Question about converting bread recipe to gluten free

Celia, and other bakers, please help!

Years ago my sister used to make a simple beer bread. Although you had to eat it on the first day, or it would have dried out too much to be really nice, there was never much problem doing that because it was delicious. I asked her for the recipe a few months ago and she said she'd lost it. Today, browsing through an old magazine at the hairdresser's, I found this recipe, which looks very much like the bread she used to make - although my sister's recipe used honey instead of sugar.

My question is, if I wanted to convert this to a gluten-free version, what would people recommend regarding the best flour to use, and should there be any additional ingredients to help it out?

RUSTIC BEER BREAD

Three and a quarter cups self raising flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons caster sugar
1 x 375 ml bottle of lager-style beer

Sift flour, salt, sugar into a bowl. Make a well in the centre. Add the beer. Mix to form a dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured bench, and knead for 2 minutes. Press into a greased 12 cm x 22 cm medium loaf pan. Cook in a moderately hot oven (190 degrees C) for 50 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

(Recipe from "New Idea" - I surreptitiously tore out the corner of the page, but that bit didn't have the date on it, so I can't do the full citation thing. Sorry.)

This doesn't quite answer your question, but here's some flours you can use: http://glutenfreebay.blogspot.com/2007/02/gluten-free-bread-that-just-might-make.html

Something to keep in mind is that almost all lagers are made with wheat.

Matilda,

If the recipe depends on the yeast in the beer to rise, then I'm not sure GF flours will work, as the yeast needs gluten in order to rise. But if the recipe depends on the raising agents in the SR flour, then you could try some of the commercially available SR flours and see how you go. Sorry, but don't have any suggestions other than that. As you know, Dan Lepard has a great GF bread recipe on his guardian page, which uses psyllium husk, but I'm not sure how you'd adapt this recipe to incorporate that, as they're very different.

Cheers, Celia

omething to keep in mind is that almost all lagers are made with wheat.

Dave, your point is valid even if the details aren't quite right. Malted barley is far and away the most common grain used in beer in general and that includes lager. Use of wheat in beers is actually fairly rare, enough so that when it happens you usually know it by the name of the beer; "wheat beer" or "hefeweizen", for examples. But the beer is still something you'd have to watch if trying to make this recipe gluten-free; barley also contains gluten. There are gluten-free beers in this world, easily Google-able. They seem to rely principally on sorghum.

Celia, I'm sure this recipe is what we'd call here a "quick" bread, depending on the baking powder in the SR flour, not the yeast in the beer. You couldn't depend on a lager to have active yeast, also note that the bread is baked immediately after kneading. No time for yeast to cause the loaf to rise, in other words.

I'm not much help on this, having no experience with baking gluten-free. The bulk of the ingredients here (the flour and the beer) both having gluten makes a tough starting place for gluten-free bread. It might be easier to start with a good gluten-free quick bread recipe (I understand those are rare enough), add a little sugar and substitute gluten-free beer for the liquid in the recipe.