Instructions: When your dough is in the bowl for its first rise, make the topping.

In a 4-cup bowl, stir together the sugar, yeast, salt, and rice flour.

Add the vegetable oil and warm water, and stir to blend well. Some rice flours will thicken more than others, so add liquid until the mixture resembles a thick paste.

Cover and let rise in a warm place until very bubbly and at least double in size; this will take about 30 minutes. When the dough is shaped, stir down and spread half of the mixture evenly over the top of each loaf. (If you have to delay the shaping of the loaves, stir down the topping and set aside.) Let rise again as directed in the basic bread recipe, then bake.

(for 2 loaves)

I found the following recipe in the Fanny Farmer cookbook. It should be easy to adapt for use with the bread machine. Just divide it in half, and mix up the topping about 35 minutes before the end of the dough cycle. I think youll want to bake Dutch Crunch bread in the oven in a loaf pan, because you want your loaf to have a good big surface for the Dutch Crunch topping. I tried this recipe out and thought it was quite good. ...Nadia

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