Before I stopped being able to eat gluten, I used to love baking bread from scratch using yeast. 

Kneading the sticky ball of dough, letting it rise, then punching it down again. 

There is something so magical about the way that a mess of flour and water can double in size. 

Alas, this is not usually the case with gluten free bread.

If you’re lucky, the yeast might manage to grow the dough about 20% larger, but there is certainly no doubling in size.

 This all comes down to our little friend (or in many of our cases, enemy) gluten. 

Gluten is a protein present in grains like wheat, barely, rye etc. 

When water and gluten-containing flour is mixed together, the gluten forms fine strands which give the dough it’s elasticity. 

Adding yeast to the mixture means that when the dough is left to rise, the fermenting yeast releases carbon dioxide bubbles which are trapped within the dough in little pockets formed by the gluten strands. 

Once the loaf is baked, the gluten protein sets and becomes no longer elastic: meaning that the bread maintains its shape and that desirable fluffy texture.

This explains why gluten free bread needs to be yeast free. 

I have made dozens of gluten free loafs using yeast and had little success in rising the dough to anything impressive.

 While this process can be a lot of fun, sometimes you just need a quick and simple bread recipe that can give you repeatedly positive results. 

This recipe uses baking powder (so no yeast!) which means that there is no hassle of kneading dough, and no crushing disappointment when the bread doesn’t rise. 

It’s as simple as soak, blend, bake. 

This bread is about 95% whole, soaked buckwheat which makes it nutritionally impressive compared with it’s starchy flour counterparts. 

The buckwheat is soaked overnight to make it soft which has the added benefit of activating it meaning that it can be more easily digested. 

The pseudo-grain buckwheat is actually a seed which is packed with plant protein, antioxidants and dietary fibre.

This is the only basic GF bread recipe you will ever need. 

It is so versatile you can even use this batter to make pancakes (just add a little more liquid so its pourable) or spread the dough out on a sheet of baking paper to create a chewy pizza crust (I do this at least weekly). 

Of course, this vegan buckwheat bread recipe has no diary so any variations you make will be vegan as well!

This recipe is a base from which you can make a simple, staple bread or jazz it up a little with sweet or savoury additions to transform it into something really spectacular. 

I love adding olives and fresh rosemary or dried fruit and spices.

Feel free to omit the sunflower seeds and pepitas: they are just interesting extras because I like a bit of crunch in my bread. 

Speaking of crunch: the crust on this bread is possibly the best gluten free crust I have come across. 

The secret: removing the loaf from the tin about 3/4 of the way through the cooking time.

So be freed from the constraints of baking with yeast. Happy, foolproof gluten free baking!