Quick to cook gluten free flat bread

I don't tend to buy the gluten free breads on offer, and certainly don't indulge in the replacements available on prescription. To my mind, once you have tasted real, naturally leavened wholesome bread made with local stoneground flour, there is no point in trying to compensate a gluten free diet with the alternatives on offer. However I am intrigued by the "Genius" bread that is now on salt in the supermarkets that has got people on the Coeliac forums raving. Maybe I will try this in the name of research since those in the know say it is incredibly close to the real thing and is free from the usual toxic mixture of additives. 

But I must admit there are times when you want to mop up your poached egg yolk, dunk something into home-made soup or just to spread some salty English butter on bread. At the top of my master list of Recipes I Want To Cook sits Maggie Beers Chick pea flat bread. Before Christmas I finally got round to making it. And have made it half a dozen times since including on Christmas Day as part of the wheat, gluten, egg, dairy and nut free lunch and it was gobbled up before my eyes.

As with pressure cooking and some gluten free recipes, you do have to think ahead a little and mix the gram flour with water and leave it to ferment overnight. But the benefit of this preparation is the end result. Soft, delicious, and spiked with aromatic rosemary leaves balancing the strong flavour of the  gram flour, its the quickest and tastiest bread I have made. Have a go...as its also dairy, wheat, yeast and egg free, and extremely straight forward.

In the meantime, I will venture out into the snow in search of this Genius bread... Do you think its worth it, do you make your own or use mixes? 

Chickpea flatbread

Ingredients

250g gram flours (chick pea flour)

500ml water

Sprig of rosemary (optional)

1/4 cup of olive oil

1 tsp salt

Method

In a large bowl, mix the chick pea flour with about 500ml of water (you may not need all of it to get it to a double cream consistency). Add half the rosemary and leave overnight.

Next day preheat the oven to 230degrees c. Remove any scum from the surface of the mixture and fish out the rosemary sprigs, then add the salt, olive oil and chopped remaining rosemary if using and stir to form a batter.

Pour the batter onto a baking tray lined with baking paper or a pizza stone and bake for up to 10mins. It should brown a little on the top and be fully cooked.

I have a wonky oven so mine often ends up uneven, but the thin bits are as good as the thicker bits. Also, I have found that the batter sticks rather a lot, so I cook mine on a silacone baking sheet which works really well.