"Is that MY loaf of bread? It looks so good...THIS BREAD IS SO GOOD! I need two pieces, please. Two pieces with extra butter."

Making yogurt and baking sourdough bread were my first forays into fermentation. When Wyatt was about eight months old or so, I was really into baking sourdough. And I got really good at it. I bought my culture from Cultures for Health. I baked bread all the time, we had sourdough pancakes every Sunday, and I cared for the culture almost like a pet.

But just after Wyatt turned a year old, we learned that he (and we) were gluten-intolerant. That knowledge sounded the death knell of the sourdough starter and the end of the Bread Extravaganza of 2012. Over the next couple of years, I tried a few recipes here and there for gluten-free sourdough bread, but they mostly produced dense, boozy-smelling bricks. Awful stuff. Since then, we've tried various bakeries' gluten-free breads, and they're great in a pinch, if toasted. But I don't love the texture that xanthan and guar gums give gluten-free baked goods, so we don't eat commercial breads (or any bread) that often.

When I saw that Gluten-Free Girl's American Classics Reinvented included a true sourdough bread recipe, I pre-ordered the book. I figured that if the recipe worked, the entire book would have been worth buying.

We got our book on Tuesday, and we started our sourdough on Wednesday.* We baked on Monday.

Here's what we did:

First, we mixed teff flour and non-chlorinated water.

We mixed it very well.

The next day, we began the process of removing most of the flour and water combination, and replacing it with new flour and water. We repeated this process for a few days.

(It was pretty fun to play with the flour and water that was headed to the compost bin.)

Once we had something that looked and smelled like sourdough, we made pancakes with the flour and water we removed.

On Day 5, we checked the texture, and we were ready to strengthen our starter in preparation for baking.

But first, more pancakes. This batch was better than the first batch.

I prepped the dough after Wyatt was in bed and let it sit overnight. In the morning, we divided our dough for two loaves.

Look! There's no kneading necessary, because there's no gluten network to develop. Shaping the dough is easy.

Wyatt woke up the bread to put it in the oven.

Preparation for a little steam bath towards the end of baking.

Beautiful bread.

It's delicious.

After mixing teff flour and non-chlorinated water, we let the mix sit for a day, and then began the process of, every day, removing most of the previous mixture and adding more flour and water. After a few days, I made pancakes with some of the "extra" starter. The first time I made pancakes, I used a sourdough pancake recipe I had found. But by the second time, I had read Sandor Katz's more relaxed approach to sourdough in the Art of Fermentation, and I made up my own recipe. I took 2 cups of the starter, added a teaspoon of baking soda (the baking soda binds with some of the lactic acid, making a slightly sweeter pancake), a tablespoon or so of coconut flour and two beaten eggs. The pancakes were terrific.

Making the actual bread was easy. It's gluten-free, so there's no point in kneading it. You could knead all day and you'll never create the gluten network of a traditional bread! After shaping and a final proof, we baked each loaf in a dutch oven, with a little steam of water at the end of baking time.

If you like the idea of gluten-free sourdough bread, I think you'd be smart to pick up a copy of American Classics Reinvented and start your sourdough right away.

If you want to try building your own wild sourdough starter but don't need it to be gluten-free, check out this post from Wild Fermentation, and maybe consider adding some teff flour to your mix to speed things along.

Meanwhile, we have a new culture in the house. We are both taking a breather from baking right now as I learn what our new pet needs to stay bubbly.

*There was a point this weekend where we had Shankleesh draining, paneer being pressed, sourdough starter bubbling, and pizza dough rising. It was a busy and somewhat messy weekend over here.