Never in my life have I craved for a cheese Fondue as much as this winter. Maybe it’s because the bread is key and in a gluten free world that’s a challenge.

In the beginning of winter I tried it with the “Organic Rustico and Amaranth” bread from Schnitzer. It was good, but it’s not a bread to share with “normal” eating people over Fondue. Around Christmas I tried to make the bread myself, but even if the recipe sounded great, I just didn’t get the result I wanted. I tried again and again with different recipes, but it never was what I was looking for. Until a few weeks ago. Although winter is over now, I don’t have to think about which bread to use for Fondue when the next winter comes! And the best part is, that my pickiest friends like it too. Great!

To make it short, here’s my Fondue worthy nut bread, based on the nut-fruit bread recipe by Jessica Frej and Maria Blohm’s “Gluten free bread”:

Nut bread

(make it a day before the Fondue)

12 g yeast
400 g sour-milk
20 g molasses

Dissolve yeast in liquid ingredients.

20 g buckwheat flakes
200 g buckwheat flour
½ tsp salt
10 g psyllium husk (flakes not powder)

Measure into a separate bowl.
Add to the liquid and mix well until dough is even.

40 g ground hazelnut
40 g walnut

Add the nuts to the dough and mix until nuts are distributed evenly throughout the dough.
Cover bowl with cling film and let the dough rise for 1.5 hours.

Buckwheat flour

Pour the dough onto a well floured work table and form a nice round loaf.
Lift the loaf onto a baking sheet covered with baking paper.
Let the bread rise for another hour.
Bake in the bottom half of the 200°C preheated oven for one hour.
Leave bread to cool completely.

Cut the bread into bite size pieces a few hours before the Fondue.

Another recipe which works perfectly is also from the same book “French buns”, but instead of making little buns I make one big loaf and bake it for one hour.

Cheese Fondue half and half

2 cloves of garlic

Cut the garlic cloves into halves and rub the inner side of the Fondue pan with garlic.
Leave garlic halves in the Fondue pan.

400 g grated Gruyère AOP
400 g grated or diced Vacherin Fribourgeois AOP
4 tblsp Maizena (corn starch)
350 ml white wine
Pepper
1 sprinkle of nutmeg
1 sprinkle of paprika

Mix all ingredients together in the the Fondue pan.
Put the pan on the stove and bring to a boil, while constantly stirring the cheese while it melts.

4 cl Kirsch

Add the Kirsch to the melted cheese and keep on stirring until the liquid cheese is an even mass.
Move the Fondue pan to the table and keep it warm on a burner.
Dip the bread, and maybe also cherry tomatoes, potatoes etc. into the cheese.
Don’t forget to stir the cheese constantly.

More Fondue recipes can be found on Gruyere’s own homepage.