Gluten Free Bread

 Let me start by saying I am not gluten free.  I do not have celiac or gluten sensitivities, nor am I that trendy.  I do have friends who are celiac and who have sensitivities and as such, I wanted to experiment with gluten free baking.

I found this recipe on the Well Fed Baker site.  The video is what sold me on trying the recipe.  I have been raving about this bread for the last 2 days.  It is absolutely awesome, delicious, great texture, chew, and a wonderful crumb.

I know that it is a commitment with 4 different gluten free flours, but the results are really worth it.  I doubled the recipe because I have a large pullman pan.  You do not need a pullman pan.  A pullman pan is a straight sided, narrow baking pan with a lid that creates that square look in sandwich breads.  There are also a LOT of eggs in this recipe.  They, along with the psyllium gel, give the bread the support it needs to rise.  

Look at that crumb!  No gaping holes, no collapsing, it's perfection.

I had that slice and was soooooo pleased.  I have been slicing off pieces and eating them with butter, with jam, with anything I can get my hands on. It slices nicely because it has heft and the crust is sturdy.  

The use of 4 different types of gluten free flours may be off putting to some, but it is really worth it.  They are sorghum, brown rice, potato, and tapioca flours.  The website offers several substitutions if you don't have these.  If you have celiac, you probably already have many of these in your pantry.  If not, think of it as a mitzvah for your gluten intolerant friends to keep some on hand.

The secrets, as I can see, are:

1. A stand mixer.  It's a heavy, wet dough and needs to be mixed thoroughly 
2. If you use psyllium powder instead of husk, use 85% of the weight.  I learned the hard way that the powder is hell, just hell, to mix with water and get rid of any lumps.  I strongly urge husks not powder.
3. A double batch used 2 whole eggs and 7 egg whites.  See #1
4. It rises like crazy.  My batch exploded out of the lidded pullman pan during the rise in less than 30 minutes.
5. The long wait of several hours is essential as well.  The bread has to cool to its center in order to slice well.  Patience!

I really have gone total fan girl geek on this recipe and sent a thank you note to the author.  I really want to encourage everyone to give this a go.  Use whatever loaf pan you have but DO NOT GREASE, the bread needs to grab onto the sides.

Post dough explosion

    Here is the pre-bake photo after the dough ran over the sides of the pan.  I            made a critical error in that I assumed it would take longer to rise than it did.        According to the recipe, it is to rise until it is just under the top of the pan.            My hope was that the craggy top would not ruin the look of the loaf.  

Right out of the oven

Cooling 

October 3, 2020 SOURDOUGH WEATHER

I have been reviving my sourdough starter over the last couple of days and on Thursday it was ready to be used.  I used the tried, trusted and true NYT Guide to Sourdough .

Thursday, overnight, last feeding.  Friday, was the autolysing, mixing, rising, and proofing, with overnight sit in the fridge.  Saturday was the bake off.  The resulting loaf was one of the more beautiful ones that I have baked.

I was thrilled with the ear above the slash.  When it cools I will cut and show photos.  Judging from the strands at the slash, this should have a lovely open structure.

oooooooh, aaaaaaaaah

Dateline: September 15, 2020 Lamb Keema and Roti

  

I had one pound of ground lamb that needed to be used in the fridge.  I was torn between lamb burgers or keema.  Keema won!  I decided to use Tejal Rao's recipe for roti.    I  happened to have the atta flour!  I know, I know, my pantry is not like many others.  I have tons of esoteric ingredients for the off chance that I want to make something Asian, or Mexican, or, Indian, or or or.... I am guessing that if you have whole wheat pastry flour that would work fine.  

I also used Tejal Rao's recipe for keema.  I used the lamb, mentioned above, but the recipe calls for ground beef.  I suppose you could use anything ground or minced up and it would still be delicious.  I used kashmiri red chili pepper instead of cayenne, and I could have easily used much more of it.  The dish did not have the zip that I wanted it to.  That's on me, not the recipe!

   

Onions waiting to get brown and crispy, and the blender waiting for tomatoes, ginger, and onions.

The sauce of tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, and hot pepper coming to the boil and waiting for the lamb to be added.

Lamb added and cooked until most of the sauce evaporates, and the oil comes to the surface.  I added peas, well, because it's customary, but the recipe does not call for them.  I also liked the added green.  I did use the mint and cilantro mix as well as a few chives from the garden.

The roti were fun and easy to make.  I used my tortilla press, I know, and made 16 balls instead of the suggested 12.  Why, because it was easier to create equal sized balls by dividing things in half over and over.  After the balls sat, I used pieces of parchment paper to sandwich them between the top and bottom of the press.  I found that the press made one section quite thin, so I rotated the pancake 1/4 turn and pressed it each rotation.  That way the edges were somewhat uniform.

As suggested in the recipe, I did lightly glaze one side with ghee, I know.  These were pretty darn good.  I think next time I will add a bit more salt to the dough and take it out of the bowl and knead it to create more layers.  They got somewhat puffy and when torn, showed the layers.  But, I want more layers!

Dateline: April 30, 2020 BREAD

I feed my sourdough starter on Tuesday evening, I know bad timing.  Fed it again on Wednesday, mid morning.  By Wednesday at 8 pm, the starter was fed, passed the float test and was aching to be made into bread.

The timing was bad because it means that I need to nurse the bulk rise and the proofing into the wee hours of the morning.  Second issue that pointed to bad timing was that I just got an order of a ton of food and the fridge was packed, where the hell am I going to rest 4 2-litre containers of sourdough?  Outside of course!  At about 3 am, the proofing was done, so the dough went outside in 4 lidded containers.  I went to bed!

At about 1 pm, after returning from a dr appt, I got the oven up to temp and was getting the dough from outside, when I noticed that it was not sitting up as straight as I thought I recalled from 3 am.  I took all 4 buckets inside.  When I popped the lid off of the first one, it belched out a big puff of air.  The temperature outside was not enough to stall fermentation.  Each bucket of dough had risen to the tippy-top of the bucket.  This could have been a potential problem.  Was all the yeast used up and there would be no rise in the oven?  I'd have to see.  Given that this is the end of 90% of my flour on hand, I would not be happy at having an epic fail on my hands.

So, from this flat circle of slashed dough .....

before hitting the dutch oven 

I got this crusty beauty.  

To answer my question above, indeed, not all the yeast been consumed and output of the carbon dioxide had not been exhausted in the 10 hours of ferment.

These loaves are some of the best tasting bread that I have ever made.  I think the resting at a higher temperature helped produce that.  I think that resting the dough in the refrigerator is too cold for a next day bake, I will need to bake them after 2 days.