it has cooled completely (ideally, overnight).

Wet bread can also simply mean that too much water has been added to the loaf. With batter style dough, it can be difficult to know if you have added too much water (whereas it’s easier to tell if you haven’t added enough). Next time, cut the liquid back by 100g.

My bread has a gummy line in the bottom?

This means you have added a little too much liquid for your flours. Cut the liquid back by 50-100g for your next bake and see what happens. Ideally, you’ll be able to remove the gummy layer.

Keep in mind, too, that a gummy layer can be an insufficient proof in conjunction with too much liquid. Make sure you’re allowing the loaf to fully proof before baking.

An aerial image of a slice of teff bread toast on a pale pink ceramic plate. The toast is topped with cream cheese, pickled red onion, cucumbers and everything bagel seasoning. A bite has been taken from the bottom left hand corner

More gluten free bread recipes without xanthan gum