Gluten-Free Wholegrain Buns that will save your summer

At this point you already know one thing about me: I love bread. I will always love bread. I have built an entire corner of my life around the ritual of mixing, shaping, waiting, baking. But it is end of May and it is already 30°C in my kitchen and my sourdough loaf requires the oven at 250°C for almost 2 hours and I am already struggling to do that.

Summer arrived in Europe about six weeks ahead of schedule this year, and with it went away my motivation to turn on the oven for long stretches of time. I still want the bread. I always want the bread. I just no longer want to heat my apartment to the approximate temperature of a small volcanic event to get it.

So I did what any reasonable person does when faced with this problem: I went into recipe-development mode and emerged with these buns. They come together quickly and also bake in 30 minutes.

The base is a wholegrain blend of rice flour and fine corn flour, with psyllium husk doing the structural work. But I’ve tested enough batches to know you can replace the corn flour with buckwheat for a deep, nutty earthiness; sorghum for a mild sweetness and tender crumb; or millet for a lighter, grassier bite.

Makes 8 buns

Use your starter fed and bubbly, at peak rise. A sluggish starter gives you dense hockey pucks and a bad mood.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup white rice flour (200 g)