This recipe is from my new book, Simply Gluten-Free & Dairy-Free due out next week! When I had my baby, Zoe, I had to adapt my cooking. No more spending hours making something complicated and fiddly, or cooking whenever I felt like it. Instead, I had to find ways to make food easily (and often while holding Zoe with one arm) around whatever was going on at home. I discovered an amazing thing – that gluten-free dough doesn’t need to be kneaded. YAY! When you think about it, there’s no gluten needing to be bashed and pummelled to develop it. But what it does seem to need, though, is to be processed. I guess this aerates the dough, because when it is processed for a good 10 minutes in a food processor, it rises better, and whatever you’re making – pizza dough, bread or brioche, for example – comes out of the oven risen and light. I think I’m going to chalk this up as one of my greatest discoveries in life!

gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, seed-free, citrus-free

Serves 4     Preparation time 20 minutes, plus 4 hours rising     Cooking time 30 minutes

  • 100g/3½oz/heaped ½ cup potato flour
  • 50g/1¾oz/scant ½ cup gram flour
  • 50g/1¾oz/¹⁄₃ cup maize flour
  • 150g/5½oz/heaped ¾ cup rice flour
  • 1 tsp sea salt, crushed
  • 1 tsp xanthan gum
  • 2 tsp dried active yeast
  • 165g/5¾oz dairy-free margarine, chilled and cut into small pieces, plus extra for greasing
  • 100ml/3½fl oz/scant ½ cup soya milk
  • 4 eggs
  • 6 tbsp fruit sugar or caster sugar
  • 4 peaches, pitted and sliced into 8 pieces
  1. Sift the flours, salt, xanthan gum and yeast into the bowl of a food processor with the dough blade attached and blend until mixed together. Add 150g/5½oz of the dairy-free margarine and blend until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the soya milk, 3 of the eggs and 3 tablespoons of the sugar and process for 10 minutes to aerate the dough. Put the dough
    in a large bowl, cover with cling film and leave to rise for 1 hour.
  2. Grease a 12-hole muffin tin with dairy-free margarine. Stir the brioche dough thoroughly and pour evenly into the muffin tin. Cover loosely with cling film and leave to prove for 3 hours until light, puffy and doubled in size.
  3. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Beat the remaining egg and brush it over the brioches, using a pastry brush. Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Leave to cool for 2–3 minutes, then turn out of the tin and transfer to a wire rack before serving.
  4. While the brioche are cooling, put the remaining margarine and sugar in a saucepan and heat over a low heat until the dairy-free margarine has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil over a high heat, then turn the heat down again to low and simmer for 4–5 minutes until the mixture has caramelized slightly and become syrupy. Add the peaches to the saucepan and shake the pan to cover the peaches in the syrup. Cook for 2–3 minutes until tender, continuing to shake the pan occasionally. Serve immediately with the brioche.
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